Review Finds Increase in Hospital Clients Leaving Against Advice
September 21st, 2009
A principle component of useful and sound health care, whether working with medicine or with psychotherapy, is that treatment should be voluntary. The choice to leave a hospital is ultimately up to the client, but health professionals may furnish a recommendation. Recently, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that the rate of clients choosing to leave the hospital against the advice of their physician or other healthcare professional has steeply inclined in recent years. Experiencing a rise of almost forty percent, the rate suggests that hospital clients, among them those experiencing mental health difficulties or emergencies, should be given more thorough information and consultation.
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Respect for the expertise of medical professionals nowadays is sorely lacking. When I was young what the doctor said was law. You didn’t deviate from the treatment suggested and you certainly didn’t challenge their diagnosis or advice.
Some people are just so into their work that even illness cannot keep them away from it. For some others, it is their unwillingness to actually get well. Strange as it may sound, but some people want death to embrace them at the slightest of provocations… These are not healthy signs, and if the figures of this report are anything to go by, hospital workers, counsellors and doctors need more patience in trying to explain to the patients just how wrong their decision of going home sooner can be.
Hello Sugarlove
Your kind of “God Complex” for Doctors is why, in my opinion, you would be unacceptable as a medical provider.
You wrote, “When I was young what the doctor (sic) said was law. You didn’t deviate from the treatment suggested and you certainly didn’t challenge their diagnosis or advice.”
With all due respect,
* what the Doctor says is not law: It is medical opinion and advice.
* I consult with my Physician, and we discuss his advice. Then I make an informed decision about following/not following that advice.
* As an informed consumer/patient, I decide if I will deviate from the treatment suggested.
* I read my chart, and I point out errors to my Physician. After we discuss those errors, he holographically corrects them.
* I have a copy of my chart — my entire chart — from every Doctor/clinic/hospital that provides me services. Does HIPPA come to your mind?
As I began, I wouldn’t consider you to be competent in the field of medicine.
P.S. My Doctor is a phenomenally good physician, and I have great respect for his abilities.
Perhaps we need to start by asking about why clients are leaving the hospital earlier than their providers are recommending. It may have to do with work or death wishes, but may also have to do with finances, nursing shortages, two working parents in a household so that childcare is an issue, quality of care at the hospital, or other reasons I cannot imagine.
I agree with A. sceptic that the ideal relationship with healthcare providers is a partnership, and so we need to be careful about blaming one side or the other, especially considering the other players in the room–hospital staff, insurance companies, families, etc.
A Sceptic, you said: “As I began, I wouldn’t consider you to be competent in the field of medicine.”
That’s good then, because neither would I. Your need to repeat it infers you assumed I am a medical provider.
Did I claim to be a doctor? No I did not. Let’s be absolutely clear here. I’m not in any way shape or form a medical provider.
Did I say don’t question them? No I did not.
Please refrain from jumping to conclusions and assume I’m speaking from that perspective or have a God complex for doctors. It was an observation of how things have changed.
Doctors are human too and make mistakes, of course they do.
Anyone who is not a doctor however – unless extremely arrogant – cannot assume, no matter how much they read, to know as much as a doctor does about medicine. I’m talking about having respect for their years of dedication and training. Nowhere did I say follow them blindly. There’s a difference.
Hey Sugarlove, didn’t you get the memo? Since the Net came online, everybody’s an expert LOL.
I know Yolanda jests however her point is valid, as is Sugarlove’s and A. Sceptic’s. Patients don’t have to rely on the doctor’s knowledge alone and that’s a good thing. What’s missing is politeness. You can challenge or disregard medical advice without being belligerent. I’ve heard tales from nurses on ER shifts on a Saturday night that would make your hair curl about abusive(and often drunken) patients.
It would be interesting to know how many of those patients returned within days because they went against the advice.
Its basically that – the ultimate choice is the client’s and the more medically educated you are, the more you lean towards your own wisdom.
Did it occur to them that the patient may be unable to pay for a stay in hospital and left only because of that? About one in five patients who left against medical advice were uninsured. That’s what it said.
Harriet, that still leaves four out of five that had insurance who left and didn’t have to. The more telling sentence is that the majority were men. I don’t know one man who will go to the doctor of his own accord. Where this attitude about health sprung from amongst men I’m unsure but it’s irresponsible at best and life endangering at worst.
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