Medical privacy (off topic)

[Owen Blacker]

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I know I'm increasingly off topic here.  Sorry, 'n' all  :o)

Owen Lewis quoth:
>
>  One of my goddaughters has just podded (prematurely) and the hospital
> (Chelsea and Westminster) managed to give young George one of their
> home-brewed ward infections. As he was in intensive care at 
> the time it says something extra about the ubiquity of their bugs.

In the appropriate lecture of the Medical Microbiology unit of my degree
the lecturer (who was a consultant at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital)
mentioned that methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA or
"superbug" as tabloids prefer it) is endemic in every hospital in the
country, or words to that effect.

Ken Brown:
> 
> Maybe husbands are tolerated more than grandfathers, or maybe 
> things have changed in 12 years,

When I had my appendix out (5 years back so, again, at the N&N) the only
prodding on visiting hours was a cursory mention that they weren't now to
whoever was visiting (parents / boyfriend /
totally-unrelated-bloke-from-down-the-road / whoever).  The staff generally
didn't seem to care when people visited, so long as (a) I was awake already
and (b) my visitors weren't disruptive to the rest of the ward.

Ken, in the same message, quoting Ross:
>
> > I am more and more of the opinion that the sooner the NHS collapses, 
> > the better for us all.
> 
> Since I gave up working for a large US corporation and took a 
> job in a university I no longer have any rational expectation 
> of being able to pay for the kind of health care I suspect I 
> will need. So I'm all in favour of the NHS. It is a way to 
> get my neighbours to subsidise my needs.

Similarly, I don't have medical insurance.  Less of a problem for me, more
of a problem for my parents, who don't earn what I do.  Similarly, there's
quite a few things that the kinds of medical insurance most ppl can afford
tend not to pay for -- treatment to do with HIV infexion tends to be
excluded, for example, iirc.  But I might be making that up...

Anyways, a Welfare State is a Good Thing, imho  :o)

George Ross, quoting Ken Brown:
> 
> > I imagine they assume mobile phones all round these days. Payphones 
> > are provided as a "service" for those too poor to count.
> 
> But aren't you supposed to switch those off?  Or is that just 
> A&E?  (Not that the signs at Edinburgh's Sick Kids are exactly
> prominent...)  

It's everywhere, in theory, cos the microwaves can fuck up things like
heart monitors and stuff.  Apparently.  Though a friend of mine was happily
SMSing me from his hospital bed a few months back.  :o)


O x
- -- 
Owen Blacker
Senior Software Developer / InfoSec Consultant    Wheel: Clerkenwell
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