Hospitals are Not Good Places to Heal
Patient recovery and readmission rates suffer greatly amid all the prodding, poking, noise and lousy food. It doesn’t have to be like this.
When a woman was admitted to my hospital for feeling like her heart was fluttering, she was found to have an arrhythmia — her heart rate kept fluctuating. The decision was made to keep her overnight for observation. This meant monitor on, beeping every time there is an abnormality in the heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate or movement out of the bed.
“How are you feeling?” I asked at one point.
“I feel worse than when I came into the ER,” she said. “I did not sleep a wink. These beds are not comfortable and I am woken up constantly.”
I replied with a line I’d told many people who had the same complaints about their night: “I completely understand. The hospital is not a great place for rest. But I can assure you everything we are doing is to make sure you are safe and able to go home.”
But did I believe it myself? Is it necessary to deprive people of sleep in the hospital setting and how does that contribute to health outcomes? What about the food, the noise and the overall environment?
