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I know many may avoid this post because no one wants to be a patient 🤣, but hear me out, even though it's not fun being one, we all have been at some points, and so it comes relevant. Very relevant for life saving.
I have learnt to define a patient as one who needs to learn to be patient with themselves, other patients, the Doctor and God. I saw the prompt and decided it might be a good opportunity to share my view about when in hospital and probably also share my own experience, despite being a Doctor myself.
Patients
When Most patients show up in the hospital, they have different problems and this gives the Doctor his first problem of sorting out who to attend to first through a process known as triaging. Here he has to pick the most emergent one and save lives in that order, however, most modern-day patients are either in a hurry to stay alive more than others or they care less about others but themselves, talk less of care about even the Doctor being human. I have had the case of treating a pregnant woman with a bleeding issue,a possible threatened abortion and by the time I stabilized her and returned, people were complaining that it was their turn and I left them. My speech that day was, "This is a hospital, not a bank, we don't do first come first serve here, we save lives". Having said that, everyone became gentle and calm and I saw them all in no time.
Sometime the cause of the delay may just be that your case was better than another, but other times, it is insufficient hands and a poor health system especially in most West African countries.
So as a patient, we need to actually learn to be patient, because impatience kills faster. I ll quickly outline ways we can be patient and show you how it will save lives.
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Be patient with yourself
Being patient with yourself pays a lot, as many a time, when drugs and instructions are written out, people want it to work like magic on the first day and they would not want to continue with their drugs. They are already thinking of calling back the hospital to say that the drug is not working when they were supposed to use it for 5 days, they used it for just one. More so, part of being patient involves early reporting of symptoms, not waiting till when the condition has worsened and needing more expensive medical remedy.
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Be patient with Other Patients
Often times, some people complain that their coming to the hospital makes them sicker, the real truth is that the problems is most often not the hospital but the people in the hospital and this largely includes the patients. How you treat fellow patient matters and being patient with them to help them see the Doctor earlier than you is a great show of love. I had a case where an older woman brought in a young boy who had an injury to his leg while playing, it was her turn but she decided to forfeit it for the boy and that was really striking for me. I had to still see her next immediately after the boy, not as a reward but as things ought to be, remember "not a bank".
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Be patient with the Doctor.
Of all of the people to be patient with, you have to be patient with the person who is trying to save you. They studied for years to get a degree, and are working their asses of to ensure better health care. They are humans and would mostlikely make mistake if they are worn out impatiently. So a better way to relate with them should be with patience. Further more, sometime, when they ask questions, you may be so much in a hurry to answer and by so doing skip important details, be patient to under stand the clerking question and reply adequately so you can help them to help you, there seem to be more to say here but maybe in another post.
Finally, be patient with God
As we often say, "God cures, we take the money" every medical care only either accentuates what God has already put in place or understands it. So a wound would still take about a week or 2 to heal, naturally, the Doctor who may want to alter that is probably going to end up causing more harm, but if you get my point, there is really much we don't understand in health, and we don't boast to know it all, God is still the Boss, and so his work of creation is left to him. So be patient with him and let nature heal when it needs to. This applies to all forms of illness, mental and physical, be patient with God too.
Having shared this, let me go ahead a share a bit of my own experience in the hospital as a patient, it wont be much for the sake of the length of this post.
I was admitted sometime around the covid period for a case looking more like COVID-19 although several test still showed negative results, I was treated more or less and it was really at that time I pitied my family and relatives, and all other relatives in the Hospital. How they had to go to and fro getting materials and drugs and ensuring the Doctors had what they needed, and this did not even exclude me for being a Doctor.
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Another thing I consider was the cost of being sick, Omo (a Nigerian parlance). I came to the conclusion that the average Nigerian person was just a sickness close to penury. To consider those who have to do dialysis 2 or 3 times a week at least to stay alive, it was an awakening for me to always show compassion to everyone as much as I could, because, this life, is one. It is safer to stay healthy and preventionis better than cure.
In conclusion I have written this long post in response to the Hive Learners COmmunity prompt, although I added a few more things which may be helpful for patients, I also shared my little experience and what I learnt from them. I loved every bit of writing this post too.
If you have read this much, I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to interact with me in the comment session. See you in my next post.