Fear of hospitals

This Blog Post was originally published on the platform "writelier" (formerly "co-writers" and "200wordsaday"). Sadly the blogging platform was discontinued. I downloaded all my blog posts and prepared them to be republish them here.

Yesterday written, of course, a few hours later it happened. We transported a two-year-old from one hospital to another. But that's just a little bit connected to today's story.

Of course the two-year-old was afraid and in fear. But, the fear of hospitals and doctors, in general, is more spread that you might guess.

Everybody heard some frightening stories about the hospital nearby. A good portion of the patients I transported in the years said they don't want to be treated at the nearest hospital (right beneath our department). Because they thought they would get a better treating in every other hospital.

Well, when you're telling them that the transport to a hospital further away will cost them the additional kilometers on their own money, they normally agree to be transported to the closest hospital. (Money still rules the world.)

Anyway, another thing I would like to cover, failures in hospitals.

Last year we had a case at one of our university hospitals in Austria where an operating table broke down under the weight of the patient. The patient wasn't overweight and the tables maximums weren't even near.

Local newspapers and radio stations made a huge story out of that. Nothing happened to the patient, he or she, I can't remember, came out of the situation without any long-term consequences and just wanted to forget the accident.

Like in any other job, doctors make mistakes. Of course! They are also humans. Every now and then a patient has to die because of bad or wrong decision.

Sure it's bad when someone dies, but do we really have to open a barrel for it? The doctor making the mistake already has much to cope with, especially if it's a fresh student.

I wouldn't regret dying on an operating table, at least one person should learn something from it. If they would learn from my death, it would be worth dying for. In my opinion, every doctor learns from his or her mistakes, as every other human does.