I Really Would Like to Know

Two calls -- one I don't remember and the other that is burning me.

We are on the way back from the getting something to eat and stuck in a line of traffic when a car going the other way flags us down. The man says his wife is bleeding and needs directions to the hospital. We offer to take her. She gets out and it is readily apparent she is pregnant. I get her in the back and she tells me she is due for a ceasarian in a week. She is a complete placenta previa, and her doctor has told her if she starts bleeding, she has to get to the hospital right away. "She said I could bleed to death," the woman tells me.

In a complete placenta previa, the placenta covers the cerfix with the baby behind it, instead of the baby against the cerfix with the placenta behind the baby.

So we race lights and sirens to the hospital. The woman's panties and sweatpants are damp with bright red blood. I get her stripped and into a hospital johnny. It looks to me like part of the placenta is starting to deliver. I do not see any gushing of blood. She says she can feel the baby move down. She keeps repeating, "We're not going to make it."

Her skin is warm and dry, her vitals good. I assure her she will be okay, while I put in a large bore IV. I don't have much experience with placenta previa. She looks okay to me. The baby -- I don't know.

I call the hospital, and once we get there we go right up to the Labor and Delivery floor.

I tell them what is going on, they whisk us into a room. I get the woman off the stretcher onto their bed, then immediately I am aware of them staring at me, as I pick the straps up to get them out of the way of the wheels. "Yes?" I say.

"Thank you," they say again, but they keep staring at me.

The sheet I have placed over the woman is still there. The doctors and the nurses have made no move to pull it back to inspect the patient. They all continue to stare at my partner and I. I get it now. They are waiting for us to leave before they begin their examination of this woman, who I have already undressed, put into a hospital gown, and placed a trauma dressing around her like a diaper, after examining the protrudance coming out of her. As we go out, I hear a nurse tell another nurse to see that the door is closed.

Outside, I find a chair to write my report. I am not there five minutes when a nurse tells me it will be quite a while. "Excuse me," I say, "I am just writing my report up. My report for her medical records file."

"Oh," she says.

When I hand my report to the nurse -- I am not even going to try to go into the room to give it to anyone -- I ask another nurse who has just come out of the room, how it is going. She looks at me, and smiles, somewhat artificially. "They are all busy in there," she says.

The thing of it is -- I have been through this routine before. I know what this is about. In the ER, paramedics are a part of the team. In L&D, we are backwoodsmen. They are thankful we have brought their patient to them, and we can leave -- the door is that way. Talking to us, it seems is a HIPPA violation. I have brought a near delievery in before where I was staring at the head crowning, and made to leave immediately. Whenever they first see a patient coming in on a stretcher, they talk to the patient, ignoring us. I always step in, start a report and if they will listen, I give all of it. If they blow me off, they blow me off. I do my job -- I keep it short, pertinent, and end -- anything else you need to know will be in my report. they always give that fake smile like a banker who has turned down your loan and wants you to leave the bank quietly.

And it isn't just at one hospital, it is at both major hospitals, and it happens not just to me, but to just about everyone who brings a prehospital patient up there.

I'm tired of it.

I would really like to know how that lady and her baby were doing.

***

The other call I remember now was for a nursing home patient with a big psych history, who was most likely overmedicated.