To the Editor:
My wife had a four-day stay – 6:30 to 11:30 in ER (5 hours) before getting into a room – nursing staff generally OK – the biggest problem was at discharge. It’s even harder to get out than to get in – we were told that discharge would be by 11 a.m. – we finally got out at 6:30 p.m. (seven hours late) – for some reason, there was only one doctor that could authorize discharge and he could not be found in spite of the valiant effort of nurses and nurse supervisor.
In this case the AWOL doctor also had his own private practice, obviously splitting his time to do both. Is this necessary because of a doctor shortage? Why is discharge confined to only one doctor to sign off?
Aren’t all patient notes in the computer? The hospital is well aware of their problems and letters like this one have been posted for years, so why isn’t it improving? It’s not nursing and other staff, it falls on administration to fix it so please get it fixed. We need our Villages hospital and are grateful for it. There should be no reason why it cannot be as efficient as it is beautiful.
Al Baughn
Village of Belle Aire
