Stupid fucking filthy VA hospital (or how we treat those who served)

The BBQ Pit
1

Dad has been in the hospital for the past month. This is actually week 5. Pancreatitis is the diagnosis. Every time they try to feed him his lipase numbers go up, so they go back to IV feedings. That’s the background, here’s the rant:

This is the filthiest fucking hospital with the laziest fucking employees I have ever had the displeasure of visiting. That my father hasn’t died of infection yet, to my mind, is a major miracle. I have watched a piece of paper towel in the same spot on the floor for two fucking days. For Christ sake, pick the stuff up. You have a damn government job, for life, goddamnit. CLEAN THE PLACE THE FUCK UP!!!

You, as you choose not to sweep or wipe down a surface, well there is no excuse for your fucking laziness, but you disgrace the honor that these men and women represent. You don’t know this about my dad, but he spent 120 days on a train that ran through Germany during WWII and I’m sure his story is not the worst of those on his floor, or even in his room, for that matter. But you don’t see that, do you. You just see one more task you need to complete before your shift is over. Well, maybe you should try and find another job, getting your wage where you can do the job halfassed and be allowed to get away with it. It doesn’t happen in most places in the real world.
And while I know that most nurses are caring and compassionate people, let me tell you about the commode that sat in the room my dad is in last night. The gentleman who had used it called the nurses station when he was done to let her know he was done. She came in and said “Did you clean up?” “Yes” he said. She turned and walked out of the room. Ten minutes later, the gentleman in the other bed, called the nurse’s station to let them know he needed to poop. Two nurses come into the room to help him into his wheelchair and take him to the bathroom. We say good night to pops about 5 minutes after that and leave. The shit filled commode is still in the room folks. It stinks, folks and no one feels the need to remove it from the room. My sister wanted to put it in the hallway on our way out. I told her not without rubber gloves, just too dangerous. On the way out, my sister said she needed to pee, so she used the bathroom in the lobby of the hospital. The bathroom in the lobby is not fit for human use. My sister came out of there saying it would have been safer for her to carry the shit out of my dads room in her hands than pee in that bathroom. Clean the place up for fuck sake.

And ya know what, if you don’t want to give these guys the respect and level of care that they deserve, find a new fucking job, ya goddamn fuckheads

Or, privatize the system and start holding people accountable for their actions.

Oh, an the commode was eventually removed, but it was much later - at least an hour after we left the hospital. :frowning:

2

Jane, are you talking about the Big VA Hospital, Heinz? It is one of the most depressing places I’ve ever been. But I didn’t get the impression it was filthy. They took excellent care of my uncle. He was as good as dead with three different kinds of cancer and assorted other problems. He’s extremely impressed with the care.

I’m very sorry to hear about your bad experience. There must be someone who will listen to your complaints. It’s humiliating and inexcusable. I know my dad and husband may both end up there some day, and I don’t want to have to experience what you’re going through.

3

Yep, it’s Hines.

My dad loves the doctors. I talked to his attending physician today, he was well spoken and answered all my questions. I have no doubt the doctors are doing a good job for dad. It’s the support staff that pisses me off to no end. And in the end it’s the support staff that sees patients the most and can most impact morale, outlook and the patients will to recover.

And, yeah, really, the place is filthy.

I cried all the way home last night because no one deserves the inattention that these people are getting.

It is an embarrassment to this country.

4

I hope he gets better, Jane.

Support staff (or lack of it) is becoming a major problem. Budget cuts, lack of trained people, lack of decent wages, relaxed hospital oversight, it’s all contributing to the health care crisis.

I’d share some of my recent stories, but I’d get too depressed.

Glad your dad has good doctors, though. But as time goes by, I am becoming convinced that having a good nurse is much more important than having a good doctor.

5

When the ex-SO worked at a VA hospital, she had some nightmarish experiences. Not from the fellow doctors, but she said the same thing - the support staff essentially didn’t care if anyone lived or died, and actually seemed to prefer they all died so they could spend more time smoking and watching their portable TVs. She spoke of a “code” she witnessed where not a single nurse responded due to 3 of them at the station being outside to smoke and watch a soap opera (the building was blocking their reception :rolleyes: ) and one of them in the bathroom. The patient didn’t make it; it’s hard to say it would have made a difference, but you gotta wonder. :frowning:

6

My grandfather, a veteran of the First World War, spent over 30 years of his life and ultimately died in such a place. Your post brought tears to my eyes. There is just no excuse.

7

Speaking as a VA employee (from another state) I’m very sorry, but not incredibly surprised.

Problem is, it’s the good, caring people who have found other jobs in other hospitals leaving behind the dregs who can’t find a job anywhere else and can’t be fired, without a cannon anyway. Years of budget cuts have lead the administration to keep trimming staff to the point where nurses have ridiculous numbers of patient to care for. They usually end up fleeing for a better job. At any rate that’s what’s happened at this hospital. There are a few, very good ones, with too many years invested in government service who hang on somehow but it’s never enough.

I’m a lab worker and it’s no better there. We ran out of money for some blood tests before the end of the fiscal year (end of September) and couldn’t run them until yesterday when we could buy the reagent. The floors are a mess tonight because the single phlebotomist who works evening shift called in. There is no one to cover that job so the interns have to do their own sticks. The lab has asked repeatedly to be allowed to hire more phlebos but administration says we don’t need them and refuses the request. And it’s not like a phlebo earns very much anyway.

When I first started working here there were many more support staff than there are now. Now sometimes the floors have to rely on volunteers just to get the patients fed. But all we hear from the powers that be is how we’re overbudget and have to cut more somewhere.

