After a week, we received a laconic response from the director of St. Luke’s Hospital in Bolesławiec to our question about the lack of a doctor on 1 May and the sending home of a patient with a high fever from the Emergency Department. We published the reader’s information in the article Reader: “So much money is being pumped into the hospital, and they won’t help because there is no doctor!”.
We asked several times for explanations and kept being told that the staff were off work. On Tuesday, 2 May, we called the hospital several times. The patient affairs specialist’s phone was constantly busy. It was only on 8 May that we learned that the phone had discharged and the specialist had the day off. Another hospital employee, whom we also called on 2 May, said that she had forwarded the inquiry email to the person responsible, but when asked whether that person would answer us, she fell silent.
Finally, on Monday, 8 May, we managed to contact the patient affairs specialist, who promised to respond on Tuesday. We waited for a response on Tuesday and on Wednesday almost until the end of the hospital administration’s working day. Eventually, we decided to publish the article without that response. Immediately after its publication, within an hour, we received a response from the hospital director.
It was laconic, but at least it was on official letterhead:
With reference to the notification sent by email on 2 May this year concerning the provision of services in the Emergency Department on 1 May 2023, I hereby inform you that none of the patients who reported to the department was sent away without information being collected about their state of health or without an examination. On 1 May 2023, doctor Łukasz Bilaszewski was on duty in the Emergency Department.
Director Kamil Barczyk
We can only imagine what “collecting information about the state of health” looked like in the case of the patient with a fever. A simulated conversation:
– I have a fever of almost 40°C – the patient.
– Based on the information collected about your state of health, you should return home and see your family doctor tomorrow – someone in the Emergency Department. – I will also take your temperature. Yes, after examining you, I inform you that you have a fever of almost 40 degrees. Please return home and see your family doctor tomorrow.
A prayer to St. Luke for healing and support is provided below. It is best to learn it by heart while you are healthy. Learning is difficult when you are ill, and that is when you will need it most.