Political Correctness or Patient Care?

frostytheplebe

Seventh Part of the Seal
As you all know, recently, my wife gave birth to our wonderful baby boy, Gabriel.

Looking back on the whole ordeal and seeing how my wife's recovery is going, I have to ask... Why in a predominantly english speaking country are patient care organizations hiring people who can't communicate with patients?

Let me give you some background;
My wife had two hospitals in the Boston area she could go to that take care of my child's specific condition (For legal reasons, I can't say which at this point.) I begged her to chose the other hospital because I knew how terrible this one was, but because she knew two people who worked there, it's where she wanted to have the child. Well I decided to do everything I could to ensure that she could get the best doctors that hospital had to offer. We set her up with the best of the best... Well 3 days before the baby was due, because my wife was in pain, they induced her early, which sent her into labor on friday night instead of monday morning.

The result? She got the oncall doctor and surgical staff to perform the C-section. There was at least 4 very thick, distinctive accents going around. One heavy south American, one sounded African (Zimbabwe??), one was definitely Laosian, and the other I didn't recognize. The doctor was this incompitent chinese lady who was one year off her residency, and also spoke with a thick accent.

In the end, my wife had to have additional surgery because the surgical team damaged addition organs while trying to remove the baby, even the NICU team that was there to accept Gabriel said that it was an unnecessarily traumatic birth for such a stable baby.

A routine surgery that should have taken an hour, took 5.5 hours and once my wife was on recovery, she was assigned an Indian nurse who couldn't understand when my wife said she was in pain. After trying to communicate with this woman on 3 different occasions, I asked to speak to the charge nurse. I told her that I wanted my wife seen by someone who spoke English as their first language and no one else. My wife had been through enough. I was told I was being unreasonable... yeah explain that one to me...

My wife's recovery went from 6 weeks to 6 months as a result.

So I don't get this... I understand that our country has racial quotas that need to be filled, but why the hell are we hiring people who can't communicate with patients when perfectly good English speaking healthcare providers are unemployed by the thousands. This is part of the reason why many hospitals around here have an English compitence policy. So why is crap like this allowed to happen?

If this falls under the pervue of "Inflammatory topics" I apologize. Well ok, rant over.
 
The result? She got the oncall doctor and surgical staff to perform the C-section. There was at least 4 very thick, distinctive accents going around. One heavy south American, one sounded African (Zimbabwe??), one was definitely Laosian, and the other I didn't recognize. The doctor was this incompitent chinese lady who was one year off her residency, and also spoke with a thick accent.

I think there's several different things going on here, and you're probably doing your case a disservice by connecting them.

The *incompetence* is absolutely unforgivable and is actionable on your part... but it's not /because/ (or at least not necessarily because) of the language barrier. When you complain about this and then when you go to a lawyer you need to take a different tact and focus on what they did wrong rather than this theory otherwise you're going to come off as... well, a racist. And that's a sure way for you to be written off by others.

Here's the thing: the English language is very far down the list of hiring qualifications for doctors. Hospitals fight for the best doctors from all over the world because their skills are so hard to come by. I go to a German-speaking retina surgeon and an Indian lens surgeon... not because they're somehow cheap alternatives but because they're the /absolute best in their field on the east coast/. The ability to perform a medical procedure isn't language based and the sad fact is international medical schools are, increasingly, training doctors who are streets ahead of those who've studied in the US.

I was told I was being unreasonable... yeah explain that one to me...

Sadly, it's true. But it has nothing to do with "quotas," which is where you go off the rails and start to come off as something you aren't. The medical profession isn't hiring nurses based on their race in an attempt to force some type of equality (and let me note that I work in education, where there is a serious argument to be made for that sort of hiring.) What's going on here is that there is a massive worldwide nursing shortage. Hospitals are paying top dollars to get the dregs of the profession because there just aren't enough nurses to go around.

Higher education isn't creating enough nurses, here or elsewhere, and the quality has suffered and the responsibilities have slid. You have techs doing what RNs would have been doing twenty years ago and so on (I don't know the ranking system off hand, but nursing is much more complex than you would assume.) You have foreigners as in this instance brought in not because they're somehow cheap (despite what you seem to imply here, hospitals aren't hiring under-the-table illegal nurses) but because they're needed to keep a shift staffed. And even then it's hard because there's a similar shortage in their home country, where top dollar is being paid to keep the best nurses around.
 
I don't believe that it is an unreasonable expectation to have good Customer Service. LOAF is correct in that places are trying to make do with people who can do everything at the lowest possible cost. It's been that way since the recession started, and I don't believe that it will change for many years. One thing that puzzles me after reading the initial post is that I've heard that nursing has too many people to choose from and not a shortage. So with the candidate pool, it's pretty obvious that you'd go for the person who can do the most or has the most applicable experience for the position.
 