I could go on for hours about this but it’s just too depressing. I will say that my attitude about my job is nowhere near what it was when I first started. I don’t neglect my duties but I just don’t care as much anymore about what’s going on around me. And that fact, right there, makes me cry because I don’t want to be that way.

This place just crushes your soul.

8

I feel your pain, dwyr. Sometimes it feels like the practice of 3rd world medicine.

9

When I worked at the Admiral Theatre, every year a group of volunteer dancers would get dressed up in these little Santa suits, rehearse a choreagraphed line number and go visit with the Spinal Injury unit patients at Hines for a few hours. I went every year for the 5 years I worked there, and the trip was always worth it…seeing the happiness and amusement on the patients’ faces was great…almost all of them had pictures of from the previous years every time we came.

It was also god-awful depressing, because the place was so stark and dirty, knowing those patients would live out the rest of their lives in such a grim place…the doctors were always really nice, but the lack of support staff’s care was obvious.

10

First, all the best to your dad, Jane.

I haven’t been in a VA hospital since 1973, when I was turned away. So, I don’t have too much to add except to say that when I really needed help from the VA, I didn’t get it. In retrospect, that may have been a blessing.

11

This is one of the saddest threads I’ve read in a while. Couldn’t we PLEASE afford another penny on our taxes to pay these people to do a decent job?

I’m disgusted.

12

First, best wishes to your dad. Pancreatitis sucks.

Worked in the VA in Houston (the daddy of all VAs, it is the third largest government building under the Pentagon and the Ronald Reagan library). I would agree about the nurses and support staff, although much of it is that they are overworked and undercompensated. I responded to a lot of codes where the patient was already turning blue (bad) – these turned into practice runs for the medical student which needless to say is pretty bad news.

It was never very dirty, though (I give them that). It was bleak, huge, always harshly fluorescently lit, and unhospitable. What was really sad were the veterans who had such a poor home life that they were “Pop Dropped” on us when their families wanted to take a vacation. Or the veterans who bounced from VA to VA because they had nowhere better to go. Or the homeless veterans who we had to discharge to the street. By and large, veterans are the best people to work for – they are often good natured, they don’t complain over the small things, you stick two of them in a room together and they are instantly best friends, and they are always appreciative of the help that they receive.

To put a good spin on things, at least we make an effort to give our veterans health care in this country. It is the only real socialized medicine we have here, and while it doesn’t work that well all of the time, at least it is an effort. You should compare your VA to your local public teaching hospital, and I think that it would compare reasonably well. At least that is the case down here. I can definitely recognize the shortcomings of the VA, but at least it is something. The poor, especially the working poor, get royally shafter when it comes to decent, affordable health care.

13

I’m irritated as well at the VA right now. They don’t seem to understand that two people might crash at the same time and that if the “stat” respiratory therapist is busy at a code and another patient looks like he is headed that way that I will page another respiratory therapist with a stat ABG. But, no despite explaining the fact that the patient had oxygen sats in the 70s and that I couldn’t get the stat RT as she was in the code I get told “Well, that isn’t my job. I’m not coming and if you have a problem call the secretary to bitch about it.”

Then there is my rule-out MI patient who has had two of three blood tests that were negative. As soon as we got the third one back (which was to be scheduled at 11 a.m. and back shortly after), he could go home. He and his wife had a long drive back home so we wanted to get him out because of that and to open a bed up as the hospital was nearly full. The lab didn’t get done. The lab wasn’t concerned when I talked to them. They would draw one in a few hours.

I could go on and on but I’m honestly too exhausted right now to do so I’ll skip over my patient who badly needed a transfusion that it took several hours longer than it should to get and the people who yelled at our team last night for “giving us too much to do.” I guess it didn’t matter that we just happened to have lots of sick, dying people that needed stuff – after all we were just asking for labs and tests to make other people miserable too.

I guess I’m sick of all the BS that seems to go on in the VA.

14

About 10 years ago I worked for a company that sold and serviced operating room equipment all over the place. Our techs used to complain that prison medical facilities were better operated and maintained than VA hospitals. Seriously.

Best wishes for you and your family, Jane.

15

I work in a hospital in MD and it fills me with pride that it isn’t the shitsock that Hines turned out to be. That sucks big time. But i’m wondering, Jane said:

Is this is a gov’t hospital? B/c i know the gov’t doesn’t employ me.

16

I did my acting internship at the same VA dwyr works in.

There was a four-step process for getting anything done there:
1.) Put the order in the computer.
2.) Go to the nurse’s station to make sure they got the order.
3.) Check back later to see if they actually did it.
4.) Just do it your damn self.

And, of course–what’s the difference beween a VA nurse and a bullet? You can get a bullet to draw blood, and you can fire a bullet.

There were great nurses and techs there, but they were few and far between and the whole staff was spread paper-thin. Tasks that require a written order at my current hospital required half an hour of computer searching, six forms, and an act of Congress at the VA.

I don’t miss it.

Dr. J

17

Just like the military, the tone (or cleanliness) of a hospital depends on the one person in charge.

First ask to speak to the administrator of the hospital. Then call, write, or visit your congress. reps.

18

Most of our general hospitals here in the UK are badly in need of clean up. They are cleaned by contract staff on minimum wage and not enough time. My father in law passed away in March in our home city of Norwich after contracting the MRSA suoerbug, this is prevalent in most NHS hospitals, but this one in Norwich is a flagship brand new hospital, no one on Goverment seems to give a shit and are only concerned with lists and targets which they manipulate in any case:mad:

19

DoctorJ , you aren’t referring to the lovely CPRS, are you? The only thing more frustrating than CPRS in my opinion is when CPRS is down for the day and the entire hospital basically shuts down.

20

Gosh, Jane, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. Best wishes for you and your dad.