The Casualty Visits
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 8:11PM 
Anita woke up this morning with a very severe abdominal pain, worst than she had ever felt before. She was crying despite the usual concoction of paracetamol and brufen. Reluctantly, she agreed for me to take her to a Casualty and the nearest to out house was Gleneagles. We packed our bags and we were there 10 minutes later.
The Trauma officer did some Xray but thought it was nothing serious and suggested some analgesia and return the next day to see a Consultant if the pain got any worse. We went back and the pain just kept on coming. Anita can't sit still and she felt better if she was moving. And the griping pain was really excruciating. Finally she agreed for me to take her to UMMC.
UMMC on a Sunday afternoon can be busy but we were lucky that on that day, the place was not as packed. Parking was a bit more straight forward than I expected. After getting Anita settled in, she had her blood taken and a painkiller injection was given to her bum. Before long, she was in la-la land.
After a couple of hours, the results cane back. Her white blood count was raised and an ultrasound was ordered. It did not any stones buy she would need a more detailed scan to be sure. We decided to wait for a couple more hours to see if her pain return after the painkilling injection wore off.
The pain did return but it was more of a dull ache. And no, there was no way she would agree for an admission! In the end, we decided to have painkiller tablets and go home, promising to take plenty of fluids. She would rather be rushed to a clinic for a painkiller jan rather than stay the night in hospital.
She took an extra painkiller tablet before going to bed and slept like a baby! This morning she woke up with a headache and nausea, but only with a dull backache. I'm sure those were the effect of the painkiller he took. She would rather stay at home with her boys!
Dreading the calls
The Final MBBS was finally over. At least I can now say that I was involves without being told off. However the results won't be known until Tuesday morning.
I was involved yesterday afternoon, and I was so proud that the performance of the students during that session was better than I expected. In fact it was amongst the beat session I had in years.
The afternoon session however was very trying as it only finished near 7 pm. I got some food, then it was time to do my evening ward round. That was when my mood changed. There were clearly too many patients for the system to cope without making short cuts. Some patient were down in the Emergency Department from the day before as we were not able to clear the beds out in the wards for them quickly enough. Coupled that with the notion that our Casualty was the beat in the country maybe as there were a couple of patients in the hour I was doing the rounds whose family actually discharged the patients from another hospital and got them admitted here even though a perfectly reasonable treatment could have been offered at the initial centre. The sad thing was, the patient came as far away as JB. I thought that was really out of order. Yes, it was a government hospital. But it was a government hospital for PJ. It was not our fault that there were no government hospitals in Subang, Shah Alam, Damansara and Puchong. But I was sure that the system was not designed to cope with family taking their relatives from out of town to fill in our quota!
I felt that I should have been more strict, or allowed to be strict, and insist on catering on the local residents. Those from outside should only be entertained if the we agree to take the patients on upon consultation from the referring units. We just did not have the financial, logistical and staffing means to cope with such unreasonable demand.
Enough rubbing for today as on the whole Saturday have been kind to me. It was time to spend with the family, and I will blog about that in the later entries.