A series of articles on hospitals by an anonymous special correspondent in 1949 included this view of amenities available to patients. – JOE JOYCE
COMING ON to patient’s amenities, there are many improvements required, when money becomes available. Those hospitals which are fortunate enough to have progressive boards of governors have already been going ahead. In one for example, every patient has a bell beside his bed, and a bedside light, shaded so as not to get into the eyes of the patient across the ward. Old mattresses are being replaced and toilet facilities improved.
The matter of bells and bedside lights provided me with an entertaining contrast at two other hospitals. At one, each patient had a bell, but no bedside light: at the other, each patient had a bedside light, but no bell. Inquiring the reason, I was told at the first hospital that bells were, of course, essential, in case of emergency; but that the cost of giving every patient a light to himself would obviously be prohibitive. At the second, they said that they had found bedside lights already saved money, so beneficial were they to the patient, keeping him from strain and headache: but as for bells, that would be only an encouragement for the nurses not to do their work properly.
About radio, too, there are big differences in opinion. Some hospitals think that they are essential, and even allow more than one in each ward. Others condemn them on the grounds that for every patient who wishes to listen in, there may be two others wanting quiet, but not caring to be thought boorish, as anyone who has ever lived in a mess will be inclined to agree.
Some hospitals have earphones, but they are uncomfortable to wear in bed, easily broken, and not easily replaced. One hospital is investing in a couple of “pillow radios,” gadgets that are put under the patient’s pillow, enabling him to listen comfortably without disturbing anybody.
But these are expensive. The layman, who is prone to judge hospitals by their amenities, must constantly remind himself that every pillow, radio, or bedside light, installed may be at the expense of some other department of the hospital, whose needs are as great. If unlimited money was available, there would be no limit to what hospitals could do.
To sum up: there are dozens of things waiting to be done in every hospital to better the lot of the patients. Little money is available, and to decide the priority for what money there is presents considerable difficulties. But we only make things more difficult still by rationalising – by telling ourselves that what the patient has not got, he will not miss; or that it would be wasted on him; or that he would misuse it. Any of these arguments may be correct, but it is remarkable how reforms which for years have been postponed on such grounds become integral and essential features of the hospital as soon as they are carried out. They are accepted and even boasted about.
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