August 3, 2011
7. Newblog2011: 08/03/11 Health Care in the Barre-Montpelier area
I don't have a primary care physician in the Barre-Montpelier area. I needed to see a doctor on the evening of July 29, 2011. It wasn't really a life-threatening emergency, but only place that I could go to a doctor was the emergency room at the local hospital.
I've been there one other time since I moved to Barre, a few months ago. Since then, it seems that the emergency room is undergoing construction of some kind. When I went there a few months ago, there was already an underwater, sea life mural painted on a large section of the wall. There were also so many yellow, Wet Floor signs around that staff couldn't walk from the emergency room through the office into the lobby without going around the signs; I said then that I thought it was something that was not only a distraction to have all of those signs around and to have the health care workers spending their time at the hospital thinking and talking about harassment instead of doing their jobs, it was also dangerous to have those signs around where both the workers and the patients could trip on them. Since it also took time for people to walk around the signs, and probably took time when they accidentally knocked them over, that was a dangerous issue, also. Time is of the essence in any hospital setting, but especially in an emergency room. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
The other night, I walked through the first set of glass doors, into the entrance of the emergency room. I stopped, because there was a large sign in the entrance, between the first set of doors that I'd just walked through and the second set of doors that go into the reception area of the emergency room.
The sign said:
“Assaulting a health care worker is a crime”
Then there was a circle with a line through the center of it and words, all written in red. There was a huge “NO” to describe the following things:
“HITTING
PINCHING
SPITTING
THREATS”
Then it said:
“We WILL prosecute!
Under Vermont Act 26, assaulting a health care worker is a crime. First offense is up to 1 year in jail. Second offense is up to 10 years in jail. Sec. 1.13 V.S.A. 1028”
Right behind the second set of glass doors, I could see a yellow “Wet Floor” sign that had been put in front of the door to the bathroom in the patient lobby. The sign wasn't even a foot away from the second set of glass doors.
The entire lobby that was there the first time I'd been at the hospital a few months ago was blocked off with temporary walls. There was a makeshift desk for the intake staff. Then some of the previous lobby was still there, with chairs, and a window, the vending machine area and the same mural of sea life.
When I went into the emergency room to be seen, there were yellow, Wet Floor signs in several places within the ER where there was no wet floor. They were propped up against desks and walls.
When I saw the physician's assistant, he was mostly normal to me except that he rubbed his nose obviously and several times.
While I was waiting to see him, there was at least one instance of someone walking past the closed door of the room that I was in and coughing, loudly.
I was given my paperwork and instructions of what to do when I left by a woman wearing scrubs of which the shirt was covered in pictures of frogs. When I'd said goodbye and left the room, I walked past her; she was sitting outside the door of the room I'd been in and she coughed loudly at my back.
One of the things I'd talked to the physician's assistant about was how I might find a local, primary care physician. He said he'd put some instructions for how to do that on my paperwork for when I left the ER.
Today, when I was taking the bus back to Barre, I saw that a health care center a few blocks away from the shelter had put a large, orange, “Caution” road cone on its small, front porch, right in front of its entrance. Anyone who has to go into that building through the front door will have to walk around that cone.
7. Newblog2011: 08/03/11 Health Care in the Barre-Montpelier area
Copyright L. Kochman August 3, 2011 @9:33 p.m.
The point about the supposed law that was on the sign in the entrance of the hospital is this: first of all, I have my doubts about whether it was a real law. Second of all, if it is a real law, did it get passed just so that the hospital could harass me? Third, the two people implied by the law on the sign both had significant others at the time that they were considering running off together; therefore, how does any of their behavior make me a dirty person?
That was my point about it. It's not fair. It's bullying in a really serious, violating way.
Copyright L. Kochman August 3, 2011 @ 10:27 p.m.
Also, it seems as if maybe word got out from the hospital that I was looking for a primary care physician, and the health center in Barre wanted to let me and everyone else know that it doesn't want me even to ask to be a patient there.
Copyright L. Kochman August 3, 2011 @ 10:49 p.m.
