Tired of shit

Today was a tough day. It was one of those days that just started and it felt like 5 minutes till it ended, but at the same time you had to struggle to get through each moment.

I’m tired of looking patients in the eye and telling them we have no wheelchairs and we don’t know when we will have. I’m tired of struggling to fix problems which should take 15 minutes in a normal hospital but takes half an hour in mine because there is no equipment, the equipment that there is, is broken, and the equipment that works no one knows how to operate and if there is someone you have to spend half a morning begging them to take a break from “tea time” and come and help you. I’m tired of referring patients to social workers, physiotherapists, audiologists and what have you, knowing that they will either not be seen or just be glanced at. I’m tired of struggling against a system that’s given up.

Somehow I understand why people are so demotivated and just don’t work. If your boss is sneaking off early through the wards so no one will se her, sitting in the kitchen having tea the whole time and gossiping about her sex life it’s hard to be motivated to work. If money is cut from every department and every piece of equipment you need but people get to go on R16 000 courses in the cape, but no one wants to pay your housing allowance, you struggle to want to give something back. If I were working for the state, the hospital, my boss or whatever I’d give up as well. I have to remind myself constantly that I’m working for God. It’s so hard to be his hands and feet when none of the other body parts are working. To sit in a kitchen celebrating someone’s birthday with almost 15 other people and only one of them bothering to speak English so you can be included in the coversation. To fight the same fight again and again. To hit your head against the same wall again and again. And I’m not even particularly fond of occupational therapy in the first place.

Today I’m just tired of running around fixing everyone’s crap and doing everyone’s dirty work while I don’t even get to do my own work well because it’s simply impossible to get anything done in that horrible hospital! I’m tired of bosses looking the other way and people in places of authority not doing their work and taking responsibility for what they signed up for. It’s not fair that, just because they don’t have money, people should get sub-standards service and die of curable diseases! People shouldn’t be treated that way just because they’re sick and they don’t know that they’re entitled to better. And I simply hate that there’s nothing I can do about it.