good news

just a quick update. i'm happy to announce that the patient posted about in the two previous posts has been operated and is doing well. things transpired slowly, but at least they did transpire.

after i left, the patient lay in the icu for a week before they mannaged to get an icu bed available in pretoria. just before she went there, there was another amazing administrative blunder. the pretoria icu bed became available over the weekend. because the transfer was from one province to another, the pretoria people insisted that the super from this hospital give final consent. (this has to do with who will be paying in the end, mpumalanga province or gauteng province). the icu doctor phoned the ceo of the hospital who was the super on call to give the ok. she stated that it was not an emergency and could wait until the morning. unlike me she hadn't seen the patient lying with a tube in her throat and fear in her eyes. her sleep meant more to her than the patient. so another day went by. fortunately the next day the icu bed in pretoria hadn't been taken and the patient was transferred.

in pretoria the patient got her operation. i'm surprised to say that it was done cervically and no sternotomy was needed, so both sid and buckeye were right. thanks for your input, guys.

anyway, although there was more than a week's unneccessary delay, all's well that ends well.