Who are you? Aaarrghh

[antelopevalley]

I am having a shit day. Back at hospital this evening with my DP. It is an ongoing issue so I am not worried, but he needs treatment tonight to be okay.

He feels pretty unwell and so I have asked different Drs questions for him e.g. so should he continue with his existing medication alongside the new medication? When should we see some improvement? etc etc.

Every time I get asked - who are you? Often said in quite a demanding tone. What does it matter who I am? DP is there with me and is obviously quite happy for me to hear everything they are saying. Why does it matter whether I am his wife, a girlfriend, a sister or a friend? I am obviously not a random stranger. It just annoys me so much. It is really none of their business.
AIBU?

God complex.

If you are admitted to hospital in the booking in procedure they should ask you who is the next of kin. This can be anyone you want. I am named in DPs records as next of kin. But DP could have named whoever he wanted.
Funeral arrangements can legally be made by whoever registers the death. That tends to be next of kin, but is not always.

Her close friend wanted to visit so I just told staff she was a cousin. I have no compunction about lying as the rules around relatives can be ridiculous

It's not that the visits are limited to relatives, it's that visiting is limited and saying relatives only is a good way of enforcing this. They could easily say visiting is limited to 10 people only, but that then becomes more complicated.

The more you respond on here, the more prickly you come across. May I suggest you try and stand back from yourself and see if you are projecting more of a prickly persona than you may have previously thought. It's much easier not to be prickly - pick your battles and all that

I know visiting was limited and I complied totally with no more than two people at any one time. Why is it prickly to lie so that someone very important to my mum could visit her? My mum and her friend spoke every single day. This was not someone she had a drink out with every six months.

And I was not going to fight with staff over this. Why get their backs up unnecessarily. Far easier to lie for her to visit once.

And I know that the nurses respond best to someone who is compliant, grateful and easy. So I do behave like this unless it is very important. But I would always advise anyone to lie over the relative's rule. I have a tiny extended family and a smaller number who would actually visit. If they had said no more than ten people that would still have meant her friend could visit and there would have been free spaces.
It is based on the outmoded idea that relatives are the closest people when that is not always the case. Indeed in some cases, people have close friends and absolutely no relatives, or no relatives they are in contact with. I would prefer a maximum number of named people as visitors.

Good grief just answer the question and stop being difficult. Life is hard enough without making pointless fights.

no wonder they are curt with you, you’d try the patience of a saint

they ask me who I am when there with my daughter, it’s their job to check and these procedures are almost always brought in to prevent a recurrence of something that went wrong before.

Just be glad you don’t have reason to need these protocols to keep you safe and have patience for those that do.

@SomePosters you haven't read the thread have you? Whether I am DPs wife or friend or sister makes no difference. The issue is whether he gives consent for me to hear his confidential information. Being his wife does not give me that right.

You're being unreasonable.

I recently took a neighbour to A&E and stayed with her as she was quite poorly and wasn't really able to speak to staff. I only know the very basics about her medical history and the staff did check with me several times about the relationship between us. They also did the same with her husband when he first got there.

Why bother posting if you're so determined that you're right? 🙄🙄🙄

A spouse or civil partner has a legal status that an unmarried partner doesn't. Totally fair enough if you choose not to get married, but one of the consequences of that is that your relationship will not be recognised in quite the same way.

I can't believe you have an issue with this. You're trouble. The doctors and nurses also feed back to other professionals ie "I spoke to X's partner and informed her". As opposed to "I spoke with someone, no idea who it was, and informed her...".
No wonder healthcare professionals are leaving in their droves, having to put up with people like you.

@QuestionableMouse I am saying that the reasons people here are saying they ask this are wrong. If the reason is to ask for consent, then assuming the husband automatically consents to his wife hearing stuff is terrible practice.
The reason given on the thread that it means they can write in notes his wife said...rather than random woman said.... makes the most sense.

I’m a HCP, we ask because we genuinely don’t know who you are, you could be a friend, neighbour, colleague anyone. We need to know how to refer to you in our notes when we are giving you advice and information about a patient or when we’ve answered questions e.g. “explained to patients wife that he should avoid x”.

Why do you call him DP if you are his wife?

A massive fuss over absolutely nothing.

It's not about you.

You are missing the point. A random nurse or doctor does not know if you're Joe Bloggs wife or sister or random stalker or paid carer or any of a hundred other things. It might be obvious to you but they don't know and the practices in place mean they have to check.

And I'm also pretty sure that just because you're his wife doesn't give you instant access to his entire medical history.

I was going to ask about that.

@Elsiebear90 thank you that does make sense.

I call him DP as although he is my husband, we still refer to each other as partners. I hate the terms husband and wife. We only got married for legal reasons.

@QuestionableMouse what difference does it make? He is still allowed to give consent for an acquaintance to know his medical history.

I wonder if you're stressed OP? They have to ask, it's simple to answer, and you know it but you're feeling really intensely about it. I wonder if this is the proverbial straw for you right now.

Totally agree its so rude. It's irrelevant who I am, when they should be asking the patient Are you comfortable with this person being here for this appointment?

I had this with a new boyfriend and his nurse. She asked me but I didn't hear. Midway through my apology she barked at me Who are you?! When I said his girlfriend she tried to make him have an intimate exam with me in the room. We weren't at that stage in our relationship and I excused myself. She later found me and apologised but it made everyone feel uncomfortable and stressed.

You're taking this way too personally op. My dp has heart disease so many hospital stays for him. If he doesn't introduce me as his DP first I'm asked who I am and it doesn't bother me I just say his partner and nok and they are fine, sometimes they ask dp if he wants me present or not and he says yes.

He was even outright asked on some hospital stays if he is in a domestic abuse relationship. Was surprising the first time he told me but I'm not offended, at the end of the day they don't know us from Adam so need to be sure.

Omg this is really the hill you're gonna die on is it....
Give it a rest

My DP has been asked if he is happy for me to be there and happy for them to answer my questions, that is fine and makes sense.

Every post. It’s hardly a long thread and mostly you getting cross with being told yabu

You don’t get to expect the safety protocols to be dropped because you know you aren’t abusive

HCP are trained to ask for good reasons not just to piss you off. Same as they ask a patient who has been in their ward for weeks and weeks to confirm their date of birth before every dose of medicine even though it’s written on their charts and they’ve personally heard them say it 6 times today

These procedures exist to prevent mistakes that have happened before. They are not random or personal and they aren’t going to be dropped to suit you, if displacing your anger and frustration on this minor annoyance is helping you cope then great but if you think HCPs are being snippy with you then you might want to have a really honest reflection on how you come across as your interactions here don’t match with how you see yourself