Medicines Holiday Crunch

There are a few blogs I follow, one of them is called DrWes, written by American cardiologist Westby G Fisher.  Many of his posts, including his last one, raise some extremely relevant issues.  His last post was entitled "Medicines Holiday Crunch" and draws attention to the rush prior to Christmas and the stress it puts on hospitals, doctors, etc.

It inspired me to respond to it with my own suggestions, which I am sharing with you all today.  You can also read it on Dr Wes's blog.  May I suggest you read his original post first.  The link is below.  Stay well:)

Dr Wes - Medicines Holiday Crunch

Hi Dr Wes,

I couldn't agree more. However, it does beg the questions of what can be done about this? I have a few suggestions. 

First, what can the hospitals do?

1. A massive overhaul of their regulations and procedures. Cut out the needless regulations and inevitable double ups. This may be costly so let me put it in a context bureaucrat would understand:

Regulations + Paperwork = Time = Money

Therefore streamlining regulations would save money.

2. Take pressure off the doctors and nurses. A great deal of non-essential tasks are delegated to these people. Some of these tasks could be delegated elsewhere, leaving the doctors and nurses to do what they do best, medicine.

3. Add incentives for staff not to take holidays during the lead up to Christmas.

What can the government do?

4. Write legislation to streamline government regulations.

5. Align the medical year with the financial year. This will move the financial incentive to have surgery pre Christmas to a more manageable time of year.

What can the patient do?

6. Be aware of the Christmas log jam and elect to have your procedures outside of this time.

7. Take charge of your own treatment. Many accidents happen and are blamed on hospitals, doctors etc, but could have been prevented by the patient. As a patient, pre surgery I like to have a short 30 second conversation with my surgeon just to make sure he has bought his 'A' game. For a number of reasons (tired, stressed, emotional, ill, hung over.....) they might be off their game and I would have no hesitation in postponing the surgery. This has never happened to me with a surgeon, but one I did have a scrub nurse who had just broken up with her boy friend and was an emotional mess. I told the surgeon I didn't want her in the OR and they removed her without any fuss. If I had said nothing she would have played a part in my surgery and who knows what mistakes she would hjave made.

What can the doctors do.

8. I actually think nothing, it is up to the system to allow them to do what they do best. If anything they should be making sure they are allowed to.