Wednesday, 29 January 2014

Iron Protocol for Dialysis Patient

Tuesday  2014-01-28

I was told to have iron today. I said to the nurse that I just took another test which showed that my iron was sufficient. She replied that she only follow doctor’s orders which is to give me iron every week. I knew that someone must have read my file selectively, not only my latest test was over looked, the date was wrong too.

I have to prepare myself for a hard battle. The whole story of my iron was relayed to her in details, that I went through 3 protocols, had another test done after the one she referred to, and according to which I don’t  need more iron and produced  my own copy of the test result. She took my copy and talked to her boss, they cancelled the iron.

They have all my relevant medical information at hand, I looked at them previously, I knew that they can’t be trusted blindly. So for quite a while I have been accumulating my private file and carry it around with me for event like today. Even with all this readiness, my blood pressure still went up. I think the treatment may save me while the process of seeking treatment may just kill me. What an irony. Today if I didn’t look after my own affairs, I would be overloaded with iron. My iron saturation is already 63%.

Later the nurse chatted with me, to my or not to my surprise that she had 3 patients who brought with them 3 different iron protocols which are different from hers.  She had to negotiate with 3 doctors in order to give patients their correct treatment, including 1 patient she tried to give more iron. I totally empathise with her. It is rather confusing to have too many iron protocols in one State. It is a nuisance for nurses and a dangerous practice for patients. It is high time that the science people take a look at the bloody protocols.


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