On 12 August at about 4pm, I fell, cut my lower shin and lacerated the tibia right up to just a few centimetres below my knee.
I was taken to the Floriana Health Centre (FHC) by a neighbour, was registered at the reception desk, given a number, and waited until my number was called (please note that I was not called by my name, but by a number) as if we are not human beings but bingo balls!
When my turn finally arrived, I was ushered into the treatment room and the attending doctor looked at my wound and stated “paper-thin skin”; she the instructed the sour-faced nurse (green top) in attendance to prepare the sutures, went to the desk to write something and returned to stitch my wound, which required 17 stitches. Meantime, I don’t recall the nurse disinfecting my wound though I had done so before being taken to FHC and I had to ask her to administer a local anaesthetic before suturing.
While the doctor was stitching my wound, I told her how susceptible I am to infection. I repeatedly told her about it and asked for antibiotics, because this doctor does not know me or my particular tendency to infections. This doctor finished the suturing and went to desk to write something. I thought that, it was going to be the prescription for the antibiotics I had asked for repeatedly, but she ignored me completely and left the treatment room. Then, the sour-faced nurse told me to return two days later for a review.
One of the doctor in attendance on the afternoon of the 14th, looked at the wound, went to the desk to write something, while I again repeated I would be in trouble if an antibiotic was not prescribed because of my strong tendency to infection, even from a small scratch, let alone 17 stitches; but this doctor ignored me as well and also left the room. The nurse on duty on that day told me to return on the 22nd to have the sutures removed.
Late in the evening of Thursday the 20th, I was in such unbearable pain that I was told to take a strong pain killer (as suggested by a pharmacist) that literally left me in the clouds. I had nobody to take me to casualty (and even if I had, I would have been left there all night and the following day because of the very ‘heavy work-load’ that the staff of the emergency department state, (I was there a week before for a simple check X-ray and after waiting for over an hour-and-a-half to be called by radiology, while six patients who came after me with nothing apparently serious – they were on their feet and chatting – while I could hardly breathe deeply, were called for treatment in Area 2 before me and I was disgusted by the sheer arrogance of the nurses when I pointed out that all I needed was a call to radiology for a simple X-ray to confirm that no bones were broken. This happened again on the following, early Monday morning when a female doctor, informed by Triage at 7:55am, did not call radiology (which had no patients) to take this blessed check X-ray until 9:12 am but was more concerned with procedure than the patient!) Disgusting!!!
On Friday 21st, I called FHC (since my doctor was abroad) several times during the morning but the reply was always “all our lines are busy at the moment”; then, they let the phone ring for a few seconds and hang up! So, I had to take another strong painkiller that upset me tremendously and I had to wait until Saturday the 22nd in sheer agony!
On Saturday, when the stitches were to be removed, the nurse uncovered the wound, but because the material they used had stuck hard to my wound caused me untold pain, and gaped at the amount of pus from a severe infection and black skin (necrosis). Another female doctor on duty at about noon, looked at it, prescribed 1 gram of an antibiotic, informed me that, if the antibiotic did not work, I would be sent to MDH for an intravenous antibiotic(s), and simply asked the nurse to mark the extent of the inflammation which was all over my shin and extended to both sides. This doctor did not even have the decency to take a swab of the pus to check what was causing such an enormous infection! I was merely told to return the following day to have the wound cleaned again and, on a daily basis.
On Sunday morning, the doctor on duty asked the nurse to take a swab of the pus and to clean the wound (who, in the meantime, pressed a piece of lint on the open wound that caused me further agonising pain) and then proceeded to clean the wound with a saline solution. Again, she was going to put lint on it and I had to tell her to put a moist dressing so that it wouldn’t stick, and covered it with tubing with instructions to return the following day for further cleaning.
On Monday, I finally found a sensible and dedicated nurse who took care of all my needs when the doctor who tended to me on the 12th appeared on the scene. When I told her what damage she had done to me, she merely said that it was procedure! So, I was assigned an MMDNA nurse to come home daily to change the dressing.
I live alone, an elderly person with a disability, and an infection that should not have happened in the first place had the first two doctors paid attention to what I was telling them over and over again what would happen without an antibiotic that was needed immediately, i.e., on the day of the sutures!
I have now been transferred to the care of the Tissue Viability Unit at MDH for specialized treatment that only God knows how long will take, as the visiting nurses keep telling me every time they come to clean and change my dressing. I have been suffering unnecessary, continuous pain, for the past 34 days because three doctors were more concerned with procedure than patient care!!!
Isn’t it strange that, after a severe infection and dead skin developed, all procedure was forgotten and I was immediately put on a very high dose of antibiotics that also ruined my stomach (with the added threat of being sent to MDH for I.V. antibiotic administration)! I still can’t eat a proper meal and lost two kilos in 15 days! So, has a patient have to go through hell to be given proper medical treatment by the present procedure-oriented system? Is this the way to treat patients susceptible to infections? I am an adult, was constantly conscious and practically begged the doctors to give me an antibiotic immediately because I know my body and they do not or just couldn’t care less.
This, dear readers, is the state of Mater Dei Hospital and Floriana Health Centre’s (dis)service today; where patients are numbers, where a ‘bully’ is allowed by a certain pot-bellied security officer to jump the queue of other suffering patients; instead of calling the police to escort the bully out until his ‘number’ is called; and where doctors are more concerned with procedure than patient care!
I am also writing this, because we, as taxpayers should, at least, be given a decent service, not treated like a herd of cattle. I was even made to sit on a hard bench – irrespective of my artificial right hip besides the injury to the left foot, because there were no other wheelchairs to serve another patient who had just fallen and could not walk!
It is all about procedure v patient care!
Maria Scicluna
Hamrun