h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Or basic mistakes in administration unication #999.

Message left on my mobile answer phone, 'hello its <name of company who's been supplying my growth hormone pens', we need to arrange the next delivery of your growth hormone.'

err. OK, as I understood it, endocrinology said I'd be abe to switch to the ready pens, disposible ones that don't require refridgeration, and these would be provided by the GP surgary, via the pharmacy next to the surgary.

Ok... I know I'll phone endocrinology at the hospital, ask them, rahter than reject a delivery of the GH that I need to accept, or, conversely accept a delivery that is then an arguement as to whom is paying for it.

landline phone rings.

"helo this is Dr X, from your surgary, we've just had a confusing phonecall from the company who provides your growth hormone pens...."

OK.... so I quizz the Dr...

ahh. so GP (a differnt one), has prescribed the new GH pens, as a repeat prescription, on my regular surgary list of drugs, that I collect from the GP surgary nextdoor pharmacy. err. so, do I collect these from our local pharmacy, like all my other meds? do I take this delivery from the GH company? is the delivery from the GH company actualy the forfillment of the GP scripted meds, which will be provided by this extermnal company, rather than from the regular pharmacy route?

No. ing idea.

Phone endocrine nurses at hospital.
nurse who knows stuff is not there until Monday. OK, so sorting this out can wait until Monday, it'll have too.... then I can call back the GH company who left the origional message, hopefully by which time I'll have some idea of waht teh situation is, or at least, what it should be.... Luckily Ill still have my existing pen, here, for now, which still has some time to run before its empty...

But.

on the really positive side; the endocrine nurse did exactly what I asked last week; we did the quality of life form, again, for end of treatment survey/completion of the test period on teh medication, and she then did what she said, which was what I asked, and wrote to the GP surgary to advise them to switch me onto the disposible single use pens that don't require refridgeration.

Only. I didn't know this had happened, and equally, I had no idea the GP had scripted these pens; there seem sto be no method for actually sharing this information with interested people/parties, I.E., me, the patient.... I had and have no idea a new drug is added to my prescriptions, unles I find it by accident when logged into my prescription website thinggy, which of course I only do about once a month, when ordering my repeats, whcih I did about a week or so ago.... utter failure in communication - and this is ment to be the 'communication age'. a telegram would have worked, an E-mail might have been quicker, a letter in the post would do really nicely... just something occasionallly, to let me know what is happening.

Still not heard back anything about my PET scan on my anneurysm. Sill not heard back about any new drugs for treating that anneurism that they migth want to prescribe since I coudln't tollerate taking the first one.
No results back from my fasting blood tests the other week .
no news if I'm to start taking the ostioporosis meds, the colesterole reducing meds, or a differn type of thyroid med.

Went to the gym today, after not sleeping last night.
did some cardio (bike), and weights (bench press, power lifting, inclined bench press, pullups and simular things hanging in the weird cage contrapton, squats, curls, upright and benover rowing with teh bar, and some other bits aN pieces, plus a ton of stretching), went to the international and bought fruit and veg, and cheese, and tea and a 2 KG bag of onions

bolotti bean, mushroom and rice spicey vegan thing for dinner, which was gorgeous, spiced with some chillis, mustard seed, fennel and cumin plus black pepper, and cooked in/with coconut oil

This may sound familiar to you. One way or the other. I know it did to me:
A sweet old grandmother telephoned the East Morpeth's Hospital.
She meekly asked the operative "Is it possible to speak to someone who can give me information on how a patient is doing ?"
The operator said, "I'll be glad to help dear. Can you give me the name and room number they are in ?"
The grandmother in a weak, tremulous voice said "It's Bertha Scroggings, Room 135"
The operator replied, "I'll just place you on hold while I check with the nurse in that area."
After a short while, the operator returned to the phone and said, "sorry for the delay love, but I have good news for you, her nurse just told me that Bertha is doing very well.
Her blood pressure is fine; her blood work just came back as normal and her physician, Dr. Brahms, has scheduled her to be discharged this Thursday"
The grandmother said, "Thank you sweet lady, that's wonderful! best news I've heard all week, I was so worried God bless you Dear! For the good news."
The operator replied, "You're more than welcome. Is Bertha your daughter or a relative ?"
The grandmother said, "No, no relation as such! I'm Bertha! in room 135 - No one tells me SHIT!

- I miss the days when we had the paper s' at the end of the bed... where the Dr would write down the obs, or the nurse would right them down... back when i was a patient as a teenager, 'd get visitors to rea dthe chart to me; as I could at age 17 know what it ment, and how well I was doing, and get far more information from it, the direct 'results' as it were, than the garbled c**** that the Drs and nurses ever passed on to me now its all on computerness, one does't get eh oppertnity to do that, sadly, when in as an in-patient - simularly with the GP surgary, I can access all my details, blood results, etc, online, but sadly I can't seem to do that for the hospital stuff

Over here we can access everything, even things I had forgotten.

