Facing hospitalization in family?
[Note: This is an old post I had started writing back in 2006, revising and publishing it only now]
God forbid, that should not happen with you, but we face this situation some or the other time in our life. It takes a lot of things to pass through this phase, and this collection of items would help you survive.
- Be on time
- When you tell the patient that someone will reach hospital at so-and-so time, make sure someone reaches at that time. The patient usually won't have clue why you are getting late.
- Keep cool
- It's easy to panic by various things during the hospitalization. It is utmost important not to let it reach the patient.
- Ensure some cash with the person accompanying the patient
- Many-a-times doctors ask you to get some medicines quickly and if you don't have enough money, then you waste time in arranging for the money and then getting the medicine.
- Take care of yourself
- Just because someone very close to you is hospitalized, doesn't give you any excuse not to look after yourself. If you can stay healthy, then only you can take care of the patient. Otherwise, you will need to get admitted and causing more worry to the patient and others in the family.
- Whenever time permits, fill your stomach with some nutritious stuff such as fruits/juices or some lumpsome meal. Idea is you might not get a chance even to look at the food for next 12 hours. So if you find time and if you are hungry, fill your stomach.
- Inform the close relatives as early as possible
- There is no point in hiding thing from your 'close' relatives. Sooner you inform them, better for them to get prepared and ready, in case travel is required.
- If you call up the closed ones late, suspicion. builds on the other side. The recipients may get jittery - are we getting all the information? Specially, if it wasn't serious, why were we not informed earlier? and things like that.
- You could be right with your stand that there's no point in telling others if you yourself do not have clarity. However, persons sitting at the other end of the city or in different city, need some time to get ready for required travel and hence letting them know at the earliest helps.
- Be patient with the hospital staff
- Hospital is such a place that most of the people around are worried for some or the other things. The staff also gets irritated at times by staying in such environment. Keeping your patience only can help you get the required attention and service. No point in making noise at wrong place/people.
- Understand the rules of Hospital
- Specially in big hospitals, they have some set rules for visitor timings, number of persons that can accompany patients etc. Understand them and adhere to them as much as possible. By all chances the rules have been set considering the patients' health and fast recovery.
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