Glenn Beck on Health Care

Glenn Beck went off on the health care system on today's show, discussing the nightmare that was his experience after surgery post-Christmas.

Anyone who has had a recent trip to a hospital or E.R. knows the hell that can accompany that experience. I could sympathize with some of Beck's experience: the lack of empathy and care from staff, the feeling of helplessness as one rails against the system, the inability to make these bastards do their freakin jobs!

I had that experience with my father a few weeks ago. I had to take him into the emergency room because he was too sick to stand. We spent seven hours in an E.R. closet waiting to be admitted. I rarely saw either a doctor or a nurse or staff of any sort during that time, and no one seemed capable of telling me what was happening with my father or what they were going to do. He was finally admitted after 10 p.m.

Dad was in I.C.U. for several days, and the staff there was great. They were very attentive, answered my questions and told me generally anything I might want to know about both Dad's illness and treatment.

When Dad was taken down to a regular medical/surgical floor, the care was markedly different. I went to see my father nearly every evening from about 6 p.m. until 8 or 9 p.m. and wouldn't see a single soul enter his room. No one took vital signs, administered medicines, changed him, or even checked on him. In fact, the only time someone came in the room was when I went out to the nurse's station and told them that they needed to come take care of my father. It was, in a word, outrageous.

My father nearly died. He developed aspiration pneumonia and no one was going to do anything about it. The doctor never called me to discuss care options (I foolishly assumed he would do so). The staff could do nothing for Dad without a doctor's order.

What changed our nightmare? My sister, the nurse, came to town. She sat in my dad's room 24/7 and essentially demanded that the hospital staff do its job. She hounded the doctor. She provided nursing care for our father in a way I was incapable of doing. In short, she forced the hospital to--gasp!--care for our father. My father is now in a rehabilitation hospital where he is getting stronger on a daily basis. But back on Christmas Day, I wasn't sure my father would see the new year.

Most people don't have a nurse in their family who can ensure that hospital staff does its job. Most people, like me, think that doctors, nurses, and other professionals know what they are doing and that we, the family, only need to step back and allow them to do their jobs. We don't always know the questions to ask or the treatments to demand. We cannot take time off from work in order to be available at whatever time a doctor decides to show up, and we can't comprehend why four nurses can sit 20 feet from a patient's room and not look in for three hours.

I know we have a great health care system...sometimes. The hospital my dad is in right now, for instance, has terrific staff. They are involved and optimistic. They interact with the patients constantly. There's always someone coming in to do something. I've seen the doctor more times in the last week than I saw in the other hospital in three weeks. And I'm still coming in in the evenings, which means the doctor is rounding at the time most family members can come.

It's hard not to get angry when the health care system lets you down. I come from a long line of nurses. My mother, sister, several cousins, and a grandmother were all nurses. I've spent most of my life listening to what nurses can and can't do, the indignities, the triumphs, and the pains they deal with daily. I have enormous respect for the profession. But, like Glenn Beck, I have to wonder about how some people end up in the health care profession when they don't seem to like, or care about, people very much.