SLEEPING IN HOSPITALS

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 16 January 1913, Page 3

SLEEPING IN HOSPITALS

In a letter of some eloquence a layI man asks us (says the "British JMoclica' Journal") to rail attention to the difficulties put in t lie. way of sick people obtaining as much sleep as possible, which every one will admit to he dc-irn.hlo. by tlie arrangements exist--1 ing in the hospitals and infirmary wards. The fact that lights are lowered ahout eight p.m. in no way-en-sures, he points'out, that the patiV'iits will immediately go to sleep; on the contrary, it is highly prohalilc that many of them will lie awake lor some time and not pet soundly off to sleep, if at all. until half the night is over. Nevertheless, the "hrntal business of waking thorn" begins about six a.m. While all this U a fairly true, picture, [ our correspondent's view, that is it an unreasonable, ais well as undesirable condition of things which medical (men cnuld at once put right*if they ' wished is by no means accurate. Many have been struck by the drawbacks of the early hours kept by hospitals, continues our contemporary, but no one has yet been able, to think of a remedy which in the long run. would not prove worse than the disease. Ft is inevitable, that the nursing should be divided into night a.nd day shifts and that these shall unite forces in the early morning to get through the heavy work' by the dawning of another day, including the washing and tidying of patients, and the preparation of some of them for breakfast awl of others' for operations. Tf this work were not shared some patients would not receive for hours the mtiltidudinous attentions that almost all of them require as soon as they are awake: and if the hour of its commencement were delayed and the. night staff kept on duty for that purpose, the whole day's work would bo shifted on a corresponding number or hours. Fn that case, much of the day work would have to be hurried through in order to complete it before nightfall, and among other evils many patients who at present get a good deal of sleep during the quiet hours of the afternoon would get no sleep at all.