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afunaI originally meant to talk about combined knitting, which I've been playing with over the weekend, but instead you get this.
This has been building up for a long time now. Before you click through, I have to warn you that I'm bitter and angry and cynical, and this isn't happy reading. It isn't even productive ranting, and if you only met me recently, this may not make sense to you. I tried to explain, but the more I tried to explain, the more detached I started to feel, so I deleted that part half-done.
Please don't feel that you have to read this: I just feel like I have to write it.
I'm trying to find out what rights patients have in other countries. (Did you know that the Philippines has a patient's bill of rights stuck in the Senate, from 2007? I didn't know it either! I fully expect it to be defeated by the hospitals because they're the ones who actually, you know, have money, so I don't know whether to be happy that there's even something there at all or angry because I doubt it will ever lead anywhere. Or maybe it's been defeated already but the website just hasn't been updated. Or maybe it passed but nobody knows.
Did you also know that there's no medical malpractice in the Philippines? Apparently it would increase insurance rates for doctors, which would make them jack up their fees so that none of their patients could afford them. Alternatively, it would scare all the nice doctors away, to work in other countries where the risks aren't as great.)
It's years too late to be doing this, way too late for anything to be done, but there's a lot of stuff that's bringing back old things today, and somehow I need to know. Or want, maybe. "Need" implies that I'd be able to take the information and do something with it.
What I'm finding fills me with despair. Or well, the lack of what I'm finding anyway. I can't actually find a country with an actual active law for patients' bill of rights: all I can turn up are search results that talk about how so-and-so doesn't have an actual law, or such-and-such are thinking hard about these things BUT.
Surprise surprise, I know this won't shock many of you.
I'm bitter, I'm sorry. I'm cryptic; I'm sorry for that too. I'm not trying to be, I just need to say something before I explode.
I'm looking for patients' bills of rights. I'm looking for places where, if something went wrong, you'd have:
a.) sure access to medical records
b.) some way to file a grievance
Do you know if where you live has that? And, if you think you know, because I thought I knew (I thought here was somehow safe!), are you sure? If you're not sure now, please try to be. Afterwards is too late. (Afterwards comes too quickly).
We tried to pursue it you know. We tried to get records and documents and proof. You can't file anything without proof, right, but all the proof was in the medical records, and the medical records were with the hospital, and the hospital wouldn't release the records unless the courts compel them, and the courts won't compel anyone unless you file, and you can't file without proof.
My mom pleaded; a year later the hospital released the records to us, but also let us know in not so many words that they only let us have the records because they felt like it. I mean fucking hell, no matter where we turn, we don't have any power.
The records are strange. Row after row of too-neat too-aligned handwriting, made with the same pen, like what happens when a teacher makes a student sit down and write a hundred times, I will not kill my patients.
I will not kill my patients.
I will not kill my patients.
I will not kill...
I've probably just maligned thousands of doctors and nurses who have accidentally lost a patient. To those, I'm sorry. But to the ones who just weren't there, I'm not sorry at all. I don't have any power. My anger is all I have.
We tried. Nothing happened. I feel guilty: maybe we just didn't try hard enough. Maybe we're too stupid and naive. Maybe if we were rich, or had political clout, we'd have had a chance. Maybe we were wrong.
I don't believe that last one, though, except in brief moments when I want to give up. (I've given up hope that anything will ever happen, but I don't really want to give up. The tiny distinction between the two is what makes me angry at myself for ever being an optimist.)
I hate the legal system. I hate the medical system. I want away from here, but I'm afraid that it will be the same no matter where I go, so where else can I go? I'm afraid that it will be better in other places, so why didn't we go in the first place when it was early enough to make a difference? I'm afraid that it will be better and I will go and abandon everyone and everything here because elsewhere is easier...
It would be easier if things just did not go wrong in the first place.
What went wrong for us is that my brother was operated on on a Friday. His surgeon didn't come to check back on him that weekend. He took a bad turn. My mom pleaded; no one came.
Maybe it was our fault? We should have known? He shouldn't have been so unlucky and gotten sick on a weekend? Maybe if we'd scheduled his post-op infection for next Monday, the doctor would have come. Or, well...
(You can tell where I'm not serious I hope. I hope, I hope, because I sure as hell can't tell how much is me being sarcastic, and how much is me being angry at the system, and how much is me being angry at myself.)
I don't know the full story of what happened here but what I do know is this: the doctor was in on Monday and my mom tried to get her to come look in the morning as soon as the doctor arrived. Late afternoon, the doctor finally grudgingly came, and scheduled a test but the tests couldn't be run until Tuesday, and then
Delay delay delay, more delay. People have to wait for delays. Infections do not. And when infections aren't so kind as to wait for delays, then people don't have time either.
So.
Do you know what else sucks? Even though we'd rather not, even though it's been proven to us that when something goes wrong there's nowhere we can turn, we still need to go to this hospital. A lot of doctors only practice in St Luke's. A lot of facilities are only available at St Luke's. I hate that because of its size and money and popularity, my going would only help them earn money, and my not going would only hurt me.
Fucking hell. Stupid defiance. Cut off your nose to spite their face (and they'd reattach your nose and charge you a fee for the hospital room).
