The Continuing Saga of the Royal Hobart Habattoir

The Git has been having a somewhat difficult time of it the last few weeks. His marriage of forty years has broken down and he has moved into town. The house he moved into had been trashed by the tenants and finding tradies to undertake the more than $AU10,000 of repairs has proved difficult. They are all flat-out, fully-booked and the carpets despite being steam-cleaned by a professional, still stink to high heaven of cat-piss and dog-piss. The earliest they can be replaced is mid-to-late January. Final repairs to the kitchen can’t occur until March. Fortunately The Git’s friend Fran effected emergency repairs to several broken drawers and doors that had been badly damaged. The glass repairers were also very prompt, though they have yet to repair the damaged sliding door to the back yard.

On Tuesday the Git had his regular six-monthly cardiac check-up. He was transported to the Wellington Clinics of the Royal Hobart Hospital Habattoir by Transport Tasmania, a service provided to crippled old farts like The Git as part of myagedcare.gov, a fine example of our taxes doing something useful for a change. The Git arrived for his appointment a few minutes early (1.15 for 1.30) and was told he’d need to tell the hospital receptionist that he needed to be available for transport back home by 3 pm. At 3 pm he still hadn’t been seen so he informed Transport Tasmania who said that he’d need to have the hospital arrange for a taxi to drive him to his home forty minutes or so away. The hospital receptionist said “no can do—not our responsibility” and while the discussion on his mobile phone was taking place, the cardiologist came out of his consulting room to hear why the all the fuss. The Git handed him the phone and said: “You sort out this difference of opinion between Transport Tasmania and the hospital admin!”

The Git was becoming somewhat light-headed from the stress of this contretemps and having been standing beyond his limit for tolerating the pain that induces in his lower back. The Git lost balance and fell to the floor where several people kindly helped him to his feet so he could sit on his walker. Nathan (the cardiologist) said that something was seriously amiss (beyond the rather obvious excess accumulation of fluid in lower legs and lungs.)

 Indeed, it was shortly discovered that The Git was suffering from seriously acute anaemia and so his recent weakness explained. The clinic had turned into admission to ERD for some major medical care (four blood transfusions over two days). An exploration of The Git’s stomach with a camera showed no signs of bleeding ulcers or other likely causes and the cause of this sudden serious loss of red blood cells remains unexplained.

The Royal’s level of “care” was pretty much on a par with previous episodes. Yesterday the nurses were “too busy” to replace full urine bottles. The strong diuretic that was intended to remove the excess fluid in legs and lungs was doing its job admirably. Nurses with more than a single brain cell have in the past brought two urine bottles so that when the filling of one was announced, they had a grace period before another was needed. On this occasion The Git’s bladder was filling to capacity before the nurses thought it “necessary” to replace the full bottle. It seems to the Git that if you’ve time to change wet bedclothes, you’ve more than enough time to convey two bottles to a patient’s bedside rather than one!

As usual the hospital diet was sending The Git’s blood sugars through the roof. On Tuesday the reading was a normal 4.5 mmol/l and that number had doubled by the following day. Instead of The Git’s usual wholemeal bread and cheese for breakfast, he was given white bread and two different jams, processed fruit and fruit juice. In other words luxury amounts of sugar. There were three teaspoons of cane sugar for tea, or “coffee”. If he’d consumed any of these sugar-rich foods one might expect those blood sugar readings would have increased even more rapidly than a mere doubling in 24 hours. Cold buttered toast makes for a boring and inadequate breakfast.

You might expect that once there was no longer a need of the drip or oxygen supplement, The Git might have been permitted a wheelchair to access the cafeteria attached to the hospital. They sell quite decent though not exciting food and real coffee, but no, that wasn’t permitted. When The Git’s mobile phone was returned to him in ERD, it had been smashed beyond repair. That meant he was cut off from a significant portion of the world. The nurses told him to use the hospital phone, but to what avail? The Git’s friends’ telephone numbers are a mystery to him and held in the memory of his phone these days. Whose are not? And since land-line phones are mainly used by telemarketers, mostly no longer a thing here in Oz. Telephone directories only list mobile numbers when requested by those willing to be bombarded by scammers! On previous occasions The Git could phone his older son or a city-dwelling friend to bring coffee and decent food from a nearby eatery.

