Why Are We Waiting?
Dr Vernon Coleman
Health care these days is all about waiting.
Why do hospital staff always assume that no one’s time is as important as theirs? There is waiting to see the receptionist, waiting to see the nurse, waiting to see the doctor and waiting for results. Why does it take weeks or even months to receive test results? I don’t know of any other country in the world where waiting is an integral part of medicine. In Britain, patients must wait to be seen, they must wait for tests to be done and then wait for the results of the tests and they must wait for treatment. The waiting is accepted by everyone (patients, doctors and nurses) because it is usual. But it is only usual in Britain. Patients in other countries are accustomed to getting their test results given to them within hours at most. And outside Britain, patients who have symptoms are investigated promptly and treated promptly. I can never forget that it is the waiting which has caused Britain to have the worst cancer survival rates in Europe.
No one working in health care seems to realise that all the waiting (for test results, X-ray results, appointments, etc.) produces stress which is bad for the immune system. And it interferes with sleep which is also bad for the immune system. Jean Paul Sartre showed (in The Wall) just how devastating it can be if you mix worry and waiting. Eventually all men go mad. Even patients waiting for emergency treatment in A&E departments must sometimes wait to be seen – and die while waiting. This compares poorly with, for example, Switzerland, where everyone is seen within 15 minutes at the most.
A young teenage girl we know has to wait 10-14 days for the results of a biopsy of a breast lump. That’s 10-14 days of terror while she waits to find out if she has cancer.
When I was a house surgeon in hospital, we used to perform biopsies on patients with breast lumps and then, while the patient was still on the operating table, send the sample off to the histology department to be examined. (The patient would have signed two consent forms. One for a biopsy and one for more major surgery if necessary.) We would stand around gloved and masked and the patient would remain anaesthetised. The results came back from the lab in 20 minutes.
No patient should have to wait more than a day for a biopsy result unless the hospital is run by sadists or incompetent bureaucrats, or a mixture of both.
NOTE
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Copyright Vernon Coleman May 2024
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