A few days in Hospital
Azlina or (was it?) Zalina.
She was the Staff Nurse who looked after me and 7 others on the 5th Floor (MGW-5) of Ampang Putri Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur when I was admitted from Monday 26 July through Thursday 29 July 2004. There were other Nurses of course but she stood out because she had this small stature, dedicated, having a very pleasant personality and kept her cool despite the many needs of the patients. She was from Setiu Trengganu, when I asked where she was from. But being not very health at that time I did not really take notice of her name, thus the uncertainty of the name mentioned. When I was discharged on Thursday, she was not on duty.
What stood out was one night one of the patients shouted out, "What kind of hospital is this, one Nurse looking after 8 patients". She was that one Nurse. She calmly told him, "A mother can look after 8 children (so can she look after 8 patients)". And she did very well.
Friday 23/07 I woke up with a very uncomfortable feeling, aching body, splitting headache and hard warm breath. I thought, well maybe the weather was playing on me so, I did not really bother. By about 8.00 am when I was about to get up I felt the real fever coming. But of course my pride did not allow me to admit that I was ill. I had my normal warm shower and my usual breakfast of oat, corn flake and roughage with milk and my toasted soft spread margarine bread pieces. After that I was almost down and out. It was a Friday and I thought I should still be able to go the Mosque in the afternoon for Friday Prayer. As a precaution I went to the Doctors. The Doctors gave me Paracetamol and told me to go home and rest. So I rested, I thought but I could not. The fever became more intense and I tried to sleep through it. Nothing doing, and by the evening I was swinging from fever to sweating to fever despite taking the medicine the Doctors gave me.
The next morning, Saturday, it was the same, no effect despite my religiously taking the Paracetamol given by the Doctor, every 6 hours. I then asked my wife to drive me to another Doctor, for a second opinion, though I have not lost faith in the first Doctor. We went to another nearby Doctor. And the she Doctor suspected me of having denggi fever. She tested but no red spot came out. She also tested my glucose level and it was at 20 (mmole/l I suppose). That was pretty high as well. (I have not done this test for a long time now). And she asked me to go to the nearest Hospital to be admitted in case I had denggi fever, as well as to treat my high glucose level. She wrote a report asking me to give that report to the Hospital Doctor. Anyway it was already late Saturday evening so we just went home. I still with high fever, and the second Doctor did not give me any medicine.
I suffered through Sunday. By the Sunday evening somehow the fever subsided and my wife drove me to another Doctor, on my request. This time a Doctor whom I have never been to but I was told the Clinic has a better reputation. Anyway the (also she) Doctor said that if it was true that I have denggi fever, have a denggi blood tested at a Clinic somewhere close by, blood count test. But before leaving she gave me Vitamin C tablets for health and some Voltran tablets to keep the pain away. So we drove to the Clinic she suggested. They took some blood sample, tested it and found no sign of denggi fever. But the young male Doctor over there gave me a more powerful version of Paracetamol. On arriving home I took the medicine he gave. I felt a bit better for the night so I thought that my fever have now been cured.
