Blackmail. Strong word that may upset some people if they read on.There's no sex or swearing in what I hope to write but many may disagree with my views.
I am angry and confused about doctors, nurses and patients. I was brought up to believe that doctors were supposed to be there for patients who felt ill and wanted help. Doctors were trained to know about illness and what treatments were available. No doctor could know it all so there were hospital specialists or consultants. Nurses were there to look after patients, care for them, give them the medicines the doctors prescribed, feed them if necessary, keep the patients clean and so on. Patients were there to be helped, explained-to, treated with dignity as though they were important to the doctors and nurses.
You get the drift? Things have changed. Medicine and surgery are now high-technologies. Technicians are trained to do many things to, (not with), patients and technicians are often not doctors or nurses. So much is possible that cost gets in the way, waiting for test results and seeing the doctors is the norm. The patient has become a number, a piece of meat to be handled or cooked or drugged. Are you still with me?
Today I had a phone call from a nurse, at least I didn't as I was in the garden working, on my wall. Doing all the heavy stuff myself without motor or electric powered equipment. My wife took the call and said she'd fetch me to call the nurse back. I tried, first the number my wife had written down, -recorded message unreadable to me. Second the hospital switchboard, another recorded message. So I managed to hold on until an operator came who asked what I wanted. Yes, what I wanted! I said I'd like to speak to the oncology nurse who had phoned me from the same hospital minutes before. Gave her name, title and department. The nurse came on the line some minutes later. "I'm the Trials Nurse" , she said. "Your oncologist asked me to phone you and ask you if you had changed your mind about the trial." I said "no, I haven't changed my mind and I would need to see the consultant first so he could explain it to me again. I found it difficult to follow him last time". That was just part of the phone call which was polite and pleasant on both sides but I was furious afterwards.
Why was a nurse I had never met phoning me? My oncologist must have told her about me even though I said to him I would need time to think about the trial and have more information. So I was just a number to be recruited into the trial. Patient confidentiality did not exist. I ended the call with "I'm not about to expire and I was working outside on my garden wall when you first phoned. Sorry to have missed you the first time." She was pleasant, laughed and said she was pleased that I was doing things.
Trials on patients remind me of being a student. I was 'volunteered' for a drug trial without my agreement. Worse still, one of my room-mates did the 'volunteering' of me without my permission. I refused. But I felt that I was being blackmailed to enter that trial with the threat of not getting good grades in my finals or a good job to follow if I refused. So now. I feel pressured to comply this time. Someone is gaining from this trial financially or professionally or both. The drug firms are in it for the money and it may be that the researchers will hope for professional advancement if the trial goes well, is well received on publication and heralds another 'breakthrough' in medicine. If I don't comply the threat is that I am at least letting people down and at worst may be treated less well in many ways than those who do comply. That is blackmail of a vulnerable patient.
At least being angry made me feel much better and more active for a while.
