Is The Gay Cat Back?

So, it is now late on a Tuesday night, but not as late as to the wee hours of the morning. TGC is enjoying her rare ichigo(strawberry) milk despite having the stomach runs earlier, from drinking chocolate milk. Alas, some sacrifices have to be made when it comes to food.

So, TGC is drinking her milk and blogging about her days so far.

She has ended a round of 4 tiring nights and wondering if she had been short-changed of another rest day?  Afterall, she is not supposed to be doing 4 nights in a row since she is not on permanent night duty. Should she overlook this time and credit such rostering to a stressed superior who needed to find trustworthy individuals who can work the night?

TGC wonders.

Today, TGC went to Parkway with her parents and were amused that, despite being there a hundred times, Papa Cat is only now realising that there was an invasion of eastern asian expats. 

Papa cat spent the time pushing the trolley in GIANT hypermart with a wary nd cautious look, almost too funny for TGC to put aside. Papa Cat is truly a conservative chinese. 

He believes that only the chinese are superior and that Singapore is made up of mostly chinese (which is not too wrong) but, there are also immigrants in the form of koreans and japanese…many of which were found at GIANT today. 

MamaCat was non plussed when Papa cat remarked that Parkway no longer had locals shopping there, until TGC reminded him that those non-locals of korean and jap origins(of which mamacat is one) are usually the tai-tais whose husbands were at work while, our locals were less fortunate and needed to be dual income families.

However TGC assured him that he could definitely find local tai-tais at Great World City in the day. Or else, he could come back later in the day and be overwhelmed by local harried career mothers fighting for bargains at GIANT.

Papacat still left the store looking aghast. Haha. Lucky, there weren’t that many ang mohs around, it might be too much of a culture shock for him by then.

How To ‘Vomit Blood’ (Hokkien) And Spit

It has been a long time since The Gay Cat has ever felt like throwing up at work. 

No, she’s not pregnant or sick. But someday soon, she’ll probably be sick at the rate the work environment is filling up with chaos.

TGC loves her work, she loves her colleagues-those who were with her from A-side. However, new additions were necessary and changes were inevitable. 

TGC found the work at B2 challenging and more interesting however, the same could not be said about working with the other cats from different areas. 

Different breeds with territorial and cultural differences has led to several hackles being raised lately. Poor nursing care and lack of cohesiveness and teamwork amongst the various cats has led TGC to be exhausted daily. 

However, no other days took the cake as yesterday’s shift did. 

Four Main Cats (Including TGC and MomaCat) were in charge of each district with three junior cats as back up and little kittens to provide strength. It seemed like a lot of animal power, sadly though, the number was a false front.

From the start of the morning, it was organized chaos the moment reports were over.

It is funny how despite having 4 main cats, it seemed like EVERY damn decision was needed from only two main cats. 

TGC found herself attending to various call bells belonging to other districts even when their own respective main cat in charge was busy HUGGING the case note or HOGGING the telephone, deliberately ignoring the callbells.

What irked TGC were the lack of initiatives by the junior cats who needed to be told what to do for almost every single thing from simple: 

1) Off drip when a drip is dry

2) Replacing an empty drip

3) Clamping a leaking drip before running helter skelter to the main cat to say an IV plug was leaking-this was a classic incident that has happened a few times.

4) Changing a bloodied tegaderm

5) Informing the main cat when they have accidentally dislodge an IV plug

6) changing a stained bedsheet

7) doing oral toilet

removing the jug and mugs of patients who have discharged

9) who to take to shower

10) promptly answering the callbells instead of hugging the charts

11) Pulling up the cot side of a patient’s bed after sending a patient back to bed

12) Repositioning a patient’s stray leg from the gaps of the cot side

Oh the list goes on when it comes to stuff that a junior should have common knowledge of. It is rather sad for TGC when she finds that some of them just do their routine stuff and forgets about the safety and comfort of patients.

Classic scenario: Main cats serving meds in the morning before report taking, juniors hanging over their charts or, just hanging at the counter and the call bell keeps ringing. TGC guess they must be waiting for the bells to ‘off’ by itself. Anyway, a non-weight bear patient attempted to walk by herself as a result of no response despite the bell ringing. TGC entered the room in time to stop the patient whilst juggling three medicine cups, and the IMR. All the while, the bell kept ringing and no one even bothered to check what was happening. It was appalling when TGC had to go out and shout for assistance to accompany patient or attend to the patient. Even more appalling when despite telling the juniors to ‘help’ bring a bedpan and a commode for TWO different patients, a kitten helped to bring a commode but just left it at the bedside and went to take her report. What’s ironic is that TGC was the Main cat for the district whose report she was waiting to take and, TGC was still assisting patient alone. 

TGC came out of the room to find the juniors stuck to the counters and was pissed from that moment on. The heat just kept rising yesterday.

Another classic scenario: Patient told junior of water leaking from the plugsite whilst burette antibiotics were still running. Junior left patient with the IV drip still running to find TGC and tell her that the plug was leaking. TGC went to see the patient to find the antibiotics still running and the patient holding her hands helplessly. It was like having to instruct a 3 year old step by step to, stop the drip first, pass a tissue to patient, check the connection and if that was not the cause of leak, to get a flushing set to check the plug site. It was a complete OH-MY-Gawd moment for TGC having to tell the junior what to do in such situations, not the first time too.

Alright, the main cats were also not perfect, especially one particular cat.

That Cat whom I shall call BCat, kept hugging her notes, disappearing and when doctors or relatives needed answers about her district patients, they couldn’t find her and TGC and Moma Cat had to attend to them. What was especially telling of that Bcat was her ability to ignore ALL call bells even though they originated from her district and, telephone call despite standing next to the blardy phone. When she do answer the phone (which is like once or twice) she immediately passes the phone over to TGC or whomever was at the counter without even trying to assist the caller first. TGC can also forget about depending on the Bcat to help in routine tasks. 

However, BCat always expects Moma Cat and TGC to provide her with information when she demanded.

Example:

BCat: What is the number to MRI?

TGC: I can’t remember offhand, check the reference book

BCat: Where is the reference book? Where is the number in the book

As you can imagine, if TGC were to find the book and the number, it was as good as calling the MRI for her as well. 3 or 4 months into the job already and she’s still asking TGC how to find the reference book-which is always at her favourite spot, the counter.

LAter, TGC ultimately felt her top blowing when the Bcat had the gall to question and demand to know why a pre-meal was not served for her patient. TGC lost all politeness and told her off, “then you go serve la, I didn’t serve means I didn’t serve-were you expecting ME to give your patients’ meds AND IV for you?” 

Throughout yesterday’s shift, it was only Moma Cat and TGC who seemed to be running around the ward attending to call bells, routine tasks for 31 patients on top of their own district’s patients.

ALthough, TGC must admit that the other main cat whom I shall call the 4-eye Cat did attempt to help with routine work.

The shift was still disgusting.

Usually Moma Cat and TGC have good chemistry at work but yesterday, the team just didn’t work out. It was a complete failure.

Yes, this is a long post but it is a culmination of suppressed stress at working with such breeds at the new station. TGC misses the old gang, misses the good comaraderie and teamwork where things flowed smoothly even when there were hiccups from patients.

It is not the work, but the people TGC is working with who is changing the G in TGC to I, TIC-The Irritable Cat.