But by the Monday morning the fever came again and I was in agony. So after checking my Medical l Insurance and my cash flow I told my wife to take me to a private medical centre nearby my house, the Ampang Putri Medical Centre in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur. I have been admitted there before, a few years ago and my wife have also been admitted a few years earlier and later. So we can still some recognise some of the faces over there. Why didn’t I go to the Government. Hospital? I suppose pride did not allow or it was the thought of waiting for hours before you can get to see a Government Doctor at the Hospital or even get admitted that scared me. Government Hospital in Malaysia have such unseemingly dark reputation for being inefficient. But that is only an impression I get from some recent bad experience with relatives who are ill and having to be admitted to Government Hospitals, and I have yet to prove that. But to those who knows no better, these Government Hospital are heaven sent. Anyway, I got admitted to this Ampang Purtri Hospital, and they warded me into 5th Floor, bed MGW - 5. Somehow I felt a sense of being better when I was admitted. Anyway they probe here, poke there, taken my blood and taken my urine etc etc but that did not bother me. I was in a hospital and I have that confidence that the Doctors over there know what to do with me to get me back to normal. I was put under the charge of a Dr Wahab, whom I have not actually met before but have heard of. They found that my glucose level was high and I have some virus in my body which they traced to my urine, one of them at least, and they did not tell me more where those virus may also come from. So I was put on a drip of antibiotic - quite a bit of it. After that it was antibiotic injections and then antibiotic pills. I am now probably full of antibiotics. And of course they give me Panadol to reduce my temperature, took my blood samples periodically to check want else I have in my blood and tested my blood for glucose level. And I complaint of coughing but they thought I had asthma but I did not really suffer from attacks of asthma, but the Doctor still treated me for asthma. Wrong treatment I suppose but I did not protest, the Doctor probably knew better. All became all OK except for my blood glucose level which was swinging from 20 to 14 for the 3 full days I was in the hospital. Despite even when I was injected with 7 units of insulin. I suppose the Doctor gave up on that. As I was healthy enough, except for the glucose level yo-yoing, the Doctor discharged me on the Thursday telling me to be careful on my diet, take proper food to control my glucose level, have a glucometer to check my glucose level and come back in a couple of weeks to see him. So now I have to manage my glucose level.
Being admitted to hospital was no fun. It was a private hospital and I was 1 of 8 patients in the ward. I cannot afford the luxury of 1 person per room like I used to get when I was working for a reputable Co. before I retired a few years ago. And I did not see much of my other fellow patients, I was too ill to care for the first day or two. But I remember the nurses very busy trying to please every patient and also to ensure that the Doctors were briefed properly on each patient’s condition. May I remember 2 or 3 patients well. One was an old men who had a bed south of me. He was a patient who had a heart bypass surgery, and he was about 84 years old, so I heard him telling the Doctors. He moaned and groaned all the time, with pain and when the nurses tried to clean his wounds. He would say a few prayers all the time. This lasted for about 2 days while I was there and he was discharged earlier than I was. He had one of his daughter to look after him and at night he had an Indonesian servant to stay back to look after him. Another patient who was on my right was a young technician who broke a leg when he was involved in a lorry collision. He walked around in crutches, quite healthy except for the broke right leg. Not much that I can remember about him, he was discharged I day earlier than I; except that when he left he must have left his urine container not emptied and when the orderlies tried to clean the floors after he left the urine container must have spilt and it stank to high heaven. My wife have to complain many times before the hospital staff were able to reduce the smell to an acceptable level. And to south west of me was a young fellow who had blood in his urine. He was OK but under treatment. Of other patients I did not see much as I was separated by a wall from them. I only saw them going to the toilet, sickly lot they were. But I remember one particular patient who was very talkative and kept following the cleaning young lady around when she was mopping the floor in the ward. He did not sound sick at all when talking to that young lady, I suppose he was trying very hard to get her attention. Cheap he was.
The facilities? Quite good. I mean when you have to pay for them they have to provide you with something acceptable to you. Normal hospital bed of course, a bit old fashioned, you have to turn a wheel at the foot of the bed to make the bed fold up or down. Each patient is placed in a curtained compartment for privacy, and eating table and some drawers provided. When you are sick such amenities helped. But the food, it was terrible. I suppose I was sick and the food sickened me further. And having high glucose level in the blood, I had to be careful what I ate. And the choice was limited. I went for western food but even then it unpalatable to me. They gave me Asian food earlier but then I could not even stand the smell of them. I was hungry all the time but I survived.
We had common toilets and bathroom. Near me there was 1 shower room, provided with hot and cold water, and two toilets. They were kept reasonably clean, the toilets smell a bit some time, I suppose it cannot be helped when you have many sick men around. They could not really use the toilet properly. Even then by local Malaysian standard the toilets were acceptable, but could have been better. At least they were sitting type of toilet which I was thankful for.
