The Doctor Will See You Now [Non-Fiction]

Chapter 50: OBGYN

Sometimes Obs+Gynae is like a soap opera. And we get the front row seats.

Sarah is a young woman from a conservative, heavily religious family -- the 'no sex before marriage', 'no divorce or shame upon your cow', 'the woman must be a diligent wife to the hardworking husband' type -- who comes in with her waters broken.

She tells us the man accompanying her is her boyfriend and he is the father of her baby.

Her parents soon arrive and denounce the boyfriend as ever even existing. She's married, they say. The baby is her husband's.

The boyfriend freaks out. He's convinced the baby is his. Sarah says the baby is his, but she doesn't seem convinced. Or maybe it's because she's seeing the ever-increasing hysterics from her parents, who are absolutely aghast this man even existed in the first place. She gets even more agitated and eventually asks to be discharged against medical advice -- even though she's already hooked up to antibiotics (because her waters have broken prematurely) and fluids (because there's a risk she'll need a C-section because of her waters breaking so early, so she's preemptively being fasted). The charge nurse tries to get the documents in place to get her to sign the papers.

Meanwhile, Sarah's family is engaged in a screaming match with the boyfriend over the alleged paternity of the baby. The charge nurse tells them to take it outside instead of having a showdown in the freaking labour ward nursing station. They ignore her.

The charge nurse snaps (she's not the charge nurse for nothing; they all have a low tolerance for BS and even less tolerance for things that affect clinical care). She slams the folder onto the table and tells them she DGAF who the father is. She just wants to know if Sarah is signing herself out and then they can get the documentation done. She doesn't wait for an answer (because it's not up to the parents/boyfriend whether Sarah signs out or not) and boots them out of the ward, threatening to call security.

Sarah signs herself out. Even though her waters have been broken. Even though she's likely to go into labour pretty soon and the risk of her waters being infected are high if she goes ambling outside of the hospital, where she won't get monitoring or antibiotics.