Patients With Maids
An interesting observation - a few families stationed their maids here to look after their elderly family member. They come in the morning and go home at night. Just attend to the elderly's needs, can get nurse's help with diapers. Chit chat with the elderly, other maids and on their mobile phone (yes they have mobile phones).
No need to do housework. Best job ever! Assuming the employers didn't abuse them by still expecting them to do housework at night...
The nurses in charge of a ward with maids must feel very heng.
It's heartening to see that an employer treating the maid like family. Asking the maid what she wanted to eat, personally came to take over on a weekend and telling the maid to go out and play (!!!).
You should also see how hip some of them dressed! Now my colleagues really sound overly-strict with their maids.
The Things People Bring
I thought a tablet was about the most expensive gadget around, but there was somebody even more hardcore about 3 wards down. A young man brought his desktop!! Waa if my house were next to the hospital, I also want! Harder to steal also.
Spotted a bolster on another patient's bed.
The Unresponsive Patient
On my left, was an elderly woman who looked in her 70s. She wouldn't move. Everyday, she just stared into space and wouldn't respond to anybody talking to her. Not staring blankly though. She looked like she could process information, but she just didn't want to respond. Must have given up on life, but sadly, life hasn't given up on her.
During meals, sometimes the nurse asked her if she would like to sit up and feed herself, but she wouldn't as much as roll her eyes to look at the nurse. So the nurse has got to feed her lor. At least she still allowed herself to be fed... If the nurse didn't turn her, she would have turned into a statue. They gave her Ensure sometimes. Wonder if hospitals actually prescribed that?
Sometimes, a young Malay lady with dyed hair and wearing tight clothes over her push-up bra, visited her, talking to her during the stay. One might mistake her for a friend but we know how unlikely it is. Yeah... she's the maid. From the doctor's conversation with her regarding the discharge plan, I got to know that the elderly woman was admitted for bed sores. Which meant that the maid wasn't too diligent in turning her... When the maid wasn't around to listen, the doctor even expressed worry about the care the elderly woman will receive from that maid after she goes home. Now the maid will have the additional burden of tending to her bed sores. So much for being lazy!
Her family visited her sometimes. She made the effort to look at them.
Talkative Kaypoh Patient (TKP)
2 beds to my left, against the fan switches wall, was an elderly woman who was hard of hearing and talkative - deadly combi! She struck up conversations with the other patients' their families and later the nursing students on attachment. She even tasked herself with updating other patient's family.
Her aid target - the Unresponsive Patient (UP). When the UP's daughter (presumably) visited, she told her, "这里很晚关灯光， 她不能休息。"
Naturally, that got the Daughter concerned. "他们几点关灯?" But TKP couldn't hear speech of normal volume, so she just kept repeating that the staff turned off the lights late.
FYI, I think starting to turn off the lights at 8.30pm is normal. Don't know why TKP must spout rubbish. Must be that she herself wanted to sleep lor.
~~
A Filipino nurse fed UP breakfast. In the afternoon, her daughter visited.
TKP: 刚才她的女佣喂她。
Daughter: 什么女佣?
TKP: 她的菲律宾女佣。
Daughter: ???
See Filipino = maid! *Facepalm* Poor nurses.
The daughter might have been wondering if her maid was secretly a Ninjutsu master or her husband had hired a second
On other occasions, TKP updated UP's visitors about who has recently visited her, naming those visitors the best-fit relationship according to her knowledge. Needless to say, the nurses became Filipino maids.
~~
The physiotherapist brought the tilt table and put UP on it.
When her daughter came to visit, TKP told her that the doctors gave her an X-ray!!! The daughter was shocked of course and asked why. TKP continued her story, describing the huge machine that they wheeled over and strapped her mother onto and how only her mother was given the X-ray.
I had the urge to reassure the daughter that that was no X-ray machine, but I stopped myself, because really, both TKP and I are the same - patients. I might be a sane-looking delusional, for what you know. Neither was I in the position to say anything about her mother's treatment. If the daughter had half a brain, she should check with a more reliable source, such as the doctor, instead of listening to patients' stories.
~~
It took 2 nurses to tend to UP because she was quite large and also probably because she was dead weight. This got TKP to haolian to the nursing students, "她很重啊，比我重。需要两个人抬啊，我只要一个人抬。"
-_-;;
Rare Cantonese-Speaking Patient
She must have been the first Cantonese-speaking neighbor I have come across. The rest spoke Hokkien, so she was rather quiet. A very cooperative, fuss-free patient. All neighbors should be like her!
Her husband visited often. Her son and his family, sometimes. But whenever her son came, he just came in to say hi, disappeared somewhere for a long time, or went outside to eat his dinner and came back to say bye. Come for what? Even his father thought the same, haha!
It's from her that I learned what might happen when I had to go back for my doctor's appointment. She got the hospital to book an ambulance transfer. Then she wouldn't get any exercise for that day, as if the therapists took the opportunity not to see her.
What should I do to prevent that from happening to me?
