I am a house officer (HO) at Hospital Sultanah Aminah Johor Bahru (HSAJB), and I would like to give an honest account of not only the deplorable working conditions in the emergency department (ED), but also the lack of facilities hampering proper service delivery to patients.
Action will only be taken when matters are raised on social media. I would like to pen a few ongoing issues that need immediate attention.
Lack of facilities: We have an influx of patients coming into the ED, with approximately 300 patients per day, but there are only four electrocardiogram (ECG) machines scattered throughout the zones, for which HOs have to scavenge for.
Every patient who comes in is expected to have vital sign monitoring every four hours, but we only have three machines that are functioning properly.
Sometimes, it feels like a treasure hunt, having to hunt for infusion pumps and other necessary equipment. We are already so busy, but we are wasting our time looking for equipment that should be readily available in each zone.
Lack of privacy when attending to patients: There are no proper cubicles for us to insert continuous bladder drainage (CBD) or do an ECG for patients, especially female patients. We often have to require the assistance of family members to improvise and hold two curtains together while the procedure is being done.
Lack of oxygen port/humidifier for patients requiring higher oxygenation: HOs have to personally order online for extra C-puts (oxygen adaptor device used for patients requiring nebulisation), especially when in the asthma bay. There is a lack of oxygen ports, requiring us to become engineers and try to MacGyver something out of nothing. When we make complaints, management told us to escalate the request, without providing information on how to do so.
Support staff: There seems to be an obvious lack of supervision from immediate superiors. Either they have chosen to be ignorant or taken the classic “tidak apa” attitude. Each zone has specific PPKs (health care assistants) and staff nurses assigned, but many of them choose to push their tasks to HOs.
For example, when moving patients to different zones, not only do HOs have to push the patients on the gurneys by themselves, HOs are also expected to change the sheets.
We don’t mind doing this if everyone else is busy, but it is unacceptable if the support staff are just sitting idly by. In addition, we will be questioned as to whether the medications have been served and whether the latest vital signs have been taken.
Meals are only given to patients when the medical assistant indent the meal. It is obvious that there is no proper system to monitor this, because there are patients who do not get any food for days while waiting for ward availability.
It has become a norm for us to inform family members to come with food, water, and other essentials. This does not apply to all of the support staff, but at least 50 per cent of them have this attitude.
Deplorable toilet conditions: Not only are the toilets absolutely horrendous, the stench is unbelievable. Half the time, the toilet locks barely work.
HOs have to find other restrooms around the hospital to relieve ourselves. Everyone is always so cautious regarding patients’ urine output, but no one cares about us.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. Similar scenarios are happening in other departments.
The author is a houseman at HSAJB. CodeBlue, which has requested comments from the Ministry of Health, is providing the author anonymity because civil servants are prohibited from writing to the press.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
