Late last night, or early this morning, I wrote a letter. Whether I'll send it or not, I don't know. I wrote it to the Patient Relations Representative at St. Peter's Hospital. Curiously, the position of any patient representative or advocate is notably obscured from view. No one acknowledged such, a difference from my previous experience, where the patient met with an advocate pre-admission, and she provided assurances and contact information. Nothing like that this time, not a mention in the handouts of materials: I looked through each page. Maybe this is why they receive few complaints, I think.
I searched the website and finally found a reference to patient representative, but when I opened the site, it merely mentioned that there was such, no name was given, only a telephone number to call. I called the number to ask who the patient representative was and the person answering the phone gave only the tersest information. "Who?" She gave a name. "How to contact? Email?" She said by mail. "Address?" Stated an address. *** I'm the patient, dammit, looking for a representative--is that too much to ask? Someone is getting paid for that position, one would assume. Bring her into the light of day.
In any case, I don't believe that contacting a patient representative can have any benefit for the concerns of a hospital patient. I think the purpose of that position is to assess any potential for lawsuits, either through deflection or through gathering any contradictory or unsubstantiated bits of information.
No comments:
Post a Comment