Stock-Taker
A new patient joined us at the second bed from the left at the row facing me. Her barang barang were placed on and in the cabinet next to her bed. After she was settled down, she kept trying to reach for her stuff, even trying to unlock the bed's railing.
A nurse offered to help. The nurse went through all her bags and cabinets, even showing her the contents, but apparently the item was nowhere to be found. Dissatisfied, the patient kept pointing inside the cabinet, but I could see that was all. I guess conjuring wasn't in the nurse's resume because she left.
When she got the opportunity to sit out, she went through her stuff.
When she learned to put her legs through the bed railings, she went through her stuff again, as if she was taking stock.
I never knew if anything was actually missing.
Juliet
New neighbor on my left. Skinny. Refuse to respond to questions. Uh oh.
Some time after she was left alone, I noticed she was sobbing quietly. A nurse noticed and tried asking her what's wrong, but she understood Hokkien only and the nurse spoke no Hokkien. The nurse looked at me for help. Not my expertise too! I could only try Mandarin. She didn't respond. So was it that she didn't understand or she was ignoring me? Sorry, couldn't help!
The nurse noticed that her fan wasn't on, so she turned it on for her. Little did she imagine that the patient was going to react violently. Not the hardcore violent per se, but just gesturing wildly at the fan, seeking refuge under the blanket and squealing at the nurse to turn it off. The nurse tried removing the blanket - the weather was bloody hot and she was next to the window, by the way - but she objected defiantly.
Queer! Is this the legendary kind who steered clear of wind? Afraid of being dispersed like a dandelion? Henceforth she was drenched in sweat. May I remind you that we change the bedsheets only once a week. *shudders*
She was glued to the pillow. She wouldn't sit up for meals nor get up for therapy. Pretty much ignoring everybody. Just curled up in bed, sobbing.
After much coaxing, she did sit up for meals eventually, but all she took was a few bites before retreating back into sleep. The staff felt she wasn't getting enough nutrition, so they prescribed Ensure. OMG so that's how you get slapped with that money waster!
I spied her nodding her ankles (the most basic exercise prescribed for the bedridden for blood circulation) while in bed though. Maybe she thought sick people ought to stay in bed. More likely, she was just being lazy. Doing the ankle thing doesn't buy her the right to refuse to leave the bed! She must have already outgrown that exercise, by virtue of being here.
Perhaps it's unfair to label her as a coffee addict, but she loved to asked for the beverage at the most inappropriate time - at night. The nurses always suggested that she drank her Ensure instead. See, if you get slapped with Ensure, the staff will make you drink it. Might as well since you bought it already anyway.
A friend came to visit occasionally, bringing her food and her favorite kopi.
One of the issues that made her inconsolable was that she missed her husband. It took a lot of effort for the staff to pry information from her to help her - her husband's name and how to contact him. Why wouldn't she say something so that people could help?? When she finally gave his name, it was only the pronunciation. Seemed like she couldn't spell it.
After checking with Suck Goodness Hospital, story was that the childless couple was injured in an accident and admitted to Suck Goodness Hospital. She recovered earlier and was hence transferred here first. Wondered why Suck Goodness Hospital didn't inform here about this?
Ok, so there's no way they could see each other now. They informed her that he would be transferred here next week, but that was cold comfort. Gosh, was she going to cry until he arrived??
The therapy assistant nicknamed them Romeo and Juliet.
Another issue was her "missing clothes". The nurse went through all her items and found a set of clothes, but Juliet insisted that was not the ones she was looking for. She couldn't describe how her missing clothes looked like. Well, that was all she had on upon admission to Suck Goodness Hospital - how many people actually had more clothes than what they were wearing when they landed in a hospital?
When her husband finally transferred over and taken to see her, I think the staff almost sounded like they were going to throw a celebration. The affectionate couple just held hands and said nothing. Poor man, he had an eye patch and a leg was in a cast. No wonder he was stuck in an acute hospital for longer.
Soon after he was taken back to his own bed, she started sobbing again. Arghh damn emo lor this Juliet.
Even when Romeo and Juliet were now in the same building, they still couldn't meet whenever they wanted to. He was staying in the ward upstairs. There was talk of shifting him down but it didn't materialize. Anyway, he had to be chaparoned whenever he was taken to see her. Where got so free?
The doctor was worried about how they would cope upon discharge. Yeah worrisome.
Disgruntled Night Owl Empress Dowager (DNOEW)
For the final few nights, the staff sat an old woman out at the corridor because she wouldn't sleep and was scolding non-stop. She must be chronically-disgruntled! Kept hollering in Cantonese about somebody being ungrateful, disrespectful, e.t.c.
Well, it's hard to gain respect with this high-and-mighty air substantiated solely by age! Or by having a mental problem...
Argh they should just throw her out of the ward totally! I didn't hear her shout in the day at all. Why do cuckoo people only act up at night? My poor ears... glad I'm out of here soon.
Or am I the problem because the rest didn't seem to have a problem with the din?
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