In the last episode, our friend Doris (64) bolted from the Emergency Department (ED) at Whangarei Hospital after three hours, before her surgical assessment could be delivered. She just could not sit and wait in agony any longer.
Perhaps the reason clients of the health system are called patients is because they require patience. The next day a neighbour, finding it tough to watch her suffer, took her for a gentle massage. Though it didn't cure the pain, the open fire at the premises, the sunny back porch, and the tenderness shown lifted her spirits in a way clinical hospital ambience never does.
By the Friday before Queen's Birthday Weekend, when her pain was 10 weeks old and intensifying, friends and neighbours mounted a coup, kidnapped Doris and returned her under guard to ED at the hospital. Miraculously this time it was not too busy so she was assessed immediately. The first drip-line she'd ever had was installed to administer saline solution. Blood and urine were extracted, painkillers swallowed, a doctor jellied her belly before examining its contents with an ultrasound machine, and spinal x-rays were taken.
Later a young surgeon - who looked eerily like Derek Jacombs of Tauranga-based blues band Kokomo - explained a further CT scan would be required.
Rocking up to radiology the next week for the scan involved sitting for 90 minutes drinking vast quantities of water, the insertion of another drip-line, and then being pushed bodily inside what Doris said felt like a whirring silver jet engine with a robotic voice to tell her when to breathe.
