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Observations at a Hospital/Doctor’s Office (Part Two)

This is part two of the post from here on the following questions:
You know what I’ll never understand?
  1. Why patients with heart related symptoms are made to wait an hour (plus) in the waiting room in the emergency room.
  2. Why patients on a “cardiac diet” are fed cheese sandwiches, lasagna, and other such things in hospitals.
  3. Why a cardiologists’ office serves pizza (ESPECIALLY after a stress test).
  4. Why the nurses and technicians in hospitals wake the patients up every 2-4 hours to take their blood pressure, etc.
  5. Why the nurses and technicians are so incredibly loud in the middle of the night.

You can read part one about statements one and two by clicking here.

Statement Three: Why a cardiologists’ office serves pizza (ESPECIALLY after a stress test).
This goes along with my previous statement, statement two, as it also deals with the quality of food (or lack thereof).
After my dad’s heart attack in 2005, he has had regular appointments with the cardiologist of course and has had annual stress tests. Each year after coming back his stress test, he would tell us that they were serving pizza and soda for the patients and their families (fortunately he would choose not to eat that).It’s so absurd that it is almost funny. Here we are at a cardiologists’ office and they are serving oily pizza to a bunch of heart patients.Apparently they have stopped serving food altogether– so I’m not even sure it was because they realized they were serving unhealthy food or if it was just because

Statement Four: Why the nurses and technicians in hospitals wake the patients up every 2-4 hours to take their blood pressure, etc.

Fortunately I’ve never been hospitalized, but I’ve stayed plenty of times with my mom or dad. That said, I probably know my local hospital backwards and forward. But that’s not the point; the point is that I don’t get why they do certain things at hospitals (or the way they do them).

While it’s annoying when they check the patients’ temperature, blood pressure, and pulse rate every couple of hours while you are awake, I understand that they have to do that. I get it. What I don’t get it is WHY they wake up patients to do it when they are sleeping. I don’t think that by not checking for several hours it would be that big of a deal in MOST cases. OF COURSE they are some circumstances where I’m sure it is necessary to check every two hours on the dot– but it’s not all of the time!

Most patients are probably already annoyed and not getting sleep just because they are in the hospital, so a few sound hours of sleep is probably necessary for them. I think my blood pressure would rise every time they woke me up at night ;)… just saying.

Once or twice, I remember, the technician coming into the room and once they acknowledge that the patient (my mom or dad) is sleeping, they just tell me they’ll come back later when the patient is awake. But that rarely happens.

You know what I find the funniest during all of this? When the nurse or technician asks the patient bright and early in the morning how they slept? How do you think they slept? You didn’t let them sleep! 

I’m going to throw in a statement five in here just because I can 🙂

Statement Five:  Why the nurses and technicians are so incredibly loud in the middle of the night.

I’m not sure what the deal is with this one, but it sure is annoying.

I can never sleep in hospitals anyways, so I’m usually up all night… which is probably why I noticed all these little things.

I don’t remember if I’ve noticed this happen before, but this past time – a nurse and technician kept talking really loud (essentially yelling to one another) right outside the rooms. If it was for something related to the patients, that they needed help, or something to the likes – it would be more than understandable. But no, instead they were laughing and joking. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!

Several times, my dad woke up from their loud voices. Said nurse and technician even came into our room and continued to do so and I probably gave them the most annoyed look possible because that was when it stopped fortunately.

Have you observed or heard about other similar things happening at hospitals and/or doctors’ offices that you found absurd?

Updated 12.17.2010: I was quite surprised to find this question in a survey online at http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov because that indicates that it is a consistent problem, not something that happens on a rare occasion. For the category, ‘Patients who reported that the area around their room was “Always” quiet at night.’ — only 52% of the people who answered the survey in relation to the hospital we were at. That’s pretty low. Worse, the number was lower for the other hospitals in our area!

P.S. Don’t forget to leave me a comment below on your thoughts! As always, I’d love to hear from you.

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