Pol Wio worked in the ER for thirty-five years and led a team of caretakers since 1996. On Friday 28 July, it was his last work day.
After a well-earned holiday he will retire. It’s a rather calm morning in the emergency room in Kirchberg. He explains that Saturdays and Mondays are usually the busiest days, as well as whenever there's a full moon: "Psychologists tell us there is no evidence for that, but if you have an influx of patients with mental disabilities right around that time, you cannot help but smile a little."
In 2003 when the Hospital opened in Kirchberg, Pol Wio was asked to lead the emergency room - just as he previously had at the Sacré-Coeur OR clinic. He coordinated employees' work schedules and their time-off, as well as their training and formations. And, up until the end, he has continued to work with patients. Now, after thirty-five years in the business, Pol Wio has some stories to tell.
He remembers a woman who came in with stomach cramps and left with a baby. But, also, a father and child so severely injured in an accident that the child passed. The hospital arranged for the child to be brought to his father, to help him more fully grieve. Pol still becomes teary-eyed thinking back: "This story still moves me today."
"The show must go on"
Joy and sadness usually exist quite near to one another at the ER. A person must learn to accept the reality of losing a patient from time to time. For Pol it is important to reflect on these cases and to talk about them. As a younger nurse, he would often ask himself if he did everything he could. But if he concluded that he had, then he could accept the loss. Speaking with families of the deceased afterwards was always the hardest.
These days hospital personnel are able to receive psychological counselling. “We never want to rid ourselves of our responsibilities. It's all a part of the job, but the show must go on.”
© Didier Weber / RTL
It’s with the help of music that Pol is able to turn off the noise. He plays the trumpet with a band in Folschette and is the conductor of a choir where he also plays the organ.
One type of noise he will not miss: the persistent beeping of medical devices alerting staff to patients who need immediate attention. "I am relieved to never have to hear that sound again."
This morning, he has one last meeting with the team and his successor. He feels relaxed and at peace. "I have never regretted the choice I made in 1988 to work in an emergency room."
From the OR to the ER
Pol Wio started his career in the OR of the Sacré-Coeur Clinic. A nurse had placed him there as a recent graduate in 1987. But Pol quickly knew this was not the place for him. He preferred the rush and constant fluctuations of the ER.
The Sacré-Coeur Clinic was on duty only one day a week and a mere six people worked the emergency room. There were four nurses and a night guard, and they all spoke Luxembourgish. Now at Kirchberg, there are over fifty people and the lingua franca is French.
When he started working in an emergency room in 1988, Luxembourg did not have an official team of first responders (SAMU - Service de médecine d'urgence) yet. But sometimes ambulance drivers would come in, yelling that they were resuscitating someone, "then we quickly ran into the shock room and tried to revive the person."
He's learned a lot in a very short amount of time. Anything can happen during an emergency room shift. According to Pol, this is what keeps things interesting and what motivates people to continue working there.
© Didier Weber / RTL
Overfilled ER's: "offer creates demand"
But medical personnel face new challenges. Emergency rooms are overfilled, despite the city now running two hospitals - both with guaranteed service in the event of an emergency (instead of alternating days between the two hospitals).
Just as many people come in as before: roughly two-hundred patients across a 24-hour period. "It’s the offer that creates the demand. We hear the same thing from the CHL in Strassen. And as waiting times go down, more people show up, it seems like word goes around."
A patient has to spend around three-and-a-half hours at the ER. This may seem excessive, but with a shortage of beds at hospitals, more things need to be done in emergency rooms: "As we have to wait on results from tests and analyses, the waiting time goes up."
In the past, a patient could be taken upstairs and the ER doctor would arrive with the results.
"If people go to the ER, it is for a real emergency"
However, Pol does not understand why politicians want to redistribute patients to medical centres (maison médicales). "Every patient that comes to the emergency room, comes with a real emergency".
Triage in Pol's emergency room will class people into one of five categories, depending on how badly injured they are: U1 are the worst cases and U5 are the least worrying. But they know that around 5% of U5 cases are still serious issues.
"It is difficult for us to send those people away. Because if we are unlucky and say, ‘you have to go to a maison médicale that is not nearby’ and they have a heart attack on the Red Bridge, then we have a problem.”
He gives the example of a bladder infection. Usually, it’s not a big problem but the infection could travel to the kidneys and then become a blood infection. This can turn into a bad emergency. To Pol, if politicians want to implement these procedures they should have the courage to stand up for this opinion among the general public.
Medical personnel as first contact
Pol Wio is proud to look back on systems and care units that he helped make better. After the fusion of the Zitha clinic and the Hospital Kirchberg, the emergency rooms were centralised.
Now when a patient comes in, his first contact is with medical personnel and not with a person from the administration. This helps speed up the overall process.
“If you sent a patient to the reception, and there are six people in front of him, and intake takes about two to three minutes, then you have to wait thirty minutes before a patient is registered. Time is also ticking for the patient. If, for example, he has a problem with his heart, this could have bitter consequences.”
© Didier Weber / RTL
In this instance, dealing with a patient with possible cardiac issues, the current hospital procedure would arrange an electrocardiogram within eight minutes of the patient stepping foot into the ER, and within ten minutes the doctor would begin to establish what might be wrong.
"Will not miss the pressure"
Pol looks back on his thirty-five years: quickly recognising symptoms and making sure to never overlook anything, the pressure of the ER and the constant change of day and night shifts, as well as the very short breaks - all of it very demanding.
To Pol, he was the advocate of the patient - the patient was always the focal point and, before, only under special circumstances, was this not the case.
But now Pol is ready for retirement. “So far I’ve felt very little emotion,” the nurse said on his last day of work. What he will miss the most will be interactions with his colleagues. What he will not miss is the constant pressure of the role. He's had enough of that throughout his career.
However, he will most certainly not be bored: alongside his musical hobbies, Pol will now have more time to spend with his granddaughter. But now it is time for the champagne shower: to celebrate the end of his career this Friday, he and his colleagues will have a glass of champagne at the end of their morning shift.
