“Me too,” Traynor said. “Hopefully the lights will be a deterrent. I just walked around the parking lots and took a look at them. They seem adequate enough, except on the path between the two lots. I asked Van Slyke to add a couple there.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t do both lots from the start,” Beaton said.
“How are the finances looking for this month?” Traynor questioned.
“I was afraid you’d ask,” Beaton said. “Arnsworth gave me the mid-month figures just yesterday and they are not good. October will definitely be worse than September if the second half of the month is anything like the first. The bonus program is helping, but admissions for CMV are still over the projected level. To make matters worse, we seem to be getting sicker patients.”
“I suppose that means we have to put more pressure on utilization,” Traynor said. “DUC has to save the day. Other than the bonus program, we’re on our own. I don’t anticipate any more insurance bequests in the near future.”
“There are a few other nuisances of which you should be aware,” Beaton said. “M.D. 91 has relapsed. Robertson picked him up on a DUI. He was driving his car on the sidewalk.”
“Pull his privileges,” Traynor said without hesitation. “Alcoholic physicians have already caused enough heartache in my life.” He recalled once again his sister’s good-for-nothing husband.
“The other problem,” Beaton said, “is that Sophie Stephangelos, the head nurse in the OR, has discovered significant theft of surgical instruments over the last year. She thinks one of the surgeons is taking them.”
“What next?” Traynor said with a sigh. “Sometimes I think running a hospital is an impossible task.”
“She has a plan to catch the culprit,” Beaton said. “She wants an okay to go ahead with it.”
“By all means,” Traynor said. “And if she catches him let’s make an example out of him.”
Coming out of one of his examining rooms, David was surprised to find that the basket on the other room’s door was empty.
“No charts?” he asked.
“You’re ahead of yourself,” Susan explained. “Take a break.”
David took advantage of the opportunity to dash over to the hospital. The first stop was Nikki’s room. When he walked in he was surprised to find both Caroline and Arni sitting on Nikki’s bed. Somehow the two kids had managed to get into the hospital without being challenged. They were supposed to be accompanied by an adult.
“You won’t get us into trouble, will you, Dr. Wilson?” Caroline asked. She looked much younger than nine. Her illness had stunted her growth much more than it had Nikki’s. She looked more like a child of seven or eight.
“No, I won’t get you in trouble,” David assured them. “But how did you get out of school so early?”
“It was easy for me,” Arni said proudly. “The substitute teacher doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s a mess.”
David turned his attention to his daughter. “I spoke with Dr. Pilsner, and he said it’s okay for you to go home this afternoon.”
“Cool,” Nikki said excitedly. “Can I go to school tomorrow?”
“I don’t know about that,” David said. “We’ll have to discuss it with your mother.”
After leaving Nikki’s room, David looked in on John Tarlow to make sure that he was settled, his IV was started, and the tests David had ordered were in progress. John said he didn’t feel any better. David told him to be patient and assured him there’d be improvement after he’d been hydrated.
Finally David stopped in to see Marjorie. He hoped that the added antibiotic would have already improved her condition, but it hadn’t. In fact, David was shocked to see how much she had deteriorated; she was practically comatose.
Panic-stricken, David listened to Marjorie’s chest. There was more congestion than earlier but still not enough to explain her clinical state. Rushing back to the nurses’ station, David demanded to know why he hadn’t been called.
“Called on what?” Janet Colburn asked. She was the head nurse.
“Marjorie Kleber,” David yelled while he wrote orders for more stat bloodwork and another portable chest X ray.
Janet consulted with several of the other floor nurses, then told David that no one had noticed any change. She even said that one of the LPNs had just been in Marjorie’s room less than half an hour previously and had reported no change.