I'm not going to spend much time on this, but to echo what LOAF said, your "racial quota" accusations are way off base, and this thread makes you look like a big jackass with skewed perception of the job market. The unemployment rate in highly skilled (all medical/science/technical/math/engineering) fields is extremely low right, and we're hiring foreign people to do these jobs because there aren't enough Americans from the US going through the necessary schooling and training to do them.
 
The *incompetence* is absolutely unforgivable and is actionable on your part... but it's not /because/ (or at least not necessarily because) of the language barrier. When you complain about this and then when you go to a lawyer you need to take a different tact and focus on what they did wrong rather than this theory otherwise you're going to come off as... well, a racist. And that's a sure way for you to be written off by others.

Ok, correction noted. I wasn't trying to say that she was incomptent BECAUSE she was chinese or because of her language barrier... now that I think about it, she was one of the few that I could actually understand. She was more incompitent because she was an idiot who didn't stop when things got complicated, did more damage, and tried to repair damage she had no buisness repairing. It's kind of nuts when you do everything you can, including pulling a lot of strings to get the best doctor your can, and instead you get some kid just off their residency because of a fool choice the hospital made.

My issue is that the hospital made no effort to assemble a team that could at least understand each other. My wife was on the operating table so long they had to give her blood transfusions while they were trying to coordinate what they were doing.

Here's the thing: the English language is very far down the list of hiring qualifications for doctors.

And that's fine, there's certainly nothing wrong with hiring a very skilled doctor with a language barrier, but if thats the case, and you're going to put someone's life in his hands, then you need to make sure he can properly communicate either via speech classes or a translator. My issue isn't really even with the doctor. It's the nurses. Fact is, if you go to a hospital, you see a doctor for all of what, two minutes? Maybe an hour or so for any basic surgical procedure? Then you deal with the nurses or 'nurses assistants' for the rest of the time. Not making sure that people who are going to provide care can understand a patient when they say "I'm in pain." or "I think something is wrong, please get the doctor." is not what I would call responsable care.

Hospitals fight for the best doctors from all over the world because their skills are so hard to come by. I go to a German-speaking retina surgeon and an Indian lens surgeon... not because they're somehow cheap alternatives but because they're the /absolute best in their field on the east coast/. The ability to perform a medical procedure isn't language based and the sad fact is international medical schools are, increasingly, training doctors who are streets ahead of those who've studied in the US..
Fair enough, my issue was more with the nurses assisting and the one who was responsable for the post op care.
Sadly, it's true. But it has nothing to do with "quotas," which is where you go off the rails and start to come off as something you aren't...
Well I've never been too big to admit when I'm wrong. I admit that I've known about the nursing shortage, but I thought that had subsided, especially when my cousin is trying to get in to a nursing program, but the waiting list is a mile long at pretty much every school.

The medical profession isn't hiring nurses based on their race in an attempt to force some type of equality (and let me note that I work in education, where there is a serious argument to be made for that sort of hiring.) What's going on here is that there is a massive worldwide nursing shortage. Hospitals are paying top dollars to get the dregs of the profession because there just aren't enough nurses to go around.

Higher education isn't creating enough nurses, here or elsewhere, and the quality has suffered and the responsibilities have slid. You have techs doing what RNs would have been doing twenty years ago and so on (I don't know the ranking system off hand, but nursing is much more complex than you would assume.) You have foreigners as in this instance brought in not because they're somehow cheap (despite what you seem to imply here, hospitals aren't hiring under-the-table illegal nurses) but because they're needed to keep a shift staffed. And even then it's hard because there's a similar shortage in their home country, where top dollar is being paid to keep the best nurses around.

Ok, I get that, but that still doesn't explain how I was being unreasonable. There were plenty of other english speaking nurses on the floor, my wife was in pain, and nurse wasn't doing what she was supposed to. When we toured the maternity floor, the nurse manager told us that if we were uncomfortable with anyone on her care/support team, then we had every right to have them removed. So when I saw the charge nurse I said to her, "Look, your nurse has twice now been unable to understand what my wife is saying and the result is she is laying in the room in unnecessary pain. We want her off my wife's care team, and I want her replacement to be able to properly communicate with her, so I'd appreciate it if you'd assign her nurses who speak English as a first language."

I didn't even care if it was UK English, American English, South African English, etc. But I was told I was being unreasonable. They switched her off, but the next night she was back. That's when I went over the charge nurse and spoke directly to the manager, which is when this nonesense stopped.

I should also note that there were three Indian-speaking couples on the same floor (none of whom were assigned to this nurse.) Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a common sense thing.

