Hospitals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooGPcirZHWo
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I was born in a hospital like most of us. As it happens I had a long relationship with that hospital. I was admitted many times for childhood illnesses and injuries. My friend Terry's Dad happened to be the head of that hospital and I got a tour from basement to roof of an old interesting building. On the roof was a copper dome about 20 ft in diameter with a ledge around. I walked around the ledge. Just recently I saw a film of that hospital being explosively demolished The dome was the last thing to go down.
I spent weeks at Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto. I had my adenoids treated with a revolutionary "radium treatment" that worked - never had adenoid problems again - but then years later it turns out that there's a brain tumor risk from that - eep - but so far so good.
My young experience in hospitals trained me to be a good patient. When I'm in hospital I'm automatically pretty quiet and compliant - sort of automatic like when a kitten gets picked up by the scruff of their neck. I've been hospitalized a couple of times in the past few years and I was surprised at how many of my wardmates hadn't ever learned that lesson.
My birthhospital was replaced before it was taken out of service. I thought it was a waste to just blow up such a sturdy building and not adapt it to new uses. The hospital I was just in faces a similar situation. It's replacement is now almost built. I think the old version will be demolished and can see why. It's a building built in mishmash fashion over a hundred years where the elevators hardly work. Better to start afresh.
A scan of wikipedia shows that various societies all over the world have had hospitals over thousands of years. I think of hospitals as an example of convergent evolution at a social level. That once a society of a certain size and complexity emerges, that society produces hospitals
The wiki article shows pictures of many hospitals down through the ages that share many obvious characteristics. Most obviously - to me - is that patients tend to have their own beds and are expected to be lying down. Also, hospitals seem to be ways of isolating the sick from the rest of society. Also hospitals provide a way of centralizing the care of sick and injured people.
A hospital seems to necessarily involve a hierarchical social structure - say with doctors at the top and nurses in the middle and cleaners at the bottom. When I was a kid I remember that the staff wore uniforms that indicated their role. I haven't seen that as much in recent visits but the hierarchical structure was still plain but not so much with uniforms. Its like everyone but the doctors wears scrubs.
My guess is that that hierarchical structure is forced by the different skill and education levels required for the jobs. Nobody thinks it's a good idea for doctors to spend their time cleaning up messes. When I was young there were muscular guys called orderlies who would assist nurses by doing things like moving people from bed to stretcher. Now the wards have hoists and I never saw an orderly.
Hospitals have lots of emergencies. Rather than upset patients with blaring alarms the the intercom would softly chime and then a soft voice would announce a code that specified the emergency and location. You'd hear "bing bing bing - code white - Thurlow entrance". There were many codes for all sorts of things from cardiac arrest to problem with pregnancy.
The most common code I heard, by far, was code white. That stands for somebody creating a disturbance by being aggressive and threatening. This was a surprise to me - given my personal reaction to hospital is to be quiet and compliant - but I could see it in my own wards. There was always one patient who was causing the staff a lot of trouble.
I'm impressed by how unflappable nurses are (all the staff actually). Being sick in hospital is a freaky experience. People are uncomfortable and scared and that puts some people in a fight or flight mode - neither of which is possible in the circumstance.
In Canada, patients don't pay for healthcare or hospital stays. Lately when I go into hospital I enter via the emergency room and get to a ward in less than a day. In Canada I think there is generally a long wait for less urgent treatments. People wait years for hip replacements. There is continuous pressure from some doctors to set up private hospitals so that rich people can pay out of pocket for quicker treatment. There is no political support for that.
What do you think?
I open the floor
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.