bucket brigades

Now news today of NYC Bellevue hospital having to be completely evacuated.  I wonder how the rest of the hospitals in the city are absorbing hundreds of patients.  I think of how tight beds often are among the hospitals in my city.

I have seen stories about "bucket brigades" of people passing cans of oil up 12 flights of stairs to fuel generators on upper floors and this has been going on for more than 24 hours.  Also bringing patients down more than 12 floors to be evacuated by ambulance. Imagine bringing a critically ill patient and all their equipment down that many stairs...I can't imagine it. Makes you think about something similar happening in your own hospital.

Then there is the fact that there are now 2 less hospitals in a city of millions including a trauma center. Another thought I had was with the terrible traffic jams there, how are emergency vehicles getting through?

I wish them well

Donate to the Red Cross.

bomb threat

Speaking of evacuations ... I once worked at the county hospital. I was in orientation to the stabilization room.  We had just received a patient.  They were either DOA or died shortly after arrival.

There was a bomb threat. The ER was quickly evacuated. I don't even know where they sent the patients. All I know was that it was done quickly and efficiently. The dead patient stayed in the stab   room.  We all went out on a corner by the hospital until it was all over.

Some hospitals are just set up to respond to disaster. Then there are those who aren't...

everyones worst nightmare

Watching on TV  NYU hospital in New York City being evacuated right now due to power failure and back up generator failure.

I can't imagine that happening. All the lights go out, all the power goes off, including the power that runs the ventilators.  I don't know if vents have battery power, never had to think about it. Lots of modern medical technology depends on electricity.  Lots of very complex technology that makes my stomach hurt to think about going out. I hope everybody survives.

This is every hospitals, every nurses and doctors nightmare come to life. I pray for them and their patients.

JCAHO tomfoolery

So a friend  of mine who works in a smaller hospital in the suburbs was telling me about a JCAHO visit a couple of months ago...

It seems that JCAHO was someplace and happened to glance at a sprinkler on the ceiling and noted some dust on  it. Well a message went throughout the land about this.  Soon managers and their supervisors and their supervisors were sending messages all over the hospital to promptly clean the sprinkler heads in each department.

In my  friends department a man was seen, compressed air bottle in hand going from sprinkler to sprinkler blowing invisible dust off each head.  And that, my friend, is how ridiculous things have become in health care.             

gotta get a fix

It seems at a small suburban ER, patients go to great lengths to smoke a cigarette.

There is a hospital where a gas station is across the street.  Apparently quite often patients will walk over there in their patient gown to get a pack of cigarettes, butt flapping in the wind, steering an IV pole.

One guy actually drove over there with his IV pole out the window next to the drivers seat, one hand steering the pole and one hand steering the car. The lengths that addicts will go to....