I'm not going to spend much time on this, but to echo what LOAF said, your "racial quota" accusations are way off base, and this thread makes you look like a big jackass with skewed perception of the job market. The unemployment rate in highly skilled (all medical/science/technical/math/engineering) fields is extremely low right, and we're hiring foreign people to do these jobs because there aren't enough Americans from the US going through the necessary schooling and training to do them.

It's hard to see things that way when you see a ton of skilled people showing up at job fairs but can't get jobs in those fields despite being qualified. If I came off in a racist tone then I do apologize. I don't harbor any ill will towards anyone on the basis of race. All I'm trying to say is that if my wife is in the hospital, skilled or not, I don't want someone providing care to her if they can't even understand when she says, "Please help me, I'm in pain."

If that's racist... well...
 
Two quick comments. First, about the nursing shortage. You're right--it IS hard to get into a nursing program right now. I have two friends that just tried (one succeeded, one failed). But that doesn't mean there's not shortage. In fact, that's part of the cause of the shortage. The nursing schools simply aren't admitting (and hence aren't graduating) enough candidates to fill the shortage. Not sure why--I've heard everything from "they just can't adapt their programs fast enough to meet the demand" to "they think the shortage is a bubble and the schools don't want to overexpand" to "it's a plot by the AMA to keep the number of nurses low, thereby keeping both doctors and nurses in high demand and keeping salaries up". Don't know if there's water in any of those reasons, but the fact is, despite a huge shortage of nurses, the nursing schools are still being very picky about who they let in.

Second comment is about the lack of trained professionals in general in this country. Not to get all political, but a good part of the reason why that has happened is the fact that finance and business salaries are so out of whack right now. A smart, motivated individual in college can choose to major in engineering or pre-med, and have to take really tough technical courses, or they can major in business or finance or economics (at most schools, these are MUCH easier majors than engineering, pre-med, mathematics, or hard science) and then make three times the salary when they graduate by working for Wall Street. It's worse for doctors and other fields that require an advanced degree, because by the time they get out of school, they have so much load debt (partly due to the increasing costs of tuition and the dwindling nature of non-loan student aid) that they HAVE to chase high paying jobs. Doctors are a special microcosm, because even within medicine there's a big salary disparity between GP's and specialists. It's hard to get good people to become GP's, because they make so much more money as specialists, and they need that money to pay off their loans.

Not making specific recommendations how to fix it, but it does speak somewhat poorly of a society when we pay our bankers and financiers and stockbrokers so much more than our scientists, engineers, nurses, and doctors (people that contribute to society rather than to making money). And that's not even getting into the salary disparity when you start considering other careers like teachers, artists, and childcare providers!
 
Shhh, Boston's entire tourism industry is based on people being interested in that.

(Welcome to the New England aquarium, where you can see exactly the same kind of fish that once resisted the hated British!)
 
The British just got kicked out of Boston!? I gotta read the paper more!
Nah we didnt get kicked out just couldnt be botherd to fight half way across the world when we were busy fighting the French at the time lol :p we thought we would let you keep it (note this is a tounge in cheek post)
 
Heh, the wording itself is sort of the joke... it's like an old timey revolutionary war expression that seems funny now. I guess like calling Germans "the Hun" apropos of nothing might be for you.
 
So am I right in saying the revolutionary war was kinda a civil war? lol I see where you are going with "the Hun"
 
Such harsh words but wouldnt both sides would of been British at the time untill the end of the war or was the US a country before the end forgive me not knowing been a while since I was at school!
Depends on whose recognition of the US as a nation you are talking about. As far as the Thirteen Colonies were concerned, the US was a nation from the moment the Declaration of Independence was signed on 4 July 1776. As far as the government of the Kingdom of Great Britain was concerned, the US was only a nation when Britain signed the Treaty of Paris on 3 September 1983 and officially recognized its independence. Other nations either recognized the US during the war (France), or subsequent to British recognition.
 
Depends on whose recognition of the US as a nation you are talking about. As far as the Thirteen Colonies were concerned, the US was a nation from the moment the Declaration of Independence was signed on 4 July 1776. As far as the government of the Kingdom of Great Britain was concerned, the US was only a nation when Britain signed the Treaty of Paris on 3 September 1983 and officially recognized its independence. Other nations either recognized the US during the war (France), or subsequent to British recognition.

1983? so the US is only 28 years old?? lol
 
Heh!

I think there is probably a technical difference between a civil war and a war for independence that involves a colony breaking away from the mother state (it may be in the eye of the beholder, though... certainly one of the colonists' grievances way back when was that they believe they weren't being treated as equal to native Englishmen.)
 
without being rude its good to hear all this I find it very intresting we only really touch on it in history at school here, its just seen as such a small part of our history maybe its because we lost lol
 
Back
Top