3:59am August 18, 2014

Like I wish…

…if medical offices were going to routinely screen for depression, they’d *also* routinely screen for abuse.

My local hospital does screen for abuse, but not always in a way that will work. They ask you if you feel safe in your home. But if you are there with your abuser, you can’t easily tell them no.

One time I was in the hospital next to a husband and wife (they were my roommates), both drunk. The husband had “fallen” and “hit his head on something when he fell” and was incoherent and very obviously disoriented and having neurological problems. The wife told them the story about how he fell. Then after the doctors and nurses left the room, she started screaming at him about what a worthless piece of crap he was. When he showed any sign of understanding, he looked terrified of her. And then she said “You’d better not tell them the truth, about how I hit you over the head with the telephone.”

I was never so glad at any time that I type to communicate. I gestured to my staff person and showed her the screen of my computer, and told her to tell everything we’d just heard to the nurse. The nurse came in and started asking them a lot of pointed questions and the truth did come out. At which point the wife stormed out of the room and said she wasn’t going to be there for him and went home. Which… given that she’d just injured him really badly, I think he was better off without her being there. But wow. What a horrible way to end up in the ER. I sure hope he was able to press charges or something, and that he didn’t have to keep lving with her.