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It is all in the eyes of the beholder ...
When one opens the newspaper of the day and then is met by the information that a young boy with back ache was sent home from hospital with the implied message that he was a hypochondriach one isn't even surprised. Why should one? First of all it happens all the time that someone is not as sick as he or she thinks, also the boy may have regained his strenght by experiencing the atmosphere at the hospital. Brave patients feel the need to go elsewhere, preferably their private homes, when they are met with the bureaucracy of a hospital. Besides many good people have been brought to heel by still worsening conditions for patients and do not expect much. Sadly enough many may be more surprised when they are being treated right than when they are not.
A hospital is not supposed to be mistaken as to a complaint of back ache as the x-ray is not an unknown device. No, on the contrary, and the doctor who dismissed the boy certainly knew the technique. Actually he claimed not only that he knew it, but that he himself had x-ray vision. Everybody know that Superman can see through steel and even more, so maybe this doctor thought he was an unknown brother of the hero from outer space. All we know is that this doctor did not find it beneath him to tell the boy, that he - the doctor - had been blessed with this extraordinary x-ray vision and that this talent, gift or whatever made it possible for him to see that he, i.e. the patient, was fit as a fiddle and that he might as well leave the hospital right away without more ado.
Now it wasn't just to pass time the young boy had come to the ER of this hospital. No, on the contrary, being into speedway he had suffered an accident and had actually fallen flat on his back. It had hurt a lot and was getting worse, so it had been decided that he ought to go to see a doctor. Only this doctor was unfortunately not capable of seeing him for what he was, namely a nice and upright, young man who had had an accident.
As there were no x-ray pictures even the boy's G.P. turned him down. In excruciating pain for three days the boy just suffered without being sent to a specialist. However, then someone at long last saw him for what he was, i.e. a boy in severe pain and not a hypochondriach. Now he had a genuine x-ray scanning and soon the cause for his pain was revealed: his back was broken in three places. With these three fractures he simply had to be in pain, and so would the x-ray vision doctor too if he had had the same injuries.
By sheer luck the boy did not injure his spinal cord, but "only" the bones. That means that, if he is lucky, he may be fully restituted. On the other hand, had it taken longer before the fractures had been found, he might have ended up in a wheel chair. It is very sad to think of his solitary struggle to be heard for such a long time as three days. Even though his parents backed him up (and now are sueing the hospital) it must have been awful for a 16 year old boy both to be in severe pain and to be met with such a mistrust from the medical authorities. Also it must have been awful to experience the slackness of the system, not to speak of the unfathomable arrogance of the x-ray vision doctor. One wonders how this so called expert dared to treat a patient in this way, and the answer gives itself: Nothing bad happens to doctors who cross the line. Perhaps they may have a slap on the wrist, but that will not make them understand their responsibility to the patients. No, that will take something much more drastic
 ARCHIMONDE REX · Mon Aug 06, 2007 @ 05:26pm · 0 Comments |
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