In recent days two news items on the NHS have appeared, each of which makes me grateful for the French health service. Both items concern British hospitals.
This morning we were told of the Government’s plans to end the use of mixed-sex wards by the end of the year. Mention this to my French neighbours and they think we are joking. In this year of 2010 one in ten hospital patients in England and Wales are placed in mixed sex wards, and a higher proportion, a third, have to use mixed-sex bathroom facilities. A spokeswoman claimed that the difficulty lay in the ancient buildings still used as hospitals.
The other item suggests that excuse to be some way off the mark. In a discussion on a new hospital over the weekend we were told that this building, construction is due to start this year, will boast wards containing upwards of twelve beds. So, in a building that we can expect to be in use for the rest of this century, patients will be sharing multi-bed wards in the year 2099.
This is third world standards.
Boadicea's Chariot 
That’s nothing Tom, we are now sending, and paying for, disabled men to visit prostitutes in Amsterdam for sex. The money for this is out of the last Governments ‘Putting People first scheme’….Yep, that’s right, we are paying for disabled men to have a shag abroad.
Are disabled women offered the same service I wonder?
Mixed wards Tom? why put an end to them? We could save money by installing double beds instead.
🙂
Why send them to Amsterdam? What’s wrong with Wigan?
“In a discussion on a new hospital over the weekend we were told that this building, construction is due to start this year, will boast wards containing upwards of twelve beds.” – sorry not sure how this statement relates to mixed sex wards?
I had no idea there were so many mixed-sex people in Britain…1 in 10 eh? Who would have guessed?
CWJ 🙂 🙂
It doesn’t Psue, they are distinct, but related issues, that is, wards with multiple beds. The mixed-sex issue is an added indignity.
All wards usually have more than one bed in them… and some wards then have side rooms. Are you suggesting that every time anyone goes into hospital each person should be able to have an individual room?
“Whether you are a patient or a nurse, procuring a new hospital or managing an existing one, there are five primary concerns about the impact of a greater proportion of single rooms in our hospitals: levels of privacy and dignity; loneliness among patients; potential for patient observation; the impact on infection control, and relative cost.”
from
http://www.nursingtimes.net/forums-blogs-ideas-debate/nursing-blogs/ward-design-must-not-be-restricted-to-single-rooms/5016629.article
More debate here:
http://www.nursingtimes.net/whats-new-in-nursing/acute-care/single-rooms-pose-safety-risk-warn-nurses/5010724.article
Psue, if not individual, then share with no more than two others. I have been in two French hospitals and one French clinic. In only one did I share a room, with one other man, and that for only two nights.
If individual rooms become the norm there will need to be a huge increase in nursing staff. I refer to my links above
Pseu, my point of reference is the French health service, not discussion between people within the British system. Having experienced both systems I find the excuses offered by Brits for their relatively awful service unconvincing.
Having spent more time than enough in hospital, I am totally against mixed wards, an awful situation to be in.
Hello Zen, quite apart from the difference in sexes, the time for wards of twenty to thirty beds is long gone. Having visited friends in such wards, I found bedside privacy almost impossible, especially as one had to talk over the sound of a television that some were watching. Agreement about things like television is fairly easy between two or three people, but with the mass, it has to be put up with.
Most patients have their own TV above the bed which they can watch and listen via headphones, make telephone calls etc etc. I haven’t seen a ward with more than 4 beds in years, which hospital were visiting Tom?
Right, Tom, having to be there is bad enough, without piling on the agony.
Buxton, Val. That is many years ago now, but wards with more than four beds are common in England still, though perhaps not in your neck of the woods.
Val, I feel the term ‘ward’ could be misleading here…a whole ward would generally be the whole unit which is run as one place, and within that there would be four bedded units, two bedded units and single rooms….
Spot on Pseu, perhaps I should have made that a little clearer when I commented.
Nym, would it be fairer to Tom to declare your interest here?
Pseu, what divides those ‘units’? Are there substantial walls between? Certainly, recent pictures I have seen on British television showed curtained off area within a large room, not sufficiently dense to dampen the sound of somebody’s cries in the night from the other end.
In general the old fashioned ‘Nightingale ward’ (long tin ward with curtains only to divide one bed gfrom another) has long gone in the UK and most wards are subdivided into areas, commonly of four beds, (with proper walls, open on one side to the corridor) and a few single rooms.
It is a long time since I worked in a hospital, and now work as a district nurse. (Is that what you meant by declaring my interest, Janus?)
I left ward work (paediatrics) for many reasons, but not least the feeling that umpteen people would want my attention (patients, parents, doctors, other nurses, learners, physios, porters etc etc) and I often went off shift feeling I had completed nothing properly. At least in the community I can visit one person at a time and give the impression that they have my full attention.
I haven’t been in hospital since I had my children (over 30 years ago). When I had James I was in a ward of 20 plus beds, three years later with Helena I had my own room (we had moved in the interim). On 18th October I am going into hospital to have a knee replacement operation. I have not yet been for my physio visit or pre-operation assessment so I have no idea of what the facilities are like as the consultant came to see me at my local health centre. To be honest, apart from knowing where the hospital is, that is all I personally know about the place. However, friends have been there and tell me that it is a new hospital and very good. I am not sure yet about the size of the bays, whether or not I will have a single room (although I understand that there are some), and, of course, whether or not it will be mixed-sex wards. Personally speaking, I think they are a dreadful idea, particularly if you are feeling very ill and not, as in my case, just there for an operation.
So far I have been impressed with what has happened to me, although I think the fact that I arrived at the doctor’s surgery with a cd showing an x-ray of my knee did help (previously I have complained about my knee, but told to go away and keep on taking the painkillers – which didn’t work!). I have masses of information about my operation, including a dvd. If anyone is interested I will write a log of how I get on (not giving all the gory details, but a statement of what the facilities are like, etc.) By the way, I was given a choice of where I could have the operation and chose Hexham because the doctors are good and it is a nice hospital, as opposed to Newcastle – the doctors are good, but the hospital is dirty!!! This was what my GP said, not my words.
Hello gill, I wish you well with your operation. My wife had a new knee job about four months ago and we are now going for walks in the coutryside again. She chose a Paris clinic for her op, and the surgeon who did it.
Pseu, I had guessed from the link you provided that, like Val, you are in the industry. My comments are not aimed at NHS staff, there are good and bad individuals in every occupation, but at standards, which I consider to be very poor in the NHS. The changes to the old wards you mention are, in my view, cosmetic. Simply partitioning groups of beds in the way you describe is of little use if each group of four beds does not have its own toilet and washing facilities. On the one occasion that I have shared a room in France, it was in an old hospital in Paris. There were two beds in it, and we had our own facilities.
Tom, what a ity your prisons are pre-Roman conquest.
Pity
Janus, I’ll take your word for that as I have no personal experience of them.
If they’d let me, I would take a few photos of the bays and wards in our local hospitals Tom, they are not as bad as you image, or, as the media portray them to be, news which clouds ones impression of the true facts. Come and see for yourself, you may be surprised Tom. I will ask if I can take some pics, don’t hold your breath though, they will say no, even if I promise to pixilate faces.
Thanks for the offer Val, but your word is good enough for me.