If You’re Unhappy With The Doctor’s Diagnosis
…punch a nurse.
AMMAN - Two of three nurses assaulted late Thursday at Prince Hamzah Hospital are currently receiving treatment for fractures and bruises.
The nurses were attacked by four people, who accompanied a patient to the hospital’s emergency room claiming that he was suffering from acute pain in his heart and demanding that he be transferred to the King Hussein Medical Centre (KHMC), according to Jordan Nurses and Midwives Association (JNMA) President Mohammad Hatamleh.
“Those who escorted the patient asked a doctor in the emergency room to transfer the patient to the KHMC, but after examining him, the doctor told them he did not need to be transferred,” Hatamleh told The Jordan Times yesterday.
The patient’s relatives kept insisting that the doctor issue a transfer document and also asked for an ambulance, Hatamleh said, adding that the doctor said it was against the hospital’s policy as the patient’s condition was not dire enough to merit transport in an ambulance.
“The relatives became angry at this point and started shouting, and they started hitting the three nurses, who tried to intervene. Two of them suffered fractures and bruises, while the third was not hospitalised as he was only slightly hurt,” said Hatamleh.
Two of the assailants are in custody, while the police are looking for the other two, who fled, Hatamleh said, adding that the attack will be considered an assault on an on-duty civil servant.
Under a recent government decision, attacks on medical staff on duty are considered as assaults on civil servants, which means stiffer penalties than in the past, when such assaults were viewed as brawls between the medical staff and the assailants.
A total of 24 medics have been assaulted in similar incidents since the beginning of this year, according to the JNMA.
Sources at the hospital were not available for comment despite several attempts to contact them by The Jordan Times.
Source: The Jordan Times, November 12, 2007
hatem abunimeh November 12th, 2007 6:05 pm
I think that those thugs that take the law into their own hands ought to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. However, I think that lack of understanding on how the health care system works has a lot to do with these mishaps. Many people go to these hospital emergency rooms for the first time in their lives, they have no prior knowledge about what it takes to have the patient transferred from one hospital into the next hospital. Even here in the United States there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the transfer from one hospital to the next. I know from my own experience as once I was admitted to one hospital in Chicago due to an emergency condition and when I requested to be transferred to another hospital that I chosen to be transferred to the medical staff refused to have me transferred unless they get the okay from my private doctor who was on vacation at the time. It took additional 24 hours to get a hold of my doctor and he Okayed my transfer. Luckily my health status was not as grave as I thought it was but I was very angry in the interim and I even entertained the thought about escaping from the hospital without authorization but then I changed my mind in the last second. So yeah I say lack of familiarity of how things are done can contribute to these unfortunate mishaps but that doesn’t mean that any one ought to take the law into their own hands.
Who-sane November 12th, 2007 10:03 pm
Why am I not surprised?!
Emily November 13th, 2007 8:29 am
I’ve heard two different stories of physical retaliation in either confirmed or suspected wrongdoing by medical professionals. for example: a man’s sister has a miscarriage - someone suggests the doctor may have been at fault - the man goes to punch the doctor in the face. Here I had taken them to be a bit … embellished. Maybe not. Punch a nurse, indeed.
Then again, it can be equally difficult to defend the insurance and lawsuit merry-go-round.
asoom November 13th, 2007 9:35 am
Hmmm I’m curious, I really want to know what the patient was suffering from and if it was as serious as the family insisted or if the doctor was right.