Disclaimer to friends and family: Tomorrow I have a
bronchoscopy , a procedure required many many many times post-transplant, that is not a big deal most of the time. Tomorrow is one of those times. In fact, I'm sorta looking forward to it because I haven't been sleeping well lately, and surely I will sleep well tomorrow, day and night! :) Today's annoyance at the hospital was not medical, it was ... procedural / paperworkurital / red-tape-tastical. Read the whole post- see how there's nothing in there about anything being wrong with
me? Everybody's blowin' up my phone before they read the email. :) Love you guys!
Dear Brigham and Women's Hospital,
Today was supposed to take 1-2 hours, and instead it took 6. You can do better. Your patients and physicians deserve better. And FYI, hire some more nurses and receptionists. Its totally clear to patients that both of these areas are under-staffed. About 10 different administrators (doing what I would define as nothing other than randomly flirting and generally looking importante), walked in and out of pre-op while one lonely receptionist tried to deal with all of the patients and having to tell them they were running TWO AND A HALF HOURS BEHIND. That is ridiculous. In the pre-op area itself, it seemed that they were "short five nurses." Do you know how many nurses there are in the Boston area? Thousands! Hire some subs ffs.
Then, in the radiology area - the time for training new staff is NOT when they were also "about an hour behind." Ridiculous. That's the time for the newbie to watch and learn, thank you very much. Do I have student teachers handle the biggest classes with the most difficult kids? No.
Now onto the parking situation. I was told to park at the far end of the building, "15," where the system has recently been changed. These are the stupid changes you have recently made: 1) Hiring a lazy 18 year old ipod-wearing kid to man* the front desk as you enter. (NOTE: This is the entrance point for many thoracic surgery patients, transplant patients, and pulmonary patients. Most of them are dying or just got through not dying.) 2) Now you park the car and walk up a hill and call that valet? I am thankful that I no longer need valet, but I used to, so I wondered how this worked for handicapped people? The 18 year old front desk employee informed me that "this is the way it has always worked." I assume that he meant, in the past few weeks that he has worked there since dropping out of high school, and the brief moments he has overheard between songs on his ipod 3) When you pay for the car at "15," you must have cash, but of course that is because the front desk doesn't accept payments anymore. So, 4) one is to walk down a hill, try to pay, discover that they need cash only, walk back up a hill, half way to the other end of the hospital, pay and then walk back to the ever-more-illustrious "15," which, might I add, is the prettiest part of the hospital, walk back down the hill, and wait in the cold for your car. Perhaps, in future budgetary planning, buy a few less chic waiting area eccoutrement, and hire some people for more than $8/hr, who give a partial f about keeping their jobs. Perhaps, even spring for a frackin' credit card machine for every 500 ft of the hospital. Perhaps even dedicate an hour to training new hirees not to listen to ipods, eat with their mouths full, walk around the hospital in these stupid pairings of social incompetency, while letting the other hard-working employees pick up the slack, begin to hate their jobs, and eventually quit. Also, employees shouldn't be taking the elevator one or two floors. Get in shape and lighten the load so people going 10 floors can get on -- maybe even a patient or two.
Don't get me wrong, I love ALL of my doctors at BWH, I love nurses, I love the staff at the transplant clinic. But the rest of it made my day, and many of my days visiting BWH, a fracking nightmare.
Sincerely,
:)
Beth Peters
*use of the word "man" is quite liberal in this context.
(NOTE: It is widely discussed among patients that paying in cash at the outgoing gates is a bad idea because regularly employees ask for more money than owed and then "forget" to give a receipt.)
Dear Brigham and Women's Hospital,
Today was supposed to take 1-2 hours, and instead it took 6. You can do better. Your patients and physicians deserve better. And FYI, hire some more nurses and receptionists. Its totally clear to patients that both of these areas are under-staffed. About 10 different administrators (doing what I would define as nothing other than randomly flirting and generally looking importante), walked in and out of pre-op while one lonely receptionist tried to deal with all of the patients and having to tell them they were running TWO AND A HALF HOURS BEHIND. That is ridiculous. In the pre-op area itself, it seemed that they were "short five nurses." Do you know how many nurses there are in the Boston area? Thousands! Hire some subs ffs.
Then, in the radiology area - the time for training new staff is NOT when they were also "about an hour behind." Ridiculous. That's the time for the newbie to watch and learn, thank you very much. Do I have student teachers handle the biggest classes with the most difficult kids? No.
Now onto the parking situation. I was told to park at the far end of the building, "15," where the system has recently been changed. These are the stupid changes you have recently made: 1) Hiring a lazy 18 year old ipod-wearing kid to man* the front desk as you enter. (NOTE: This is the entrance point for many thoracic surgery patients, transplant patients, and pulmonary patients. Most of them are dying or just got through not dying.) 2) Now you park the car and walk up a hill and call that valet? I am thankful that I no longer need valet, but I used to, so I wondered how this worked for handicapped people? The 18 year old front desk employee informed me that "this is the way it has always worked." I assume that he meant, in the past few weeks that he has worked there since dropping out of high school, and the brief moments he has overheard between songs on his ipod 3) When you pay for the car at "15," you must have cash, but of course that is because the front desk doesn't accept payments anymore. So, 4) one is to walk down a hill, try to pay, discover that they need cash only, walk back up a hill, half way to the other end of the hospital, pay and then walk back to the ever-more-illustrious "15," which, might I add, is the prettiest part of the hospital, walk back down the hill, and wait in the cold for your car. Perhaps, in future budgetary planning, buy a few less chic waiting area eccoutrement, and hire some people for more than $8/hr, who give a partial f about keeping their jobs. Perhaps, even spring for a frackin' credit card machine for every 500 ft of the hospital. Perhaps even dedicate an hour to training new hirees not to listen to ipods, eat with their mouths full, walk around the hospital in these stupid pairings of social incompetency, while letting the other hard-working employees pick up the slack, begin to hate their jobs, and eventually quit. Also, employees shouldn't be taking the elevator one or two floors. Get in shape and lighten the load so people going 10 floors can get on -- maybe even a patient or two.
Don't get me wrong, I love ALL of my doctors at BWH, I love nurses, I love the staff at the transplant clinic. But the rest of it made my day, and many of my days visiting BWH, a fracking nightmare.
Sincerely,
:)
Beth Peters
*use of the word "man" is quite liberal in this context.
(NOTE: It is widely discussed among patients that paying in cash at the outgoing gates is a bad idea because regularly employees ask for more money than owed and then "forget" to give a receipt.)