Why People Come Here

I think people come to the hospital in case they code. They call blue codes from the most random places here.

This afternoon I heard the familiar and disturbingly annoying sound that means someone is about to die if you don't hurry your ass and respond to the code. The announcer said, "Adult blue cart to the American Family Children's Hospital lobby by the elevator near the information desk." They must repeat this information about four or five times in case you forgot to listen the first three.

About ten minutes later the code tone sounds again and the guy says, "Adult medical response team to American Family Children's Hospital elevator lobby." Over and over. And I had to wonder, they got a blue cart, did the response team not show up with the cart? Did they drop off the cart and leave? Did they say, "here, you guys are pediatric docs, but you should be able to figure this out. I'm gonna go get a cup of coffee"???

I have heard codes called in the surgical waiting area, the cafeteria, the information desk in the clinics lobby. This evening they called a code to "The 2nd floor near the ENT clinic." Hope they all know where ENT is. I do, but that doesn't mean the staff does.

Some of my favorite places people have decided to fall over and have their heart stop beating include the clinics lobby, the Java Hut in the clinics lobby, any of the many elevators, and of course, the parking garage. The other day, "Adult blue cart to the hospital entrance between the building and the parking garage, sort of by that column over there... no that's too far, closer to the rock bed than to the valet parking. There you go!"

So maybe I'm exaggerating the extent of the description for that one, but I swear it was that long. And people code in the parking garage and between there and the hospital entrance all the time.

Now if people falling over near death were funny, this would be the exact situation in which to laugh. Geeze, this is a hospital. Can't you die somewhere else where it doesn't interrupt my nap?

Comments

Anonymous said…
I had a code blue across the hall from me once. I happened to be at PFT's at the time though and heard it on the PA while i was there. The room was empty when i returned and they were cleaning it. Never really completely figured out what happened, if she died or if she went to surgery and got move to a different room. But she was a CF patient too. So that was kind of scary. Whenever I'm in there usually seems to be a few code reds as well which are fire alarms. Those are always interesting because i take out my scanner and then hear the fire department dispatch the crews to the hospital and listen to the hospital security and such respond to the incident. Then i look out the window and watch the fire trucks arrive. That always makes things interesting. It always seems to be a false alarm. And i know more about whats going on in the hospital at that time than most of the staff around me, that's fun.

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