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Wednesday, August 21, 2002An analysis ordered by the hospital's former public-safety director last year showed that the risk of being robbed at Harborview and its surrounding clinics and offices was 10 times higher than in the rest of King County. The risk of being assaulted was five times higher. Across the board, Harborview had higher levels of risk for every major crime than the national, state and local averages for those crimes. Hospital officials don’t want the fringe-elements among their patient population to be offended or frightened by the sight of uniformed, armed guards, so they don’t let their security guards wear uniforms, and the only weapon they carry is a collapsible metal baton. The patients, however, are another matter: Last year, the nightly weapons checks picked up more than 2,100 objects that could be used as weapons, including 32 guns, 1,591 knives and other sharp-edged tools, 197 pepper-spray canisters and 318 other "makeshift" objects. And that’s only what’s confiscated in the night. With childlike naivete the hospital administration believes that the sun protects against the evil that lurks in the heart of men. They only allow searching for weapons at night, between the hours of 8PM and 5AM - the only hours, presumably, when bogey men walk the earth. Not surprisingly, it isn’t a safe place to be an employee or a patient: Emergency-room nurse Charles Wiley remembers the chill that ran through him after treating a suicidal man who had his stomach pumped. "He said, 'Charles, I'm going to track you down. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill your family. You will regret this day that I was in the emergency room.' It's been 18 months, and thank God nothing's happened." ....Last month, a patient threatened to stab a man with a syringe because the man refused his request for a cigarette on the sidewalk outside the emergency room. ..Dozens of angry people swarmed into the emergency room following a shooting. At least two people in the crowd were carrying guns, and one man waiting in the ER pulled a gun when the crowd swarmed in. ...Earlier this year, medical staff did not notify police or public safety after discovering that a male psychiatric patient had possibly assaulted a 21-year-old female psychiatric patient. Safety officers learned of the incident only when a sexual-assault examiner approached them. When the same patient was sexually assaulted by a different male patient six days later, reports indicate, the supervisor for the unit told staff not to cooperate with the investigation into the incident .. But in November, after a nurse was abducted while walking to her car and subsequently raped, the hospital told employees that public safety had stepped up uniformed and undercover patrols in the neighborhood. In fact, it had not, according to former Sgt. Cerda and others with first-hand knowledge of the situation. The hospital adminstration has allowed the concept of sanctuary to be hijacked by the criminal element amongst them, both patients and staff. No one, regardless of their moral depravity, should be denied medical care, but neither should moral depravity be condoned and tolerated. True Medical Charity: Meanwhile, half a world away, the Israelis set a better example of medical charity, as described by Larry Miller: Downstairs, before we left, the head of the hospital, an Israeli named Audrey, was showing me the children's waiting room. I couldn't help but notice, all around, an Arab woman with her son, an Arab family over there checking in, Arab children playing with the toys while waiting. The doctor saw the look on my face and laughed. "Oh, yes, we treat everyone." I guess I was astonished. She just shrugged. "We're Jews. This is how we live. It's also for the future. They're not going anywhere, and we're not going anywhere. There will eventually be peace. There has to be." When? A month? A year? A hundred years? More? She didn't know. I had to say it. You're incredible. You take everyone, you treat everyone, no one goes first, no one goes last, you just go in order of who needs help. That's, like, Mother Teresa stuff. "We're not saints, we're just doing our jobs. It's not easy, I admit. And it gets hard when they cheer when the bodies are brought in." I looked at her. What did you say? She sighed. "Yes, it gets hard when they cheer." They may put up with the cheering, but I’m sure they check people for bombs before letting them through the doors. posted by Sydney on 8/21/2002 07:19:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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