Just an Observation...

After being admitted to labor an delivery, a nurse of some sort enters with a checklist to ask me a series of questions including; family medical history, any alergies I might have, my prenatal medical history, and so on. She leaves. Moments later another nurse enters and asks the same questions. Followed by a third nurse, again the same questions, give or take a few, only this time in a different order. Why so many people doing the same job? After all, aren't there people waiting in the ER that you could be tending to?

After the pain, drama and drugs are over with, I'm moved to a public ward room for the remainder of my stay. While lying in my hospital bed, alone, listening, thinking, I hear the hushed conversation of several maternity nurses exchanging stories about other patients. Their tones sound snobby, immature, and mean. I can't quite make out what they say, something embarassing happened, a patient confided in her nurse. She is now being gossiped, and laughed about by people believed to be understanding, sympathetic, and caring. What about patient confidentiality? Maybe there is no such thing within the medical staff. Don't they have work to do? I become annoyed. Maybe there shouldn't be so many of them here tonight if there is not enough work to occupy them all.

In deciding not to nurse my second born, (after a clogged milk duct led to an infection which in turn led to an absess) I am brought small 4 or 5 oz jars of infant formula, which I am to feed her by pouring 1 oz (the most she and most other newborns will eat at a time before spitting up, then falling asleep) into a disposible bottle, using a disposible nipple. I ask the nurse if the rest should go back to the refridgerator, she looks down at me, "Just throw the rest out" she says as if I should already know. Throw it out? I think of the starving kids in the third world, only because of my mother "you eat your food!", she'd say. "All those kids, starving...". What a waste, I think to myself. It's not as if I expect it to become community milk within the ward. I mean how hard would if be to put a sticker on it distinguashing it as mine only. I leave it on the basinet cart. A fresh unopened bottle comes back with my baby along with another disposible bottle and nipple.

I am bought a menu of sorts, and am to select what I would like to eat for the upcoming meals. I circle what I want. What I like. The following morning mealtime comes, most everything is wrong, I don't eat it. I hear my mother. I still don't eat it. I'm picky. I remember the same thing happening last time I was here, "the nutritionist didn't appove of your selections" says my nurse. Then why give me a choice? I offer my carton of milk, unopened back to the orderly, I'd rather get myself some iced water. "Just throw it out" he says. I leave it on my tray, unable to throw it in the garbage, it is taken away, and sits in the hall for hours. What a waste.

Late morning an array of seemingly endless people representing a variety of groups and organizations stop to see me (and every other new comer). They deliver booklets, and coupons, and informative sheets that I set aside. I later sort through, deciding what is of any value. I end up filling the plastic bag left by The Welcome Wagon with crumbled paper products I intend to discard, presuming they recycle paper at least. I am left with only an envelope of things I deem useful. Coupons and such. I fall asleep and awaken to an orderly emptying the trash bin. The Welcome Wagon bag is gone. It has undoubtedly already been added to the orderly's garbage bag. "Excuse me", I say. I hear the orderly speak simultaneously to a nurse at the desk just outside my ward room, I hear laughter, followed by the sqweeking of the dolly's wheels.

When I feel able to, I begin walking to the patient's refridgerator and storing the excess formula there in a grocery bag, I end up taking home 4 nearly full bottles later that evening. I also begin rinsing out the plastic feeding bottles I am otherwise to dispose of. I bring those home too.

My daughter is 3 1/2 months old now, obviously I still find the excessive wastefulness that takes place daily at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital apalling. Apparently this wastefulness isn't just taking place here in Fredericton, but all across Canada. Below is a pie chart published by the Saskatchewan Waste Reduction Council demonstrating typical hospital waste.