two patients
Yesterday we took two patients in a row.
We took the first patient, a hospice patient diagnosed with end-stage Parkinsons' disease, home to her family. They had hired two home-care nursey-people. TWO! (One of them was probably a nursing assistant.) When we got there the apartment felt warm and was filled with about five people waiting for her (three family, two carepeople) with a bed ready in the living room. After seeing his mother the son burst into tears.
The next patient we took had no family in sight. I checked his paperwork and found he was funded solely by Medicaid. He went to a state rehabilitation and nursing center, and during the whole trip he was saying, "No, I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back. No. No." Since he wasn't alert and oriented times three, though, which means alert and aware of 1) who you are, 2) where you are, and 3) time (some indication of knowing the approximate date and time of day, although with a lot of leeway since I don't even know the date half the time), he wasn't legally competent to refuse transport, so we took him anyway. We took him to this piece of shit nursing home. The light was dingy and the walls were full of dings; I have no idea when they were painted last. There were four people total in his room and I saw maybe 4 nurses or nursing assistants on the floor for . . . 20 rooms? More, maybe? I'm sure they weren't all full or 4-person rooms, but even if they were half full . . . that's 40 patients for, what, 4 people? We took him off the stretcher, arranged his blankets, gave him his stuff, got the nurse to sign for him, and left.
We took the first patient, a hospice patient diagnosed with end-stage Parkinsons' disease, home to her family. They had hired two home-care nursey-people. TWO! (One of them was probably a nursing assistant.) When we got there the apartment felt warm and was filled with about five people waiting for her (three family, two carepeople) with a bed ready in the living room. After seeing his mother the son burst into tears.
The next patient we took had no family in sight. I checked his paperwork and found he was funded solely by Medicaid. He went to a state rehabilitation and nursing center, and during the whole trip he was saying, "No, I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back. No. No." Since he wasn't alert and oriented times three, though, which means alert and aware of 1) who you are, 2) where you are, and 3) time (some indication of knowing the approximate date and time of day, although with a lot of leeway since I don't even know the date half the time), he wasn't legally competent to refuse transport, so we took him anyway. We took him to this piece of shit nursing home. The light was dingy and the walls were full of dings; I have no idea when they were painted last. There were four people total in his room and I saw maybe 4 nurses or nursing assistants on the floor for . . . 20 rooms? More, maybe? I'm sure they weren't all full or 4-person rooms, but even if they were half full . . . that's 40 patients for, what, 4 people? We took him off the stretcher, arranged his blankets, gave him his stuff, got the nurse to sign for him, and left.