Life’s Little Lesson – Complaint vs Feedback

My mother was admitted to a hospital for her treatment for lung infection that she caught, unfortunately. She was there for a week almost. My father used to stay at the night with her, and I used to come in the morning and stay in the day.

She was quite critical, when was admitted and was recovering well now, and we were elated about that. One day before the discharge, I remember when I reached the hospital in the morning even before I got could perch on the chair in the ward meant for attendant… something happened… something which scared the hell out of us. The Nurse observing my mother had given a medicine to her orally which supposed be inhaled. I was qualified to find out as I was administrating this to her every day at home …and then I came to know from my father that she did the same in the previous night as well. 

We were genuinely dismayed, more so because she has just started recovering from a critical illness and this mistake from the nurse could develop another problem.

The nurse acknowledged her mistake of not knowing the capsule needed to be broken and inhaled operating a device. She was nervous, dying with guilt and afraid of the consequences.

I rushed the doctor to check what could be probable effect of this. Thanks goodness, she said it would not have any adverse effect on her health other than a very distance possibility of mild nausea.

I was still frustrated how could a nurse who deals with life could make a mistake like this. I decided to complain to make sure an action is taken against her.

But when I got the chance, I did not do that.

My mother was doing well anyway with absolutely no issues.

So, I rather provided them a detailed feedback as I later realized that this was not the problem with the nurse only. The complete process was broken. The hospital was responsible for what happened not just the nurse. Doctors and Nurses’ supervisors needed to provide clear instructions to the nurses in case method of treatment is unobvious and nurses to double check in case of any doubt. Someone who is overseeing the administration of the hospital was bound to make sure process in place and followed. A random periodic audit to ensure there is no lapses.

I mentioned the same to medical superintendent and appealed to them in the feedback to assume a collective responsibility of the incident, learn a lesson and fix the whole process. This will make sure that this does not happen in the future.

If I had blamed the nurse only at that time that would have been easy for them. She would have been a scapegoat. They would have probably taken action against her, however nothing would have changed. Another day, another nurse and the same or some other mistake.

When we are in position of providing a feedback (as a client, as a partner or even as an employer) how do we react, what is the intent?

Getting our problems rectified?

Improvement in the services or products?

Overall more pleasurable experiences going forward?

Or getting a particular person punished to satisfy our ego?

There is a difference between complaint and feedback.

A complaint is always driven by negative emotions, however the intent of a feedback is constructive which leads to future improvements.