Emma Marr, who is no stranger to the medical system, reviews A Dim Prognosis by Ivor Popovich and Everything but the Medicine: A Doctor’s Tale by Lucy O’Hagan.
I recently spent a day in the ER. It was a trivial matter – a bleeding nose bad enough for my colleagues to call an ambulance, and for the carpet around my desk to resemble a crime scene – but a trip to hospital was required to make sure nothing more sinister was going on. It wasn’t, but I did spend eight hours in the ER while I waited to have that confirmed. I wish I could say it was eye-opening, but the truth is, it only revealed that the steep decline of our health system continues apace.
The IT system crashed as I walked in the door, and remained offline for an hour. It came back, then crashed again. I was lucky enough to be allocated a trolley in a hallway, rather than having to wait in the waiting room, while people around me, all seeming to be significantly sicker than me, also waited for the dignity of a room with walls, or some time with a doctor. Everyone in the hospital worked as fast as they conceivably could, training for the multitasking Olympics, but the workload seemed insurmountable.
Read the full review at The Spinoff here.