But of course since it's all on computers there is bound to be a lot of problems. Our NHS are having a very hard time implementing their new IT baby. I think they are close to asking people not to fall ill for the next months till they have sorted all the glitches out

One of the problems here, is how its all so non-cnnected.... none of the IT has been updated for decades, and the systems, even within the hospital won't 'talk' to each other; let alone talk to the GP Surgery systems...

A great example being a Dr at teh hospital, cna't access my medications I'm on, from the GP website... and visa versa, the GP surgery system can't see what medications the hospital may be giving me - unless a Dr from hospital, writes a physical letter on pen and papper to the gP surgery, to tel them, it won't get across from one to the other

At teh hospital itself, I'm fairly sure they've got all kinds of differnt computer systems, doing differnt jobs; most of which won't talk to each other.... - effectively I guess/assume, one system was first introduced, to perform certain limited functions.... then they wanted to do some more stuff, using computers, so got a new computer system, to do that; and etc., etc., until at the last I heard, for the hospital Drs here, within the one hospital, ar eat least four differnt pager systems, so a Dr may need two, or more differnt pagers, to allow im to be urgently contacted when needed somewhere else in the hosiptal insane, no ownder stuff goes wrong

OK.... so got to speak to the endo nurse, and then phoned back to the pharma company....

It appears (no one bothered to tell me this), prescription of the GH works differntly; when I'm getting low, I have to contact the pharma company, and they, contact my GP to request the prescription, and then, the pharma company contact me back, to arrange delivery of it. This now means one day every month, for the rest of my life, I'll have to remain in the house, awaiting for the delivery of the GH pens once a month... - as I'm on it for life, why can't I get a two, or three moth supply at a time? no dea....

spoke to the person on the phone, at the pharma company, arranged delivery for next week, and mentioned to them that they might want to arrange a nurse to train me how to self inject with the new differnt pen device, so I'll hopefully be contacted soon, to arrange a time for a nurse to come show me on the new device - plus hopefully I can find out about if these go into the sharpes bin, as a whole, after each use, or if I just put the needles in teh sharps bin, and throw the used up pen each day, into the ordinary dustbin I ordered a new box of needles too whilst I was on the phone, no idea how many is in the box I've got open ATM

Forgot to ask the endo nurse if she had the last set of blood results for me so may have to try go to hospital early, next week, err, or this week, whenever it is, for oncology, so I can pop into endocrinology to ask about the test results, and see if anyone there has taken a descision on what they're going to do about my thyroid non medication - which reminds me, I must print off a page from the national NHS prescribing stuff I found online, so I can let my consultant knwo what drugs exist, as she was wrong on telling me some of them don't exist, and my pharmacist has confirmed to me, that she can get hold of the liquid thyroid meds, without fillers, if I can get a Dr to prescribe them. It'd be nice if my consultant k knew what medication existed for the conditions within her own field which she's ment to be treating... incompeteant stuipd Drs Mind, she's not quite as bad as the head of dept, the prof, who can't calculate dosages correctly for the medication he prescribes...

Ah, yes, non-connectedness is indeed the name of the game. Until 2007 Denmark was divided into 14 counties. Each with its own IT systems which were of course different from the others. Now there are only 5 regions. One would think that would solve many problems. But no. It seems we still have a long way to go.

As for medicine I have to take a train for one and a half hour each way every 6 weeks to get my pens. Why? "It's procedure, can't be changed". Except the last time when they gave me 8. Probably because someone went on holiday and wouldn't be back in time.

I don't mind riding the train, listening to some music, having a beer and reading a book. And it's all being paid for.
It's just this waist of time and ressources that get's to me!

It does seem to be so many ineffeciencies built in to the sysem..... - heck most of the stuff I buy online, I can arrange to have delivered to the newsagents up the road or to the shop at the other end of the road, depending basically if its Amazon or EBay its coming from... so why can't the med company do a click and collect service? or just suppy the pens direct to the pharmacy we walk to once a month anyhow, to get all my tablet meds and eye drops and stuff... - the new pens dont' even require refridgeration so its not like the pens I'm using at the moemnt, that have to come in massive boxes stuffed full of frozen blocks of ice gel packs (5 to 12 degrees C I tink they have to be), the new pens oughta be fine up to about 25 degrees C I guess, as the powder (GH), isn't mixed with the liquid (water?) until you activity the pen, and mix the two chambres together anyhow, once I've got the new pens, I might actually be able to leave the city again and go places and travel albeit with a huge quantity of tablets, eyedrops, injection pens, p needles, travel sharps bin, plus emergency IM injection stuff for the other drugs M kitchen is starting to look like a pharmacy now

Gone are the days when you could make do with a carry on suitcase for a short trip. Well maybe you still can. But then you'll need a regular trunk for the meds

I just take less other stuff.... in order to fit the meds on! I smuggled my hyperdemic needles through last time I flew... by mistake... oops!