“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.”
That is one beautiful thought, from J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan, which is what I wrote about yesterday. In it, I mentioned that Barrie gave all the “rights” of Peter Pan to a hospital (Great Ormond Street Hospital). Which made me think about our hospitals here in the United States.
In all, we have 6,129 from sea to shining sea. Of those 5,157 are community hospitals.
To me, this number seems on the low end, but I think our healthcare system has fallen short too. I’m not sure why we lag behind other countries in providing health care to our citizens. So many others seem to be able to do this. Is it money? I don’t know. Our pharmaceutical companies and most doctors are doing okay when it comes to cold hard cash.
Anyway, here in Ohio, we have 193 community hospitals. Texas has more than any other state, with 523. And the low man on the totem pole is Delaware. They only have seven hospitals.
Wyoming is our least populated state in the U.S. But they are eighth from the bottom when it comes to hospitals. They have more than New Hampshire, Hawaii, Alaska, Vermont, Rhode Island, DC, and Delaware.
But hospitals come in all different shapes, sizes, and capacities. But most of us know the basics of how hospitals work.
Here are some interesting things that many people might not know about them.
• Who knew they had a bartender? Well not really, but some hospitals keep a supply of beer for alcoholics in case patients go through withdrawal (which can be fatal). Some hospitals even have beer cans with prescription labels.
• I’m not clowning around about this next one. In a study to improve hospital design for children, researchers polled 250 children regarding their opinions on clowns. In this particular survey, every single kid reported disliking or fearing them. Truthfully, clowns are a little creepy / scary.
• Just when you thought you were unique. In 2009, a retired policeman named Geraint Woolford was admitted to Abergale Hospital in North Wales. Got it. Well, he ended up next to another retired policeman, also named Geraint Woolford. The men were not related. They had never met before and were the only two people in the U.K. called Geraint Woolford. Pretty weird coincidence, I’d say. If I checked into a hospital and was sharing a room with a writer named Polly Kronenberger? I’d cancel whatever procedure I was supposed to be having and get the heck out there.
• Speaking of identities. Last year, a 66-year-old Chinese man went to the hospital because of stomach pain. Well. They discovered that he had been a woman his whole life and that his stomach pain was caused by a large, benign ovarian cyst. I want to know what the plumbing looked like on this one.
• In 1997, a man in Norfolk, Virginia, cut off his own hand. He did this because he decided that it made him sin. Supposedly, his hand was also possessed by the devil. In the hospital, he demanded it not be reattached. So they did not. Later, he returned and sued the hospital for 3 million dollars for not reattaching his arm. Thankfully, the case was thrown out of court.
• Way back in 1976, a woman from Philadelphia sued the Temple University Hospital claiming that the CAT scan made her lose her psychic powers. In 1986, the jury awarded her $988,000 on her final hearing. She must have given some convincing evidence. Maybe she predicted the outcome.
• Switching to something we all can relate to. Bagel-related injuries are so common that hospitals have special names for them. Bagel-related injuries (BRIs). Bagels send as many as 2,000 Americans to the hospital annually.
• And finally. We started this off by talking about alcohol. We might as well wrap it up that way. Patients with traumatic injuries are less likely to die in hospital if they have alcohol in their blood. And get this. The more alcohol, the more chance they have at survival. Burn injuries are the only exception.
I’m sure there is a lot more that goes on inside hospitals that we never hear about. And maybe it is better that way.
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“Prevention is better than cure.” —Unknown
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“Good health and good sense are two of life’s greatest blessings.” —Publilius Syrus
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“The aim of medicine is to prevent disease and prolong life; the ideal of medicine is to eliminate the need of a physician.” – William J. Mayo (Founder of Mayo Clinic)
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What goes on inside those big healing buildings?
