Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick is becoming a police state.
Today we have new “rules”!
Argh!
First is that everyone has to “sign in”. Now that’s not too bad for the casual visitor; regulars have to wait in line. Argh! Shades of the TSA at the airport.
# # # # #
REWRITTEN
BUT, in concept it’s a bad policy. 10AM ensures that you’ll miss any of the doctors on their morning rounds. (I usually am their between 7 and 8 to catch them as they roll thru.) 9PM ensures that you’ll miss any of the stuff that goes on at night. (I recently sat with Frau until 3AM after they started a transfusion and gave her a sleeping pill.) Sorry but “one size” doesn’t recognize that my spouse has a complicated medical problem and the hospital is just not trustworthy enough to operate without supervision. Everyone tries hard, but it’s complicated and confusing with lots of different “hands”. American medicine doesn’t have a holistic approach where one person is the “quarterback”. The patient and their “advocates” have to be on top of everything.
BUT, more than anything, it’s about the “we’re going to tell you what to do”! Maybe they can get away with it. I’ll know tomorrow when I tell them that they are not meeting my and my patient’s needs. None of the “leadership” was available at 11PM when my wife was transferred out of MICU and a nurse informed me of the visiting hours. It’s demeaning and just one more loss of liberty. AND, it’s immoral, ineffective, and inefficient.
- Immoral in that you are unilaterally enforcing rules that have not been agreed to in a voluntary fashion.
- Ineffective because you have uneven enforcement and undocumented exceptions.
- Inefficient in that it’s over reaching the need (i.e., secure the hospital from strangers by keeping out most “civilians”).
And, it’s not like you have a lot of choice. Saint Peters University Hospital has the same “identification requirement”. The Gooferment has limited the number of hospitals and they can’t be run like a McDonalds. So you have no choice. Like the Credit Card companies, politicians and bureaucrats make their problem yours. (Why don’t we have pictures on credit cards?)
So, why not “triage” visitors by the patient’s medical condition, patient’s mental condition, who the visitor is (e.g., spouse), and why would a sensible policy be. Why not have a more automated system? Why not badge relatives for chronic patients differently? Why not open visiting for caregivers? Why the police state?
Sorry, but it’s just wrong. No one wants food delivery people floating around the hospital at strange hours. And, in some cases, that policy might be appropriate. I’m not looking for a confrontation or a fight, but it may come to that. I bet they have exceptions already. Are parents of new borns restricted? Pediatrics? CCU and MIC may have a more liberal policy? Now if my wife was in for a bunion removal, I’d probably be a little less cranked up. But maybe not.
Are they running a hospital or a jail?
And, once they take Gooferment money and operate under Gooferment diktats, they become an agent of the Gooferment. Hence, everyone has their Constitutional rights. So what gives them the right to keep certain folks out? They can’t claim it’s private property.
# # # # #
Reinke Faces Life 