New Year Problems

[Paul]

Because tomorrow is a public holiday dialysis was moved to today. They don't usually do this for public holidays (except Christmas day), maybe it is because a lot of people stay up late and get drunk on New Year's Eve, so they think too many people will oversleep and miss dialysis. Or maybe it is because the nurses will get drunk and oversleep (or be useless when they turn up hungover). For whatever reason, I was in dialysis today instead of tomorrow.

We also get transport to and from the clinic which is usually done by a private ambulance company. However for reasons that are too long to go into here (but might get their own thread one day) three of us are taken in by cab instead. This morning my cab failed to arrive, so about half an hour after it was supposed to pick me up I 'phoned the clinic. They were short staffed, so the phone was answered by a nurse who, at that point, would have been busy taking patients off the machines, so understandably wanted to get rid of me quickly and said that it must be on its way because the waiting room was full of patients. But when I insisted that he checked that the other cab patients were there he did, and they were not.

Our transport is overseen by an incompetent and useless woman called Debbie Burgess (yes I'll name the bitch, and maybe one day I'll fill up half this board with examples of her incompetence). She had informed the ambulance company of the change, but not the cab company, they still had the cab booked for tomorrow.

They eventually got a cab to us, but as a result we were late going on and late coming off. After dialysis I was ready moments before the cab arrived, but one of the other patients was not and kept us waiting. When he eventually turned up he blamed our late arrival at the clinic for this. But he was lying.

One of the nurses told us it was because he had been chatting up one of the women in the clinic. 

[cassandra]

Sounds familiar my friend. There's an awful lot of Debbie B's in this world.
You've written to the medical director?


Love, luck, strength, Cas

[Darthvadar]

Oh the memories!!!!!!....

When my late mum was on In-Centre Haemo, transport was a nightmare!... The Health Service Executive provides taxi transport for D... Mum was a wheelchair user, and getting Wheelchair Accessible taxis was a huge issue, and taxi company contracted by the HSE to provide the transport were useless... When Mum was on the 7am-11am shift, she would often be left sitting there waiting for so long that those on the 11am-3pm shift were often finished their treatment, and gone home, and her taxi still hadn't arrived!... And nobody cared!!!... Nothing was done about it until I contacted her Neph., and the HSE threatening to go screaming to the media if it wasn't sorted out!!!... It worked!...

The taxi company ended up having to 'Detail' a driver specifically to Mum on D days...  They hated having to do that because it cost them money.... In order to be certain of being available to Mum at the required time, the driver couldn't take on another fare for one hour before he was to collect Mum, so the company had to pay him a 'Detail Premium' of €25 per trip, so return trips, three times a week cost them a fair bit, but hey, they contracted to carry Dialysis Patients to D, so they have to face the possibility that some of those paitents will be wheelchair users... What the company didn't know, and we ahem, 'didn't think to tell them' was that her driver shared care of his elderly mother with his siblings, and she lived near us... So on the nights before collecting Mum, he'd do his overnight turn at his mother's, giving his siblings a night off, and he'd come straight to Mum in the morning... Worked perfectly!!!... But I think Mum was the only one that was done for, probably because I wasn't letting it go.,...

I feel so sorry for anyone in this situation.... I wish you all the very best of luck with it!!!!...

Darth....

[Michael Murphy]

Where I go there are there holidays that close the clinic, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year Day.  For the last 5 years the schedule has been adjusted to account for these days.  The staff who don’t get most holidays with their family are given these holidays off so they can be with family.  You can count on these changes every year.  Next years sichedule will feature Christmas and New Years on a Tuesday so the MWF people will come in on Sunday and the TTS people will come in on Monday then every one goes back to regular schedule.  This year I would check with the cab company before the Sunday sessions.

[lulu836]

My local bus company has a service called Lift Line.  The doc on my case recommended I use it while in physical rehab.  They have a schedule for pickup and return.  $2.50 one way.  Only problem is they don't run on holidays or inclement weather.  Good news is that I'm driving again so it's just my schedule I have to worry about.

   

[GA_DAWG]

At our clinic, all of the "office people," except the overworked secretary, have far too many other responsibilites to contact transportation. It is one more job that falls to our nurses and the aforementioned Secretary. Our nurses and techs are great. The shortfall is all in our "behind the door" crew.