I am an auxiliary hospital volunteer writing in response to Carmen Harker's letter of Nov. 25 about her concerns regarding the ER area of our hospital ("ER needs to get its priorities straight").
The emergency department was originally opened and maintained for emergency medical help.
Now, due to shortage of family doctors and medical clinics, the ER also functions for many as a medical clinic and access to a doctor.
This puts a huge strain on an already short staffed, overworked area of the hospital. It must be realized that in ER, emergencies come first and ambulances arriving are emergencies. All patients are helped in time but life threatening situations are always first. As a volunteer who worked the past two years in the volunteer ER service, I have never seen a hint of non-professionalism - in fact most go over the limit.
As a patient, you don't see what is going on behind the scenes. ER beds can be full with patients waiting for beds in other areas of the hospital. Nurses are constantly handling calls to and from doctors, other hospital departments, police, ambulances, queries from the ER area, etc.
As a patient, your waits can be long (two to three hours is not unheard of), and seeing others helped before you is frustrating. But believe me, the nurses and doctors are concerned and are there only to help you, the patient.
The auxiliary volunteer desk was introduced two years ago to help and greet people using the emergency entrance. Our function is to take initial info from people coming into ER. The person is then asked to stand at a line until the nurse is available to make an initial assessment.
If the nurse is already working with a patient (or on the phone) and the incoming patient is not life threatening, she will instruct that person to take a seat in the waiting room. That person then joins the long wait.
Volunteers also help family find patients in the ER, redirect people to other areas of the hospital, answer questions, greet people using ER as a walk through and redirect them.
I am sorry that Carmen feels she had a bad experience and hopefully her medical problems have been addressed.
Carmen take your complaints to the right people, to those in charge: the provincial and federal governments - we need more doctors and nurses and another medical clinic wouldn't hurt.
Linda Hohn
Prince George
