At the hospital

Where we live isn't small maybe 10k worth of people , large hospital and brand new million dollar medical center at least six doctors and a pile of staff.
You would think yeah ok, I hurt myself I can go up to the hospital well yes you can in the day time if you can get yourself there we wont say anything about the Ambulance Service right now, say you can walk or someone can drive you.
You arrive at the hospital stagger to the front counter which is at least 300 meters away from the entrance, after struggling though the huge weighted security door you half collapse on the security glass and pant "I need a doctor"
The woman behind the counter grumpily scolds you for leaning on the counter and then demands your name details, medicare number and all the other numbers that you can't remember and are printed on the cards anyway.
"Go and wait" she snootily says putting her nose in the air, as if you smell and she can't stand to look at you. So you wait, read one of the magazines from 1991, watch the looped soundless video of advertisements asking you not to cough and to wash your hands if you do, you watch it at least five or six times.
There isn't anyone else sitting in the cold white reception area, there must be someone in the actual Emergency Room though as you watch hospital staff with a clip board  and a electronic key card not nurses or doctors these are "officials"enter and exit the same door five or six times you can see there are  shadows of  what you presume to be nurses in that room.
No Nurses or Doctors enter or exit only "staff" official looking snooty nosed staff made out of the same mould as the one on the desk, prancing around with their clipboards and pens on strings they walk in and out and back again over and over.
Meanwhile you wait and after what seems like two hours because your watch is broken and there isn't a clock in the reception area, no tissues either just a water fountain that says "don't drink if you are waiting for surgery".
Finally you get called in to find the Emergency Room is a small warren of smaller rooms maybe six tiny rooms, each one is empty except for the one that looks like the tea room/ file room no people in there just coats slung over the backs of chairs. You soon realize that there is only one nurse on duty, she's been there all day patient after patient, demanding, bleeding and most cases crying in pain.
This poor nurse looks tired and frazzled because there is only her on duty she's had to scoot off the patients  in most cases "go home take an aspirin" as there is no one to take care of them in the entire hospital, the doctors are all over at the medical center making money seeing patients for five minutes, charging Medicare for twenty then having a smoke out the back in the time they have left over.
There are empty beds all over the hospital, patients get carried off to Orange Base Hospital in a rather large very expensive ambulance because there isn't enough money to pay more nurses.
There are plenty of "staff" though, file clerks and officials, administration staff lots of those but NOT enough nurses and no where near enough doctors, not doctors who care anyway. Not saying all of them are bad there are one or two who are fantastic but as with all good doctors you'll be hard put to get to see those ones but if you do get to see the those two you will at least  get to see them for the full allotted time.

Oh by the way don't bother getting sick after 5 pm the hospital is locked up tight, security system tighter than  the Westpac Bank you wont get in, see you are ment to press the buzzer "once ONLY" it says on the sign and someone will answer and let you in but with only one nurse on duty who is busy, busy, busy she can't let you in and the one behind the counter well she don't wont to let you in .... you smell.

Headache

So I spent most of the afternoon in the hospital, with a migraine, they’ve been getting progressively worse the last few months been going through normal painkillers like crazy not all that many though only 24 in two weeks. As I’m not like some the painkillers are there for when it hurts not to be downed like a two cent gum drop.
There was a time when you had a migraine that you got a nice quick injection and were sent on your way, after all there are more serious patients to see, ones that are bleeding or yelling and screaming.
Hospitals have a rule if something is coming out of you; you get to be seen faster than someone else, which basically means, bleeding, birthing or brown bagging.
there weren’t many there today, an older lady who was yelling and screaming in pain, I could hear every word that was said and heard that she had broken her patella, that’s a knee cap by the way the doctor said if she was younger they would possibly do surgery but because of her age and the fact that she wasn’t a marathon runner it wasn’t worth it.
Another much older man was getting loaded into an ambulance taking him to a nursing home, heard his son talking to someone on his phone outside.
Another man came in about ten minutes before I left, he’d run out of tablets but as getting in to actually see a doctor at the doctors surgery here is near impossible he’d gone into emergency instead, the nurse told him try the next town which is only 30 kilometres away, see its’ a two month waiting list here, which is fine if you aren’t really sick just want a check up or you pre-book say if you are having a baby or something but otherwise you’ve got Buckleys chance.

Course you spend most of the time in the Emergency Department waiting, waiting for the doctor to see you in the first place waiting for the drip to start peeping that its finished.
So had a really good look at an old piece of medical equipment, an emergency room procedure bed very nicely made of stainless steel with a black vinyl padded cover, foot pedals and rotating handles all made out of stainless steel the bottom half painted green with a plaque saying A+H.
See I couldn’t lie down on that particular bed as it didn’t have drop sides, so spent the entire time in a chair staring at the back end of this bed, old and worn in places the foam stuffing appearing at the corners, an old relic of the medical past yet it still serves its purpose in our country hospital.
Who knows how many, young children with broken arms from falling off the jungle gym have sat on it, their crying faces looking around the room waiting for the doctor.
Who knows how many have had stitches from who knows what accident whilst laid on that bed.

We don’t have enough doctors here, yes very nice multimillion dollar doctors surgery, with attached blood testing facility but not enough doctors. If you run out of tablets your best option is the Chemist, they’ll do you a prescription for a cost.
The hospital is meant to be getting an upgrade too maybe that old bed might be replaced and maybe we might get some more doctors..maybe.