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Warning – Opinion ahead.
Tuesday’s posts are usually information about healthy aging. Instead of my opinions, I try to provide information that I think is important for healthy aging. Sure my opinion gets in there a bit but by and large these posts reflect the findings of experts. Today, I am changing the slant and giving you my thinking about hospitals. Be warned that what you read here is only my opinion. I don’t have any credentials as a health practitioner. I am a rank amateur and my judgments are limited to my experience and may not relate to anyone else. That is my disclaimer. You can agree or disagree – and I hope you will chime in either way because I can use the feedback. I just had a life changing experience and it has made me think again about how we receive medical treatment-particularly when we have to stay in the hospital.
Checking out hospitals again after 50 years.
The bottom line is this. Last week I found myself confused while driving my wife home from our workout. Not knowing what this might mean, my son drove me to the closest emergency room and they swiftly started running tests. All of the tests indicated that I was healthy but it still took two days for me to get released. Those two days gave me a whole new perspective on hospitals and medical treatment in general. . Those two days convinced me that there is much wrong with institutionalized treatment.
The last time I was in the hospital was for a tonsillectomy when I was eight or so. It was an adventure at the time. The hospital was an interesting place and I got to eat in bed and have ice cream. What’s not to like when you are eight? Over the years, I haven’t given much thought to hospitals. Last week, however, I got a new hospital experience and plenty of time to evaluate my feelings. They aren’t positive.
Hospitals expect you to be sick,
First, I realized that hospitals operate on the assumption that patients are sick. I think this is probably because historically, hospitals were where you went to die. If you didn’t want to die you stayed away. As a result, when you go to the hospital, they put you in a bed and they keep you there. I contend that except for sleeping, the worst place for a healthy person to be is in bed. I could feel my body deteriorating each minute of my confinement without the body movements of normal existence. There was no place to go and if I did stroll the halls, the gowns only cover the front of my body exposing my backside to all. The only thing I could do was lie in bed and read or watch television while my body deteriorated.
If you aren’t sick when you are admitted, you will be.
I wasn’t sick. I had experienced something that I wanted to understand. I needed some expert judgment about what had caused it and how to avoid it happening again. I understand being careful when there is no information is wise but I refuse to accept that lying in bed is the only option. At first they had me strapped to a monitor and IV which had to be unconnected to allow me to visit the restroom. At first that seemed like an excuse but I later discovered that they can make those portable. There is no reason that there couldn’t be a lounge for sitting, visiting with other patients or your family or playing cards or board games- at least I can’t see any, particularly when I remained clear headed and lucid. I believe that terrible damage results from confining healthy people to bed and that most patients would benefit from spending as little time in their hospital beds as possible that includes eating from an awkward tray over your bed. It might have been fun as an eight year old but it is damn humiliating for anybody else.
How about a hospital for the living?
It is my contention that hospitals were conceived in the middle ages as places to die and that nobody has had the imagination to reinvent them as places to recover. I know I died just a bit each day I was confined- and that is in spite of the very supportive and helpful nursing staff. I am not critical of the intent behind hospitals but I am confident that they do very little to keep people healthy and a great deal to make them dependent and weak. Maybe that is too harsh and superficial but I can’t make any other conclusion. What is your take, particularly if you have been in a hospital recently. Did the experience make you healthier or sicker?
Haven’t seen you in a while!
How’s it going Ralph?
Fernando,
Now that I’m free again, I’m catching back up with everything.
Ralph@retirement lifestyle’s last Blog Post ..Healty Aging-Let’s Reinvent Hospitals
I could not agree with you more. In Phoenix there is a rise to surgery centers. Those are for the people who are well, but need surgery. Works well.
My experience with hospitals is also related to dying. My husband went to a hospital for a hip replacement. Should be easy on a very healthy man of 58. He got a staph infection. Seven months and many hospital stays later- which included catching the flu, I got my husband back. It has taken two years to recover. My mother (78)had her surgery on the same day in a surgery center= Home and recovered in two weeks! I’ve had several friends with cancer die from things caught in the hospital.
You are right- we need to fix the medical system. That includes going back to visiting nurses and an occasional house call. I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime- not since insurance is more important than universal access.
Janette,
You are right. I have heard about the problem of actually getting sick because of a hospital stay but not with anyone close. You remind me that there is even more reason to avoid hospitals. It is not going to be pretty with the government in control of medicine.
Ralph@retirement lifestyle’s last Blog Post ..What is the meaining of life
In general I believe hospitals do the best they can with what they have to work with. Before she died my mom was in and out of hospitals, on average, every 3 weeks for a year. The normal stay was 3 days. So, I have had a lot of recent experience with the hospital environment.
Usually the nurses are tremendous. Overworked and underpaid, they still have a smile and kind words. Likewise the rest of the staff that maintains a room were hardworking and pleasant.
The problem is the system. Mom was in for the same tests and the same treatment during virtually every visit. Nothing new was learned, Congestive Heart Failure is what it is and causes certain events to occur. To rack up tens of thousands of dollars in tests over and over that Medicare and Blue Cross pay seemed to be the goal.
I have avoided hospitals so far, but agree with Janette. Here in Phoenix I’ll try to use out-patient facilities whenever possible.
Bob Lowry’s last Blog Post ..Time Savers- If Not Now- When
Bob,
You raise another good point. I felt like I was a cash register with every test they scheduled. I think that their operation is as much focused on maximizing income over treating the patient. It is not the hospital’s fault. It is the bureaucrats that created the system and the fear of lawsuits.
Ralph@retirement lifestyle’s last Blog Post ..How ‘If only’ blocks a successful life