I will probably never understand everything that goes into hospital bureaucracy and why administrations make one decision over another. Sometimes, however, it seems like they aren’t putting patients first.
I’ll share this story with you. A friend of mine has a daughter who lives on the other side of the country. The daughter tore her ACL, and needs surgery. Last week she was given a surgery date, and made plans accordingly. She took time off work, and arranged for her mother, my friend, to fly out. My friend wanted to be there for the surgery.
Now she has been informed that the surgery has been pushed back a week. Never mind the discomfort that she is in right now; it also beens readjusting her schedule and trying to rebook her mother’s flight. The hospital didn’t even give her a choice in the matter, and simply informed her that this was the way it was.
Perhaps her surgery was delayed to make room for a more pressing procedure on another patient. She’ll never know, because she wasn’t given an explanation. It would have been nice for her surgeon or physician to inform her of the change, and explain why this was happening. A surgery is a major event and it’s jarring when it gets changed at the last minute. I can only hope hospital admins try to make more effort to accommodate patients in the future. We deserve better!