But being a private hospital, visitors were not really controlled. There were people like having parties in the ward and also children were jumping up and down making all sorts of noise in the ward. At least not too to late into the night; by about 9.00 pm it was reasonably quiet. My first couple of nights were quite peaceful in comparison to what happened during the last night of my stay. Anyway I was too ill to worry about happenings in the first day. I only heard the old man groaning and the nurses trying to cool him down while dressing his wounds and while giving him bed-bath. He cursed the nurses loudly sometimes and the nurses tried to joke with him. And his family members who came was quite discipline and they were quite quiet. And the young guy on my right seemed to have been from Sarawak so he did not have to many visitors. One or two who came were either his Manager or his coworkers so they were very civil about it. Of course there were the odd patients who were extroverts, who talked loudly but that was all. But when the old man on my south was discharged, a new post-surgery patient came in. And the family was louder that the previous ‘old man’s’ family. I suppose they could not help it because this new patient had just been operated upon. Kidney I was told. And they came from all over, Melaka and Penang and they also had children with them. But the ‘party’ did not last very long.
But a new guy who was bedded on my right was almost the extreme. He was probably a young man with a very loving family and with many friends as well. It seemed that he was operated on at his knee, the result of a football match so the knee was almost smashed.. When he entered, the whole jim bang came with him, family and all, children and relatives and everybody he ever know. It was real ‘Party Time’ if you can call it that. The friends and relatives consoling him loudly and the children playing and screaming in the ward and along the corridors. They were there until about 9.00 or 10.00 pm. Then when they left at about 10.00 pm two girls crept in. And he had with him a friend accompanying him in case he needed someone to call the Nurse. I could not help it but overheard them talking. I suppose they were there until about 11.00 pm when they needed a drink so they asked the Nurse on duty for a cup of drink. And the girls had brought along a cake with them so they again asked the Nurse for a knife to cut the cake with. The Nurse was very obliging, she was Azlina. They had a bit of a small party of some sort before the girls departed at about 11.30 pm to 12.00 mn. And the boy who was accompanying the sick guy soon left after. Quite an evening and a night for me. Luckily then I had already felt a bit better, but I must admit that I could not sleep until all the ‘merry making’ had abated. And I felt so lucky to be discharged by the Thursday, late morning.
But don’t ask me about the hospital charges, and considering all aspects and how healthy I am today, I suppose the price I paid was low.
To shout back, e-mail: mylias@tm.net.my
She was the Staff Nurse who looked after me and 7 others on the 5th Floor (MGW-5) of Ampang Putri Medical Centre in Kuala Lumpur when I was admitted from Monday 26 July through Thursday 29 July 2004. There were other Nurses of course but she stood out because she had this small stature, dedicated, having a very pleasant personality and kept her cool despite the many needs of the patients. She was from Setiu Trengganu, when I asked where she was from. But being not very health at that time I did not really take notice of her name, thus the uncertainty of the name mentioned. When I was discharged on Thursday, she was not on duty.
What stood out was one night one of the patients shouted out, "What kind of hospital is this, one Nurse looking after 8 patients". She was that one Nurse. She calmly told him, "A mother can look after 8 children (so can she look after 8 patients)". And she did very well.
Friday 23/07 I woke up with a very uncomfortable feeling, aching body, splitting headache and hard warm breath. I thought, well maybe the weather was playing on me so, I did not really bother. By about 8.00 am when I was about to get up I felt the real fever coming. But of course my pride did not allow me to admit that I was ill. I had my normal warm shower and my usual breakfast of oat, corn flake and roughage with milk and my toasted soft spread margarine bread pieces. After that I was almost down and out. It was a Friday and I thought I should still be able to go the Mosque in the afternoon for Friday Prayer. As a precaution I went to the Doctors. The Doctors gave me Paracetamol and told me to go home and rest. So I rested, I thought but I could not. The fever became more intense and I tried to sleep through it. Nothing doing, and by the evening I was swinging from fever to sweating to fever despite taking the medicine the Doctors gave me.
The next morning, Saturday, it was the same, no effect despite my religiously taking the Paracetamol given by the Doctor, every 6 hours. I then asked my wife to drive me to another Doctor, for a second opinion, though I have not lost faith in the first Doctor. We went to another nearby Doctor. And the she Doctor suspected me of having denggi fever. She tested but no red spot came out. She also tested my glucose level and it was at 20 (mmole/l I suppose). That was pretty high as well. (I have not done this test for a long time now). And she asked me to go to the nearest Hospital to be admitted in case I had denggi fever, as well as to treat my high glucose level. She wrote a report asking me to give that report to the Hospital Doctor. Anyway it was already late Saturday evening so we just went home. I still with high fever, and the second Doctor did not give me any medicine.
