Medical Care Across the Ocean

Sitting in the hot and humid Nation’s Capital, it was hard to gauge whether my blood pressure or the 100 degree + temperature was higher. If I’d had to wait a few more hours, I would have undoubtedly blown a gasket. Someone near and dear to me had an invasive procedure done at a well-respected hospital, revered for its cutting-edge medicine. After the out-patient operation, batches of papers were handed over for the patient to sign. I don’t believe he had one iota of an idea as to what they said or what he was signing.

In addition, there was a bag filled with the clothes and sundries he had worn when he walked into the hospital that morning. His going-home clothes definitely didn’t qualify as French designer chic; the two hospital gowns (pas Yves St. Laurent) and a white well-worn blanket lacked style and obviously came from the depot in the sky that manufactures ugly hospital apparel.

As the groggy patient and I were attempting to exit, the attending nurse handed me a plastic goodie bag filled with assorted paraphernalia so I could remove the catheter.  Do what and how? I’m a quick study, but this seemed beyond my scope of competence.

Forgetting I wasn’t in France and wouldn’t be able to call the neighborhood nurse, we tore out of the hospital, happy for the day’s ordeal to be over.  I thought I’d simply call the local pharmacy (as in France) and the pharmacist would recommend a RN who was worthy of the job. Right?  Not on your life. I had no idea this would become a 24-hour-long project….to the point where I was ready to hit the Internet, read the how-to guide and do the deed myself. Everyone complains about the French being so bureaucratic. But when it comes to medicine, they’re amazingly laid-back, since practitioners don’t fear lawsuits coming and going.

The ‘victim’ wasn’t willing to have my helping hands touch him below the waist and adamantly informed me, “When there’s a will, there’s a way and we were going to find it." After calling numerous private duty nurses who weren’t available, I combed the Yellow Pages for an agency. They were more than happy to fulfill the request, charge $150 for the honor, but then didn’t accept Medicare or private insurance and needed a doctor to fax the prescription with in-depth instructions plus the diagnosis. If the doctors knew the diagnosis, they wouldn’t be doing these myriad tests is my logic. It may be Cartesian thinking. But again, what do I know?

Verging on mild hysteria, I called the hospital and asked them to fax specific papers to the agency. That’s not their protocol. I was instructed to bring the person to the out-patient center and a staff member would be happy to accommodate him. Please remember, we’re talking about a three hour drive in killer-hot heat. Plus, my patient (who was becoming most impatient) didn’t relish the thought of driving from here to there without wearing pants – and then trucking though the hospital.

I tried rationalizing that if we were in an accident and were carted away by an ambulance, he’d be subjected to one less procedure. The truth was that there was no way in hell we were going to hit the Washington, DC beltway.

To make a VERY long story short, a male RN finally did knock on our door. I was so relieved, since the catheter was scheduled to have been removed 24 hours previously, and what would have been a simple job in France had taken on gigantic proportions here in the US. To add insult to injury, the nurse’s fee wouldn’t be reimbursed.

My first question to him was, is this a job I should be doing?  The nurse responded with a slight look of horror, “Absolutely not.” He couldn’t understand why with all chances of infections, etc. a novice would have been assigned this specific duty. And, even if I were 100% sterile, un-taping a catheter can make any patient extremely uncomfortable.

French hospitals may lack many of the amenities of American ones – but at the very least, for the most part, there is personnel to take care of such chores. How I wanted to be transposed to Paris tout de suite. There are so many other reasons I’d rather be in Paris. But, I’m not going to count the ways.

Come to think of it, if this procedure had been done in France, there’s no way the doctors would have released this patient on the same day. He would complain about the terrible food and I’d be running to the local traiteur (caterer). Hospital food is about the same throughout the world and it rarely qualifies as gourmet.

During the day, an extremely close American friend called from Paris, where she moved after her husband’s death, to ask me how everything was going. I recounted the story of my chasing from here to there, only to end up feeling a wee bit frustrated by my inability to accomplish what should be a slam dunk – especially in English and in the city where I was born. I’ve spent so many years blaming my poor French for minor (and major) dilemmas.

This woman, who is blessed with a sense of humor that inevitably makes me laugh even in the face of adversity, said she could one-up me. Five years ago, when her much loved and extremely sexy husband was dying, hospice workers wheeled a hospital bed into their home in anticipation of his dying within 24-48 hours. The team left a urinal but failed to catheterize her husband. When she called the service, a nurse suggested she tape the urinal on his penis in order to avoid a return trip that night. The about-to-be widow informed them it was clear that none of the nurses had ever slept with her husband and they had better return immediately. And they did.

© Karen Fawcett
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