A welcome return home for the Olympic Torch
- Today's leader
Good old days were not so bad
Saturday 5th April 2008, 7:57AM BST.
LETTER – I realise that harking back to the “old days” can be very boring and serves no purpose. However, I cannot help but compare today’s hospitals with the hospital of my training days in the 1950s.
Each ward was closed, on a rotational basis, for one week, when every inch was deep cleaned.
In addition to this deep cleaning, which occurred on Sunday with no doctors to hinder us, us students cleaned everything possible, without inconveniencing or neglecting the patients.
As a very junior nurse, I was so proud of the spotless, shining urinals. We did not have antibiotics, so removing the sources of infection was of prime importance.
Today’s deep cleaning seems rather a waste of precious cash, when daily domestic services are constantly reduced.
Patients’ diets were strictly supervised by the ward sister, who plated meals from a heated trolley for us students to deliver to the patients.
We also collected the plates and recorded what had been eaten or left, thus avoiding malnutrition.
Surely the old days were not so bad!
Jose Wilson, Retired SRN, Madeley
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AVERY GOOD SHOW ON YOUR HOSPITALS 1950 ETC.
NOT GOOD TODAY. IAM SORRY TO SAY.
KIWI PETE.
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I think it’s easy to look back with rose-tinted spectacles. Modern medicine can do wonderful things, curing diseases and conditions which would have killed back in the 1950s.
My mother almost died from diptheria when she was young – we don’t see that nowadays.
The problem with hospital cleaning started back in the ’80s when such services were privatised. Once the profit motive was introduced, it was inevitable that corners would be cut – trade unions pointed this out at the time. Subsequently, governments of either flavour have failed to address the problem, though at last, belatedly it now seems some efforts are being made.
We need to get the private sector out of hospital cleaning altogether, and take it back in-house.
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