I suffered through Sunday. By the Sunday evening somehow the fever subsided and my wife drove me to another Doctor, on my request. This time a Doctor whom I have never been to but I was told the Clinic has a better reputation. Anyway the (also she) Doctor said that if it was true that I have denggi fever, have a denggi blood tested at a Clinic somewhere close by, blood count test. But before leaving she gave me Vitamin C tablets for health and some Voltran tablets to keep the pain away. So we drove to the Clinic she suggested. They took some blood sample, tested it and found no sign of denggi fever. But the young male Doctor over there gave me a more powerful version of Paracetamol. On arriving home I took the medicine he gave. I felt a bit better for the night so I thought that my fever have now been cured.
But by the Monday morning the fever came again and I was in agony. So after checking my Medical l Insurance and my cash flow I told my wife to take me to a private medical centre nearby my house, the Ampang Putri Medical Centre in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur. I have been admitted there before, a few years ago and my wife have also been admitted a few years earlier and later. So we can still some recognise some of the faces over there. Why didn’t I go to the Government. Hospital? I suppose pride did not allow or it was the thought of waiting for hours before you can get to see a Government Doctor at the Hospital or even get admitted that scared me. Government Hospital in Malaysia have such unseemingly dark reputation for being inefficient. But that is only an impression I get from some recent bad experience with relatives who are ill and having to be admitted to Government Hospitals, and I have yet to prove that. But to those who knows no better, these Government Hospital are heaven sent. Anyway, I got admitted to this Ampang Purtri Hospital, and they warded me into 5th Floor, bed MGW - 5. Somehow I felt a sense of being better when I was admitted. Anyway they probe here, poke there, taken my blood and taken my urine etc etc but that did not bother me. I was in a hospital and I have that confidence that the Doctors over there know what to do with me to get me back to normal. I was put under the charge of a Dr Wahab, whom I have not actually met before but have heard of. They found that my glucose level was high and I have some virus in my body which they traced to my urine, one of them at least, and they did not tell me more where those virus may also come from. So I was put on a drip of antibiotic - quite a bit of it. After that it was antibiotic injections and then antibiotic pills. I am now probably full of antibiotics. And of course they give me Panadol to reduce my temperature, took my blood samples periodically to check want else I have in my blood and tested my blood for glucose level. And I complaint of coughing but they thought I had asthma but I did not really suffer from attacks of asthma, but the Doctor still treated me for asthma. Wrong treatment I suppose but I did not protest, the Doctor probably knew better. All became all OK except for my blood glucose level which was swinging from 20 to 14 for the 3 full days I was in the hospital. Despite even when I was injected with 7 units of insulin. I suppose the Doctor gave up on that. As I was healthy enough, except for the glucose level yo-yoing, the Doctor discharged me on the Thursday telling me to be careful on my diet, take proper food to control my glucose level, have a glucometer to check my glucose level and come back in a couple of weeks to see him. So now I have to manage my glucose level.
Being admitted to hospital was no fun. It was a private hospital and I was 1 of 8 patients in the ward. I cannot afford the luxury of 1 person per room like I used to get when I was working for a reputable Co. before I retired a few years ago. And I did not see much of my other fellow patients, I was too ill to care for the first day or two. But I remember the nurses very busy trying to please every patient and also to ensure that the Doctors were briefed properly on each patient’s condition. May I remember 2 or 3 patients well. One was an old men who had a bed south of me. He was a patient who had a heart bypass surgery, and he was about 84 years old, so I heard him telling the Doctors. He moaned and groaned all the time, with pain and when the nurses tried to clean his wounds. He would say a few prayers all the time. This lasted for about 2 days while I was there and he was discharged earlier than I was. He had one of his daughter to look after him and at night he had an Indonesian servant to stay back to look after him. Another patient who was on my right was a young technician who broke a leg when he was involved in a lorry collision. He walked around in crutches, quite healthy except for the broke right leg. Not much that I can remember about him, he was discharged I day earlier than I; except that when he left he must have left his urine container not emptied and when the orderlies tried to clean the floors after he left the urine container must have spilt and it stank to high heaven. My wife have to complain many times before the hospital staff were able to reduce the smell to an acceptable level. And to south west of me was a young fellow who had blood in his urine. He was OK but under treatment. Of other patients I did not see much as I was separated by a wall from them. I only saw them going to the toilet, sickly lot they were. But I remember one particular patient who was very talkative and kept following the cleaning young lady around when she was mopping the floor in the ward. He did not sound sick at all when talking to that young lady, I suppose he was trying very hard to get her attention. Cheap he was.
