Admission for surgery
On Sunday, Ban and I checked my dad into Adventist Hospital ward in preparation for the surgery on Monday. The first problem we had was the deposit requested: 40k! This amount was nearly the same as the estimated medical bill.
How did they expect people to fork out that amount under normal circumstances? We were further bewildered when the cashier asked, "Are you paying with cash or card?" What? There are people walking around with a bagful of 40k cash?
It was fortunate that Ban was with me, and that my credit card was issued from Singapore. Hence, after some stressful moment, we managed to pay with combination of cash (we spent lots of time at the ATM machine 😬) and two credit cards.
The ward was spacious despite being a "open" ward: it had only 7 beds. Nurses were helpful and professional. As expected, my dad was initially uncomfortable on the bed and wanted a lazy chair, which wasn't available. So he made do with adjusting the bed head's and/or leg's inclination. No choice.
Incidentally, they served only vegetarian food. 😮
This was the second time I would be at hospital when my dad had surgery. I am puzzled as to why hospitals do not have a procedure whereby they inform the patient's relatives about how they can be informed once the surgery is over and the condition of the patient. It's such a fundamental thing to me.
There is, however, a difference at Adventist: on the day of the surgery, upon enquiry, the ward nurse told me of a waiting area just outside the post-anaesthesia recovery room and the ICU room where relatives would be called once the patients are in the rooms. Ok, that's good. After dinner, I went there, rested a bit and then worked a while on my laptop.
As there wasn't a power socket around, my laptop soon was running out of battery power. It was then I noticed it was already 9.30pm. That was more than 4 hours after the estimated starting time of the surgery i.e. 5pm-5.20pm. Hence, I rang the recovery room's bell and enquired. I was told that my dad was brought to the High Depedency Unit ("HDU"). Why didn't they tell me? Haiz.
At HDU, I found out that my dad had been there for about an hour. Goodness, I could have saved an hour if they had just told me. In any case, the most important thing was that nothing went wrong during surgery and my dad was in good hands.
My dad, however, had different view: he thought that everything would be fine after surgery and so didn't anticipate the after-surgery pain @@. He was saying things like "If I had known, I wouldn't go for surgery", "Pain, pain", "Suffer" and "No joke". He repeated the last three phrases throughout my short stay there. To the first phrase, Ban later said that it would have been much worse if he didn't do this surgery and the bone fractures at home (it would happen, just a matter of when).
Apparently, there was a schedule for injection of painkillers and if they gave more at a particular time, there would be less for later. This was to ensure no overdosing.
Me: It's ok, Pa. The nurses and doctors are here to help you.
Dad: Help me give pain
Me: ......
Nurse: Uncle, if I give you more painkiller now, the next time I can give you will be 6am, you know.
(that would be 8 hours later!)
Dad: .....
I worked a bit on laptop while acknowledging his pain every now and then. Five minutes after getting antibiotic injection, my dad started snoring. I took the opportunity to pack up and went back to my sister's place. In total, I was out for 6 hours. Tiring.
How did they expect people to fork out that amount under normal circumstances? We were further bewildered when the cashier asked, "Are you paying with cash or card?" What? There are people walking around with a bagful of 40k cash?
It was fortunate that Ban was with me, and that my credit card was issued from Singapore. Hence, after some stressful moment, we managed to pay with combination of cash (we spent lots of time at the ATM machine 😬) and two credit cards.
The ward was spacious despite being a "open" ward: it had only 7 beds. Nurses were helpful and professional. As expected, my dad was initially uncomfortable on the bed and wanted a lazy chair, which wasn't available. So he made do with adjusting the bed head's and/or leg's inclination. No choice.
Incidentally, they served only vegetarian food. 😮
This was the second time I would be at hospital when my dad had surgery. I am puzzled as to why hospitals do not have a procedure whereby they inform the patient's relatives about how they can be informed once the surgery is over and the condition of the patient. It's such a fundamental thing to me.
There is, however, a difference at Adventist: on the day of the surgery, upon enquiry, the ward nurse told me of a waiting area just outside the post-anaesthesia recovery room and the ICU room where relatives would be called once the patients are in the rooms. Ok, that's good. After dinner, I went there, rested a bit and then worked a while on my laptop.
As there wasn't a power socket around, my laptop soon was running out of battery power. It was then I noticed it was already 9.30pm. That was more than 4 hours after the estimated starting time of the surgery i.e. 5pm-5.20pm. Hence, I rang the recovery room's bell and enquired. I was told that my dad was brought to the High Depedency Unit ("HDU"). Why didn't they tell me? Haiz.
At HDU, I found out that my dad had been there for about an hour. Goodness, I could have saved an hour if they had just told me. In any case, the most important thing was that nothing went wrong during surgery and my dad was in good hands.
My dad, however, had different view: he thought that everything would be fine after surgery and so didn't anticipate the after-surgery pain @@. He was saying things like "If I had known, I wouldn't go for surgery", "Pain, pain", "Suffer" and "No joke". He repeated the last three phrases throughout my short stay there. To the first phrase, Ban later said that it would have been much worse if he didn't do this surgery and the bone fractures at home (it would happen, just a matter of when).
Apparently, there was a schedule for injection of painkillers and if they gave more at a particular time, there would be less for later. This was to ensure no overdosing.
Me: It's ok, Pa. The nurses and doctors are here to help you.
Dad: Help me give pain
Me: ......
Nurse: Uncle, if I give you more painkiller now, the next time I can give you will be 6am, you know.
(that would be 8 hours later!)
Dad: .....
I worked a bit on laptop while acknowledging his pain every now and then. Five minutes after getting antibiotic injection, my dad started snoring. I took the opportunity to pack up and went back to my sister's place. In total, I was out for 6 hours. Tiring.
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Thank you.
Thank you.