“I have seen good nurses and bad nurses. They existed along a continuum: from hard-working, kind and competent people, to office-hugging, bone-idle types, to apathetic, disengaged automatons.”
Jo Brand
Morning chores are done for now. I went outside and gather 60 pounds of snow to melt. All on the woodstove, then into the filtering system, so me and the cats will have drinking water. I hope we do get the snowfall predicted for Friday. There is not much left out there. Just finishing the most important ritual now, my morning coffee.
Back to the story, a few years ago I had a thriving computer business in a small town in Northern Alberta. As long as I was good with the hidden good old boys club all was good.
It was when I had somehow lost favour that things changed. Every town has them, petty little power brokers that either work from profit or ego, doesn’t matter which. Eventually, the bad ones die and then are replaced with newer models, some worse some better. But always the same thing, power and money. Petty tyrants.
They make or break people’s lives for the wrong reasons. A whisper from one to another decides your fate. I had upset them. Perhaps that is where the troubles began. All through history the stories never change.
I was doing my job at the medical clinic one day. I was updating antivirus, while I was doing the job the administrator wanted to learn what I was doing. The day was near over, I mentioned that I would be back in the morning to finish. The response I got was foul and hostile.
The administrator said she would finish the job. A job she had no idea how to do, except for what I had taught her. Looking back now it was an obvious trap. I had walked right into it. I was told that I wouldn’t be paid for the hours that I had worked that afternoon. I looked at her with a little disbelief and said no problem. For me it is simple you don’t pay me, I don’t do the work anymore. She had achieved the result she was after.
After years of thinking about this, it was the moment that things changed.
Skipping forward a few years I went into the ER to see a doctor about my lungs they were hurting. I asked about the results. I was told I would be called if there was anything wrong. I never got the call.
During that time the doctor had lost his son in a car accident. Three months later I got the call I needed to come in. That morning the roads were extremely icy, I was 5 minutes late getting to the clinic. I was told I would not be allowed to see the doctor.
So I asked the large woman behind the desk “So you mean the doctor is exactly on time and the rest of the patients here won’t be sitting waiting in a chair for an hour for the doctor?”
Her snide answer was we can re-book the appointment, she had a smirk on her face I would see many times in the coming years.
“Book me for November 2025” I walked out knowing I would never get treated right in that clinic. I have never been back since. That was only the beginning of the abuses, they would spread into the hospital, through the nurses’ stations and then onto the doctors. From there on it would spread to other hospitals in the area. I will add more about some of those visits in my next post.
Do I think this administrator was the mastermind behind the bad treatment, maybe not but was certainly involved?