As usual, several of The Git’s regular meds were denied him—notably those for COPD and the anti-inflammatory drug that does most of the heavy lifting in his pain-control. These days it’s naproxen, a slow release version of ibuprofen. After two days without, The Git had gout in his left great toe and if the past was to be repeated, the right great toe would follow suit two or three days later. Gout, a special sort of arthritic pain, is far and away one of the most excruciatingly painful. Even the lightest touch of a gout-inflamed joint will trigger 9 or 10 out of 10 pain assessment by a sufferer! So when a nurse kicked The Git’s gout-inflamed naked toe on Friday morning he naturally yelled out in agony. For this outburst he was roundly abused because the nurse’s kick was “accidental”. How an “accidental” kicking is supposed to negate perceived pain The Git has no idea, but to be accused of being abusive for swearing when painfully kicked is beyond the fringe of his comprehension. The Git’s amygdala knows nothing of intention. See the Wikipedia for an explanation of the hypoalgesic effect of swearing.

Of course nothing was done to ameliorate the gout-induced pain. The most obvious would have to be an ice-pack. Sports players prone to injury will be familiar with the odour of methyl salicylate (akin to aspirin): oil of wintergreen. The Git has used this to great effect on his lower back pain. Unfortunately, regular use irritated his skin by drying it excessively and it became scaly and itchy. Then there is the local anaesthetic lignocaine (lidocaine). Instead The Git was proffered almost any amount of oxycodone with the inevitable result of constipation. In January when the Git was admitted to the Royal with a blocked bowel, he was given lactulose, a rather potent laxative. When it began making its effect obvious, The Git had requested a bed pan. Around 45 minutes after the request and at least half an hour too late, a nurse arrived to find The Git had spent over 30 minutes lying in a pool of shit! If he was to relieve his constipation on this occasion, The Git was determined to do so at home if at all possible.

On Friday the doctors in charge of restoring The Git’s haemoglobin levels to normal and the reduction of fluid accumulation in his lower legs announced that he was free to return home where no doubt he would be more comfortable. The physiotherapist and another doctor disagreed vehemently and expended considerable effort to persuade him to stay until Monday. They told The Git that they believed he’s incapable of caring for himself properly whereas he believes the exact opposite. Being denied access to his regular meds, forced to soil himself in bed and eat food-like substances rather than real food, not to mention being kicked in a gout-inflamed great toe are all evidence that a substantial percentage of the nursing staff do not have The Git’s well-being as part of their agenda. There’s a rather too small a number of doctors and nurses who appear to be not just professional, but perform well above and beyond the rather low standards of their colleagues.

Among The Git’s other travails, he has a pressure sore on his right buttock caused by far too much time sitting and not enough standing. After much experimentation by his GP and pharmacist, the discomfort has been brought under control with lignocaine/prilocaine ointment (Numit). The Royal’s nurses told The Git that this “wasn’t available” at the Royal. A highly adhesive dressing was put on the sore and this rather increased his discomfort instead of decreasing it. When the dressing was removed, it took a layer of skin with it and the pain was well beyond that experienced without treatment of any kind.

The doctor hostile to The Git’s leaving the Royal put any number of largely unnecessary obstacles in his way and made much of The Git’s abusiveness. When The Git responded with examples of the nurses’ abuse that had provoked his anger, she denied any abuse by any of the nurses. Is it really a nurse’s duty to force patients to soil themselves, or refuse to provide food suitable for a diabetic to eat and deny them access to such? When The Git finally managed to exit and go to where he expected to be able catch a taxi home, he discovered that the Loony Left were protesting on the streets and that the lane of the street was closed by the police. They directed The Git around the corner to the cab stand on Liverpool Street and where he discovered the street there too was being blocked by protestors. The next nearest cab stand is two city blocks away and it was a slow and painful two hour struggle to get there. The protestors claim to be “saving the planet”, but seem totally oblivious to the needs of their fellow citizens less fortunate than themselves. Blocking vehicular access to a major hospital seems a peculiarly bloody-minded thing to do.

Almost four hours after leaving the hospital, The Git finally arrived home just in time for his new meds to be delivered by the Geeveston Pharmacy’s “Health Bug”. Contra the assurance that this would include a pack of Endone (oxycodone) there was none. Unfortunately The Git was unable to answer his phone to request his regular prescription on Wednesday. When he attempts to contact his GP on Monday he will have in all likelihood have run out. The drug that’s handed out like sweets in the hospital is especially difficult to obtain outside these days. Go figure…