In Sickness And Health

In our 6 year marriage we've certainly been through the whole sickness part.  Well on Monday I got a call that I hope to never get ever again.  My husband calling to say he's on his way to the hospital.  He was playing baseball at Moss Park and got hit by the ball in the head.  He's bleeding everywhere but for some reason the cops who were watching the game couldn't call for an ambulance.  The team called for a taxi.  Well, the first taxi wouldn't let a bleeding guy go in his cab so a second one had to be called.  He was finally on his way to St. Michael's Hospital.  Let me just say the free Canadian healthcare system is not all it's cracked up to be.  He arrived at the hospital around 11:00 p.m. and wasn't out of there until nearly 7:30 a.m. the next day.  He didn't see the ER doctor until he had been there about 6 hours.  What the hell kind of hospital leaves a head injury patient sitting in a chair, not laying down on a stretcher for 6 hours.  They never once came back to re-check his vitals.  He could have died due to the lack of professional care that one is suppose to get in a hospital.  Finally he was taken into the suture room and 10 stitches were put in to close up the star shape wound and then he was sent off for a CT scan.  I was upset to find out that a plastic surgeon was not called to put in the stitches.  He was finally sent home the next day with no written instructions of any kind.

For the next few days his head swelled, his eye swelled and turned all kinds of red and purple as the bruise settled in for the long haul.  I've been doing dressing changes every day to make sure the stitches stay clean and dry.  Then I'm making dinner on Wednesday and he comes to me and says that he's not feeling well.  His head is hurting worse than it did the day before and he's feeling pressure.  We called Telehealth Ontario.  After taking down all of the information the nurse instructs us to go back to the nearest hospital.  She said that she would fax the report to alert the hospital that we were coming.  She didn't bother to do this.  So we head off to Mackenzie Health.  This is where we'd sit for the next 6 hours and waited.  He had another CT scan and they had to fax over his previous reports from St. Mike's hospital.  That simple faxing took 4 hours.  This hospital was only marginally better than St. Mike's.  He first saw a resident who was worried about the excessive swelling.  Then we sat and waited until almost 1:00 a.m. the next day to see the doctor.  I can't even tell you the name of the doctor as his English was so bad.  He looked at the CT scan and pressed on Neal's swollen head and somehow we got that this was expected and that the swelling would go down in a few days.

The state of our healthcare system is extremely poor.  As a matter of fact it's a total disgrace.  Not only are our hospitals over crowded, under funded but they are filthy dirty.  The kicker.....so while waiting for 6 hours I thought I'd bring my tablet to keep family members informed so that nobody would worry.  I tried to get online.  The hospital actually had the nerve to charge $20 to access Wi-Fi.  It's not bad enough that you have to pay for parking in the ER but to have to pay for Wi-Fi.  Really?  I can go to Starbucks and use their free internet but I have to pay at the hospital.  That is shameful!  Shame on our hospitals.  As Canadians we need to speak out about the state of our hospitals.  Our tax dollars are being mismanaged and healthcare is suffering.