On Nov. 25, I went to the emergency room at UHNBC . It was a busy Thursday night and the waiting room was crowded.
Upon entering emergency, I noticed on the white board explaining that they are trying "something new" where volunteers take your information in hopes of speeding up the waiting process. I had been to the walk-in clinic earlier that day and had a referral to go to emergency and go for a surgery. The volunteer asked me what was wrong and I explained I was not comfortable explaining it to her and I wished to talk to the nurse at triage and not announce the meaning of my visit in front of a crowded waiting room.
She was quite condescending when she spoke to me and finally told me to wait in the waiting room and said I would be called soon and to have my care card ready.
This is the standard procedure I have seen every time I have visited emergency. After a half an hour of waiting and still not being called to give my care card or why I was in, I began talking with the people sitting around me. The one lady told me she had been in the waiting room for two-and-a-half hours and they still had not called her up to give her information and showed me that she did not have the ER bracelet. I was shocked. I thought the volunteers were supposed to speed up the process. I then looked over to the triage centre and noticed the nurse texting on her cell phone!
The entire time I was in the waiting room, not a single person had been called over to triage. Every single time I looked over the nurse was texting away on her cell phone.
When two ambulances showed up they were helped right away, but while they waited by the doors I noticed the nurse still texting even though the paramedics were hooking up equipment to the two people on stretchers.
I was disgusted and appalled by this.
After an hour of waiting and still not being asked for my care card information I left. Why is it that nurses can text on their cell phones on shift, instead of helping people who were clearly sick? It is disheartening to see such things when all you want to do is get better. I hope the nurses I see next are kinder and are actually concerned about making a hospital visit as comfortable as possible. The best way to do that, is to put down the cell phone and start taking people's information.
Carmen Harker
Prince George
