Service Issues: Just Beginning of What’s to Come
Excuse the anonymity. I’ll make an excuse: if I use my name, specific people might be taken to task and that is not my purpose. My purpose is to point out the failures of a system which is protected by government from competition.
Recently I had occasion to go to the hospital for some corrective surgery. The attending physician chose CMC’s main facility. I had no opposition to that having had good service from their university facility at another time. I was to be there 2 days and one night.
Prior to the visit, I received a call from the hospital asking me to pay by credit card, over the phone two days prior to admittance. I refused but got a laugh out of them doing everything they could to get money out of me before they provided any services.
Prior to surgery, one of the first nurses had difficulty placing the IV needle in my vein. She knew she wasn’t good at it, but was kind enough when she wasn’t able to do anything but push the needle around in my arm. Asking for some help, another nurse did the job. Ok. Nothing to complain about here. Just normal people, some better some worse at their jobs. But there were people running around without much direction. The recovery room was the problem. I was hooked up to various monitors. My wife was there. Dinner was served, which was good. My wife fed me, then went home. I wasn’t supposed to sit up, probably couldn’t have. There was a moveable table beside the bed which held a water pitcher, it was a pour it yourself operation. These people weren’t going to be bothered to assist. At 3:00 AM I was awake and an assistant was nice enough to bring me some packaged sandwiches. She left me to my own devices. The sandwiches needed to be opened, the tomatoes and lettuce opened and placed on the sandwich, the mayonnaise spread. Do that lying on your back. Tomatoes everywhere. A mess. Gee thanks. I ran out of water and asked for a refill. 45 minutes later the water wasn’t there yet. I suppose I should get up and get it myself. Breakfast came, I got the delivering person to refill the water pitcher from the sink. He didn’t know where he was going to get water from. He sat the breakfast down, didn’t ask if I needed help sitting up. I asked what the drink was, he said decaf coffee. Wonderful, I don’t drink coffee, I drink tea. I asked for tea, he said maybe in two hours. Wonderful, you’d think a company that is so concerned with getting their money ahead of time would ask a few simple questions about your dietary preferences.
Anyway. He left. I didn’t have two bites in my mouth before a nurse came in wanting to do some tests, for which I would have to stop eating. I sent her away, told her to come back after my breakfast because I didn’t want to eat it cold. Such organization. The Dr. came by, told me everything was wonderful etc. Good. The nurse came in, disconnected the ekg machine, but left all the stickers on me. A new assistant nurse came in, with such a grumpy attitude. It was like, why do I have to be here. Joy. I asked her to take the stickers off me. Her attitude was, who me? She had to go ask. Fine. 30 minutes later she’s back, but not happy about having to help out a patient.
The day nurse comes in. I tell her the doctor said something about the iv. She said it had to be left in. She left. I looked at the hookup. It was folded over so close, on my hand, the liquid couldn’t flow. Obviously it was not something she was interested in noticing. I fixed it myself.
She told me she had two discharges to do that day. She specifically said I would be free no later than 11. This was at 9:30. At 11:10 she said she was calling a wheelchair. I’ll give her the 10 minutes. At 11:20 my wife was in the parking lot. She was still there at noon because the wheel chair hadn’t come yet.
I’m glad I didn’t have to stay 2 nights.
CMC gave me a brochure which states: Our Goal Is EXCELLENT Service. I suggest this is so much bs.
CMC is a non-profit, operating under local and state laws limiting competition. Their goal is paying their top executives millions each year. The lack of competition allows them to have lackadaisical service. The top executives are more interested in their pay and buying up local properties than they are in making sure their service to the community is of the best standard, even though service to the community is the purpose for their being allowed non-profit status. This lackadaisical attitude is typically what happens when competition is eliminated by government fiat. Now, with the Affordable Care Act increasing the number of people who have insurance, we can expect more demand on a hospital that already doesn’t do a good job. I am sure the executives will increase their pay.
Having insurance is nice. Being able to make the copay is nice. It would be nice to spend it at a facility whose employees cared about their customers one half as much as their paperwork says they do. For the kind of money I spent, if I was at a Marriott or Hilton or Westin, I can assure you, I would have walked away well served, and happy. CMC has a way to go to meet those standards. In the meantime, the laws on non-profits need to be reexamined.
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