The Helper

While I'm doing the little rant at patients, I thought there was someone else worth a mention.

The Helper.

I'm not talking about First Aid, or a Doctor or Nurse (or Paramedic!) who is there helping out - I'm talking about the friend(s)/family of the patient who do nothing but get in the way, distract you from treating and generally make a nuisance of themselves. While I'll admit they can play a vital role in maintaining the support of the patient, more often than not they end up doing the exact opposite. Here's a few stories of what I've encountered so far.

I was at a local event and, for reasons I won't go into, had to move a patient via stretcher. I had another member there but the patient was quite rotund (patient to stretcher ratio of about 1.6). Luckily we had security nearby but, as I thought at the time, luckier still a member of the public had stepped forward, informed us he was a doctor and would lend a hand for the move.

I thought our doctor was a little clumsy with the stretcher, but didn't think too much of it given St John are known to use some older models (read: discounted) and it was most likely a while since he had used one anyway if he was a GP. After getting our patient to a First Aid post and a handover completed, I thanked our friend and chatted a bit (you might notice we tend to do this a lot). I asked where our Doctor worked, to which he replied Hospital A. I followed the usual routine of asking his specialty to which he replies 'Oh, I'm not that kind of Doctor. I'm an epidemiologist.' Our Doctor was not in fact a medical doctor and actually knew almost nothing about treating patients. He was a numbers doctor. I know the patient just needed to be transported, but boy did I let him have it... I haven't been quick to trust the 'help' from the public since, regardless of what they say they do.

The next case comes from a concert where a young man sustained a minor injury but needed observations at a post just to be on the safe side. We moved him over and a friend of the patient tagged along. Along the way I continued to ask our patient questions, to which the friend kept answering. Things like 'Where does it hurt', 'On a scale of 1 to 10' and 'Did you notice anything when you fell?' were all answered initially by the friend until I cut them off and asked the patient to answer. To make things worse, the friend decided to continually spice things up by attempting to use anatomical terms and medical abbreviations which were either completely wrong, mispronounced or physically impossible. I'm yet to find the clavicle in someone's knee - but I haven't given up yet.

Moral of this story? We understand that you're trying to help - but when we ask the patient a question, we'd like the patient - and unless they're unconscious or have omitted a major detail only the patient to answer.

The last story I'll mention goes back to one of my very early duties where a young girl and her mother were brought into First Aid, where we quickly discovered the mother spoke not a single word of English and relied on her daughter to translate. It was obvious the daughter was used to this arrangement and for a 12 year old was very mature about the entire thing. While the actual problem was rather minor but a little embarrassing, I was sure I could have it sorted out in no time. That was, at least, until the rest of the family arrived.

Around 12 of them poured into the very small post and were yelling at each other in order to try to gain the most attention. I think that's what happened at least, because none of them spoke English except for our aforementioned 12 year old. After trying myself to get their attention (which they politely ignored) I turned to the girl to find out at least what on earth they were arguing about. After much hand waving and more than a little pushing back out of the room, I got the girl to tell them to wait outside unless something was also wrong with them or unless they had something very important to tell me - but that other than that they would have to leave us alone for a few minutes. As predicted, the actual problem was solved very quickly and they were both out the door before the rest of the family could storm the room once more.

The final moral of today is this - even if you're not answering for the patient, sometimes just being there and being noisy is enough to cause us problems. We understand you're concerned for your friend or family member, but please let us do our job in some kind of peace.


Going back to my biochemistry roots;
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. (Credit)