7. Newblog2011: 08/03/11 Health Care in the Barre-Montpelier area
I don't have a primary care physician in the Barre-Montpelier area. I needed to see a doctor on the evening of July 29, 2011. It wasn't really a life-threatening emergency, but only place that I could go to a doctor was the emergency room at the local hospital.
I've been there one other time since I moved to Barre, a few months ago. Since then, it seems that the emergency room is undergoing construction of some kind. When I went there a few months ago, there was already an underwater, sea life mural painted on a large section of the wall. There were also so many yellow, Wet Floor signs around that staff couldn't walk from the emergency room through the office into the lobby without going around the signs; I said then that I thought it was something that was not only a distraction to have all of those signs around and to have the health care workers spending their time at the hospital thinking and talking about harassment instead of doing their jobs, it was also dangerous to have those signs around where both the workers and the patients could trip on them. Since it also took time for people to walk around the signs, and probably took time when they accidentally knocked them over, that was a dangerous issue, also. Time is of the essence in any hospital setting, but especially in an emergency room. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
The other night, I walked through the first set of glass doors, into the entrance of the emergency room. I stopped, because there was a large sign in the entrance, between the first set of doors that I'd just walked through and the second set of doors that go into the reception area of the emergency room.
The sign said:
“Assaulting a health care worker is a crime”
Then there was a circle with a line through the center of it and words, all written in red. There was a huge “NO” to describe the following things:
“HITTING
PINCHING
SPITTING
THREATS”
Then it said:
“We WILL prosecute!
Under Vermont Act 26, assaulting a health care worker is a crime. First offense is up to 1 year in jail. Second offense is up to 10 years in jail. Sec. 1.13 V.S.A. 1028”
Right behind the second set of glass doors, I could see a yellow “Wet Floor” sign that had been put in front of the door to the bathroom in the patient lobby. The sign wasn't even a foot away from the second set of glass doors.
The entire lobby that was there the first time I'd been at the hospital a few months ago was blocked off with temporary walls. There was a makeshift desk for the intake staff. Then some of the previous lobby was still there, with chairs, and a window, the vending machine area and the same mural of sea life.
When I went into the emergency room to be seen, there were yellow, Wet Floor signs in several places within the ER where there was no wet floor. They were propped up against desks and walls.
When I saw the physician's assistant, he was mostly normal to me except that he rubbed his nose obviously and several times.
While I was waiting to see him, there was at least one instance of someone walking past the closed door of the room that I was in and coughing, loudly.
I was given my paperwork and instructions of what to do when I left by a woman wearing scrubs of which the shirt was covered in pictures of frogs. When I'd said goodbye and left the room, I walked past her; she was sitting outside the door of the room I'd been in and she coughed loudly at my back.
One of the things I'd talked to the physician's assistant about was how I might find a local, primary care physician. He said he'd put some instructions for how to do that on my paperwork for when I left the ER.
Today, when I was taking the bus back to Barre, I saw that a health care center a few blocks away from the shelter had put a large, orange, “Caution” road cone on its small, front porch, right in front of its entrance. Anyone who has to go into that building through the front door will have to walk around that cone.
7. Newblog2011: 08/03/11 Health Care in the Barre-Montpelier area
Copyright L. Kochman August 3, 2011 @9:33 p.m.
The point about the supposed law that was on the sign in the entrance of the hospital is this: first of all, I have my doubts about whether it was a real law. Second of all, if it is a real law, did it get passed just so that the hospital could harass me? Third, the two people implied by the law on the sign both had significant others at the time that they were considering running off together; therefore, how does any of their behavior make me a dirty person?
That was my point about it. It's not fair. It's bullying in a really serious, violating way.
Copyright L. Kochman August 3, 2011 @ 10:27 p.m.
Also, it seems as if maybe word got out from the hospital that I was looking for a primary care physician, and the health center in Barre wanted to let me and everyone else know that it doesn't want me even to ask to be a patient there.
Copyright L. Kochman August 3, 2011 @ 10:49 p.m.