Stupid powerlessness. Stupid ever trusting in hope.
Bite me.
This has been building up for a long time now. Before you click through, I have to warn you that I'm bitter and angry and cynical, and this isn't happy reading. It isn't even productive ranting, and if you only met me recently, this may not make sense to you. I tried to explain, but the more I tried to explain, the more detached I started to feel, so I deleted that part half-done.
Please don't feel that you have to read this: I just feel like I have to write it.
I'm trying to find out what rights patients have in other countries. (Did you know that the Philippines has a patient's bill of rights stuck in the Senate, from 2007? I didn't know it either! I fully expect it to be defeated by the hospitals because they're the ones who actually, you know, have money, so I don't know whether to be happy that there's even something there at all or angry because I doubt it will ever lead anywhere. Or maybe it's been defeated already but the website just hasn't been updated. Or maybe it passed but nobody knows.
Did you also know that there's no medical malpractice in the Philippines? Apparently it would increase insurance rates for doctors, which would make them jack up their fees so that none of their patients could afford them. Alternatively, it would scare all the nice doctors away, to work in other countries where the risks aren't as great.)
It's years too late to be doing this, way too late for anything to be done, but there's a lot of stuff that's bringing back old things today, and somehow I need to know. Or want, maybe. "Need" implies that I'd be able to take the information and do something with it.
What I'm finding fills me with despair. Or well, the lack of what I'm finding anyway. I can't actually find a country with an actual active law for patients' bill of rights: all I can turn up are search results that talk about how so-and-so doesn't have an actual law, or such-and-such are thinking hard about these things BUT.
Surprise surprise, I know this won't shock many of you.
I'm bitter, I'm sorry. I'm cryptic; I'm sorry for that too. I'm not trying to be, I just need to say something before I explode.
I'm looking for patients' bills of rights. I'm looking for places where, if something went wrong, you'd have:
a.) sure access to medical records
b.) some way to file a grievance
Do you know if where you live has that? And, if you think you know, because I thought I knew (I thought here was somehow safe!), are you sure? If you're not sure now, please try to be. Afterwards is too late. (Afterwards comes too quickly).
We tried to pursue it you know. We tried to get records and documents and proof. You can't file anything without proof, right, but all the proof was in the medical records, and the medical records were with the hospital, and the hospital wouldn't release the records unless the courts compel them, and the courts won't compel anyone unless you file, and you can't file without proof.
My mom pleaded; a year later the hospital released the records to us, but also let us know in not so many words that they only let us have the records because they felt like it. I mean fucking hell, no matter where we turn, we don't have any power.
The records are strange. Row after row of too-neat too-aligned handwriting, made with the same pen, like what happens when a teacher makes a student sit down and write a hundred times, I will not kill my patients.
I will not kill my patients.
I will not kill my patients.
I will not kill...
I've probably just maligned thousands of doctors and nurses who have accidentally lost a patient. To those, I'm sorry. But to the ones who just weren't there, I'm not sorry at all. I don't have any power. My anger is all I have.
We tried. Nothing happened. I feel guilty: maybe we just didn't try hard enough. Maybe we're too stupid and naive. Maybe if we were rich, or had political clout, we'd have had a chance. Maybe we were wrong.
I don't believe that last one, though, except in brief moments when I want to give up. (I've given up hope that anything will ever happen, but I don't really want to give up. The tiny distinction between the two is what makes me angry at myself for ever being an optimist.)
I hate the legal system. I hate the medical system. I want away from here, but I'm afraid that it will be the same no matter where I go, so where else can I go? I'm afraid that it will be better in other places, so why didn't we go in the first place when it was early enough to make a difference? I'm afraid that it will be better and I will go and abandon everyone and everything here because elsewhere is easier...
It would be easier if things just did not go wrong in the first place.
What went wrong for us is that my brother was operated on on a Friday. His surgeon didn't come to check back on him that weekend. He took a bad turn. My mom pleaded; no one came.
Maybe it was our fault? We should have known? He shouldn't have been so unlucky and gotten sick on a weekend? Maybe if we'd scheduled his post-op infection for next Monday, the doctor would have come. Or, well...
(You can tell where I'm not serious I hope. I hope, I hope, because I sure as hell can't tell how much is me being sarcastic, and how much is me being angry at the system, and how much is me being angry at myself.)
I don't know the full story of what happened here but what I do know is this: the doctor was in on Monday and my mom tried to get her to come look in the morning as soon as the doctor arrived. Late afternoon, the doctor finally grudgingly came, and scheduled a test but the tests couldn't be run until Tuesday, and then
Delay delay delay, more delay. People have to wait for delays. Infections do not. And when infections aren't so kind as to wait for delays, then people don't have time either.
So.
Do you know what else sucks? Even though we'd rather not, even though it's been proven to us that when something goes wrong there's nowhere we can turn, we still need to go to this hospital. A lot of doctors only practice in St Luke's. A lot of facilities are only available at St Luke's. I hate that because of its size and money and popularity, my going would only help them earn money, and my not going would only hurt me.
Fucking hell. Stupid defiance. Cut off your nose to spite their face (and they'd reattach your nose and charge you a fee for the hospital room).
Stupid powerlessness. Stupid ever trusting in hope.
Bite me.
