Sunday, September 27, 2009

The egronomics of nursing


I was in hospital recently. The Kurji Holy Family Hospital is still the best place in Patna where one can receive top quality nursing care. it is clean, efficiently run, and the nursing staff are compassionate, quietly confident, and cheerful.
Having said that, hera are a few waysin which the services could be improved.
The first thing that nurses should consider when they want to attach a chap to an IV drip is : what kind of a patient do they have on their hands. If the man's in a really bad shape and about to croak, it hardly matters where you jab him and how you string him up to the various implements, because you have to get him to the ICU fast.
However, if the fellow is fairly mobile and can actually move around, like me, who had been admitted because of some respiratory problems, then it would be far wiser to attach him to the IV drips after considering whether he's right handed or left handed. The tubes were attached to my right hand, and that put me out .. If they had been on my left, I could have achieved a lot of small things unaided, and that would have made me feel less dependent on the nursing staff.
[I could have used my laptop with greater dexterity, it's darned difficult for a righthanded chap to punch keys with his left hand, and have you tried to fasten or unfasten buttons with your left hand ifyou're right handed?]

Watch this space

It's been quite a while since I have actually blogged. There have been numerous occasions when i considered writing rather brilliant criticisms of things that have needled me, but as they say, 'the spirit might be willing, but the flesh is weak'.
I have been particularly busy documenting several interesting things around the state of Bihar, and I have more than just an inclination to put some of the things I have observed on to this space.
So, keep coming back here, and you just might be surprised!