After patient Hanne Kjöller moans, burns her photograph for Care – Work

reconsidering. The most famous healthcare memoir came out in 2017 and led directly to a major debate about healthcare in the UK. This will hurt (this will hurt) Written by ex-doctor Adam Kay is a very funny and sad encounter with a compressed healthcare system that makes completely unreasonable demands on its employees.

Perhaps it would be unfair to use such award-winning work as a benchmark for journalist, debater and nurse Hanne Kjöllers. Diary from the emergency room. But at the same time – if patriotic debate is what you want to achieve, it’s entirely possible with something as simple as a diary from the careroom.

The author’s starting point is interesting: she worked as an emergency department nurse at Södersjukhuset in the 1990s and took a very long break working as a lead writer at Dagens Nyheter for 17 years. Then she chose to go back to the same emergency room before the outbreak.

At the same time, Kjöller worked in the emergency department of St Göran, the only private hospital in the country. Why is not clear – the book is not a discussion book about private versus public care, as one might think.

The book appears to be written casually, like a diary but at the same time it is not a diary at all. The notes are few and consist mostly of the patient’s destinies, but may contain phrases such as “I don’t remember”, as if they were written later.

superficial and superficial

In a superficial and inconspicuous manner, one problem after another is dealt with. The increasing number of ambulance calls, that medical centers are not up to their task, that the IVO is too weak, and that doctors should be banned online.

I miss the Kjöller I read before. She is able to shine in editorials and surprise with her research. My favorite is when I found out that Karolinska has more managers than sponsorships.

This kind of insight is not offered to the reader here. To a large extent, they sound like loose ideas, which are also not unique – the same conclusions are heard by employees in every coffee room in all emergency departments of major cities.

Big, heavy issues such as the lack of places to care are precipitated by quick, unfounded opinions. It feels rushed and superficial unnecessarily.

I have worked in the same emergency departments as a nurse and a doctor. Maybe I’m not the intended audience for the book, but it’s never clear who he really is either.

Explanations of the Medical Terms and Conditions are peppered with words like “preventive” and “slide indicator” – language for healthcare professionals. I immediately understand why “required hospital beds” are awful, but not uncommon.

kejulr foil

On the other hand, we get a reasonable amount of frustration downstairs over everyone who only has to comb their hair. The first half of the book is largely devoted to explaining how patients become spoiled, why they are too healthy to be in the emergency room, and how stupid they are to not understand. They are called “discomfort intolerance”.

You correctly described the basic problem – that the phone queue at health centers is full at 08.05 am and that the number 1177 tells everyone in Stockholm to go to the emergency room – but the patients are still responsible.

It becomes especially strange when Kjöller brings up a particular patient’s case in which she had to apologize to a relative who threatened to report her after she had made a mistake – to tell her that she now regrets her act. A strange vendetta the editor must delete.

We meet all sick, fanatical, annoying, demanding, angry and restless relatives. Our job is to manage it. skirt You have It’s true that many of course shouldn’t be in the emergency room, but dear Get It’s not true when you write about it like this – at least not with me.

raging confrontation

But in the last part – an angry confrontation with the doctors – it totally captivated me. We get a lot done, we’re so worried, we order samples, EKGs, X-rays “just in case”. We follow meaningless guidelines and don’t think about ourselves.

It’s called defensive healthcare and it’s a very worrying development. Not because it costs money, but because it causes suffering.

The most affected are the elderly patients, who are unaware of the time and place, are detained and subjected to absolutely worthless examinations. why? Because the doctor wants to know?

She calls us, and she is the same because she must do what we categorize, “agents in a prison of torture.” These are very strong words, but they seem justified.

Worth a read after the rant

After the media attention at the beginning of the epidemic, something happened – doctors became afraid of relatives and IVO. Relatives were afraid of not caring for the elderly. So we commit abuse.

“Where are the doctors who, when I finished nursing almost 35 years ago, said: Stop, here we do nothing more than call relatives and quickly arrange a bed and a single room. I miss them.”

She talks about the intensive care doctor who said stop to her dying mother with the virus, and that she is grateful for that. he is strong.

I also miss these doctors. And this discussion. Beyond Kjöller’s loose thoughts and grumbling patients, he is finally readable and truly entertaining. It hurts.