[DYSPHAGIA] A Question for Hospital SLPs

[Gayle335@aol.com (Gayle335@aol.com)]

With your viewpoint in mind, why did I have to wait a month to have a painful cyst removed from my dominant hand?  I had to wait for an opening in his schedule.  Should the orthopedic surgeon have been a 24/7 employee so that he could accommodate ALL of his patients?  Should the surgeon have to pay for an outside surgeon to come do my surgery sooner?

Do you work on Saturdays and Sundays?

"I have yet to hear a convincing response to the question of why SLP coverage (given the medical nature of dysphagia work) would be anything but a 7 day a week hospital service.  Hospital care is a 24-7 deal.  Why should any patient be NPO for example for a period of time such as 24 hours unnecessarily while waiting for us to show up sometime Monday morning?  What if Monday is a holiday? How can any of us claim to be "Medical SLPs" while discriminating against patients who are admitted on Saturday or Sunday?  JCAHO regs are clear about consistent levels of care for all patients at all times.  I could see, perhaps, postponing evaluation and treatment of language-impaired patients given that the literature seems to be equivocal about early intervention benefits (e.g., AJSLP, Vol. 10, No. 1  Feb 2001). Nutrition, however, is a bird of a different feather incorporating basic human rights and comfort, LOS, medical care and institutional ethics.  That having been said, I'm sure that!
 not many of us want to work on 
a Sunday."




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