mesen

Last night I decided to drop down and go volunteering.

It was nice seeing the familiar faces again. All the coworkers I met before recognized me, which made me feel all the guiltier about not volunteering consistently. And by inconsistent, I mean 3 or 4 times last year.

Once I got down there, wearing a blue+collared t-shirt that was a little too form-fitting, I began wandering around to see what could be done.

The best moment of the night wasn't the persistent vomiting coming from one room (which a nurse requested me to clean up- egh), or the loud moans of pain heard from another, but being able to speak Cantonese to the patients who needed something. One lady, shaved head and in Buddhist garb, just wanted the headrest lowered for her relative, the patient. Then I asked her if she'd like any water while she waited, and indeed she was thirsty.

I walked around the department later on, and in the same room, some doctor was trying to ask the patient questions, except, instead of trying to find a translator, she thought that shouting the questions louder would help. It doesn't, lady.

What I realized from last night: our current generation of doctors are entitled, slow, and lazier than the rest of the medical staff. All they do is sit around in their workstation/room gossiping about their personal lives and staring at the computer screen.

That's just one fault I found with the emergency room department. Another issue is the lack of customer service. There's just people waiting there, snickering about how the doctors have no idea what their problem is. I decided to make the effort myself to offer food/drinks to families of patients, very much the sort of thing I would do at my parents' restaurant. It really doesn't take that much to make people more satisfied with the tiring experience of waiting in an emergency department to be diagnosed, treated, and sent home.

I enjoyed eating the stuff in the food pantry, though, that SHOULD go out to patients, but there was plenty enough for me. I had orange juice, cranberry juice, honey grahams. The only terrible part of the night was afterwards, when I discovered that the hospital cafeteria closed before midnight. Luckily I brought back with me a jug of milk and applesauce. Still, I went to bed right after eating those 2 things, missing dinner that night. Oy.

No time left- gotta start working!