The Patient's Point of View

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Volume II, Issue 4, 1 October 1909, Page 176

The Patient's Point of View

( Yes/' said the old hospital patient, ' I've been in many hospitals in my time, and I've been in both medical and surgical wards, and I still bear the scars of many a surgical encounter with the doctors. You asks me which I prefers, the medical or surgical wards, and I says I likes the surgical wards because they gives you an anaesthetic when they operates on you. " I was once in a medical ward with pains in my stomach, a bad cough, and an awful headache. I arrived in the afternoon, and had a nice cup of tea and some thick bread and butter, Later on a young doctor comes to see me, and after talking to me a bit he jabs my ear with a needle, and sucks up my blood into a tube. I had to hang on to my ear for quite a long time to stop the bleeding. Next morning another doctor comes, and he jabs my poor ear right on the same spot, as he said the first lot of blood was not successful. The first doctor arrived shortly after, and he then passed a long tube into my stomach while I coughs and retches, and then he washes me out pretty thorough. I was left alone until the afternoon, except that several other young gentlemen came round and prodded me pretty hard in the stomach. " In the afternoon the head doctor comes round ; at least I think it must have been the head doctor because they was all so civil to him. He says to my young doctor, ( what about his liver ? ' The young doctor said he hadn't examined that, so he at once gets a thing like a gimlet, and before I could stop him he drives it up to the hilt in my liver whilst I yells. Sister says, ' be a man, Ten. and bear it.' Nothing comes out of the gimlet except blood, so the young doctor says, ' Shall I try again, sir, a little higher up ? ' I says, ( No you don't, not if I know it, you don't catch me bending again.' '■ The doctor shakes his head, and says, * You will have to do a lumber puncture.' I didn't know then what a lumber puncture was, but if anyone says lumber puncture to you, you take the next train home. " In the evening the young doctor washes my back, and then I felt as if someone was pushing an 'ot needle into my spine. It didn't go in quite easy at first, so lie takes it out and gives me another turn a little higher up. Sister was very kind tome and told me it wouldn't hurt, but bless you, these Sisters must be good plucked 'uns. I was all in a

sweat when they had pricked, so they left me alone, except for one more jab in the other ear. " That night I couldn't lie comfortable nohow. My back felt so sore I couldn't lie on it, and my two ears was so painful I couldn't lie on my side ; and lying on my stomach was out of the question because of the hole in my liver. Next day I had my temperature up, and my cough was bad, and I heard the young doctor tell Sister he thought I had an empyema (I didn't know what that was, but I hoped it weren't as painful as a lumber puncture). So I turns on my back again, shuts my eyes and holds on tight. Sister was so kind, saying this was a mere nothing. Then I had that horrible hot needle pain again in my back, and I heard the young doctor say ' he hadn't struck it, but felt he had got me right enough. So he gives me one more hit a little higher up, and they put some sticky stuff on my back. When he had pricked, I says to him, ' Docter, couldn't you give an an anaesthetic, and do do all the operations at once ? ' Both he and Sister laughs, but they was so kind to me I couldn't bear no malice, and they told me I was a very interesting case. il I didn't 'ave no more jabs, but it used to make me larf when I heard the other fellows a going through it."— W.B.G. in " St. Bartholomew's Hospital Journal."