The facilities? Quite good. I mean when you have to pay for them they have to provide you with something acceptable to you. Normal hospital bed of course, a bit old fashioned, you have to turn a wheel at the foot of the bed to make the bed fold up or down. Each patient is placed in a curtained compartment for privacy, and eating table and some drawers provided. When you are sick such amenities helped. But the food, it was terrible. I suppose I was sick and the food sickened me further. And having high glucose level in the blood, I had to be careful what I ate. And the choice was limited. I went for western food but even then it unpalatable to me. They gave me Asian food earlier but then I could not even stand the smell of them. I was hungry all the time but I survived.
We had common toilets and bathroom. Near me there was 1 shower room, provided with hot and cold water, and two toilets. They were kept reasonably clean, the toilets smell a bit some time, I suppose it cannot be helped when you have many sick men around. They could not really use the toilet properly. Even then by local Malaysian standard the toilets were acceptable, but could have been better. At least they were sitting type of toilet which I was thankful for.
But being a private hospital, visitors were not really controlled. There were people like having parties in the ward and also children were jumping up and down making all sorts of noise in the ward. At least not too to late into the night; by about 9.00 pm it was reasonably quiet. My first couple of nights were quite peaceful in comparison to what happened during the last night of my stay. Anyway I was too ill to worry about happenings in the first day. I only heard the old man groaning and the nurses trying to cool him down while dressing his wounds and while giving him bed-bath. He cursed the nurses loudly sometimes and the nurses tried to joke with him. And his family members who came was quite discipline and they were quite quiet. And the young guy on my right seemed to have been from Sarawak so he did not have to many visitors. One or two who came were either his Manager or his coworkers so they were very civil about it. Of course there were the odd patients who were extroverts, who talked loudly but that was all. But when the old man on my south was discharged, a new post-surgery patient came in. And the family was louder that the previous ‘old man’s’ family. I suppose they could not help it because this new patient had just been operated upon. Kidney I was told. And they came from all over, Melaka and Penang and they also had children with them. But the ‘party’ did not last very long.
But a new guy who was bedded on my right was almost the extreme. He was probably a young man with a very loving family and with many friends as well. It seemed that he was operated on at his knee, the result of a football match so the knee was almost smashed.. When he entered, the whole jim bang came with him, family and all, children and relatives and everybody he ever know. It was real ‘Party Time’ if you can call it that. The friends and relatives consoling him loudly and the children playing and screaming in the ward and along the corridors. They were there until about 9.00 or 10.00 pm. Then when they left at about 10.00 pm two girls crept in. And he had with him a friend accompanying him in case he needed someone to call the Nurse. I could not help it but overheard them talking. I suppose they were there until about 11.00 pm when they needed a drink so they asked the Nurse on duty for a cup of drink. And the girls had brought along a cake with them so they again asked the Nurse for a knife to cut the cake with. The Nurse was very obliging, she was Azlina. They had a bit of a small party of some sort before the girls departed at about 11.30 pm to 12.00 mn. And the boy who was accompanying the sick guy soon left after. Quite an evening and a night for me. Luckily then I had already felt a bit better, but I must admit that I could not sleep until all the ‘merry making’ had abated. And I felt so lucky to be discharged by the Thursday, late morning.
But don’t ask me about the hospital charges, and considering all aspects and how healthy I am today, I suppose the price I paid was low.
To shout back, e-mail: mylias@tm.net.my
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