Sunday, January 5, 2025

Healthcare - More Beds, Better Care


 What does the hospital do? Why do we build a hospital? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the English word “hospital” originally comes from the Latin noun “hopes,” which stands for “a guest or visitor” and “one who provides lodging or entertainment for a guest or visitor.” Oxford dictionary says noun. /ˈhɒspɪtl/ /ˈhɑːspɪtl/ ​a large building where people who are ill or injured are given medical treatment and care.

I brought up this topic to understand how we should take our hospital services. In a hospital, a patient should get treatment if they need it. All patients who seek medical help should get that help. When the hospital finds out there is nothing more to do, the patient may go home with proper instruments to continue the healthcare service in their home. We can’t keep patients like this in the hospital. Otherwise, all hospital beds will be filled with patients, and there won’t be any space for new ones. We know that every hospital gets new patients with different problems every day.

Before I joined the Community Worker Program, I used to work in an organization. One day, one of my elderly colleagues said he kept his wife in the hospital. She is sick, her memory is lost, and nothing can be done to her recovery. He visits her every 1 to 3 months. That is also not needed because most of the time, she doesn’t recognize him. I was surprised to hear that because in my country, hospitals will never act like nursing homes; they will need beds for those who need treatments. But my colleague said this is Canada, and he is happy that he doesn’t need to take care of his wife and not pay for anything (Medicine, dress, etc.).

I know this sounds brutal. But if you do your math, you will understand it’s impossible to keep a patient like this. Today or tomorrow, the hospital authority will have to act on it.

That’s why I think we are fighting with the wrong point. We shouldn’t fight to keep nursing home patients in hospitals. We should fight to have government-owned nursing homes with all the necessary equipment, good management, nurses, and doctors. Where an elderly patient can live happily, which should be free and accessible for all who need it as a Canadian is supposed to have.

During the pandemic, when oxygen support was in crisis, hospitals needed to decide who should get the facility, the younger or older patient. It goes for the younger one. Who lives along with the support.

In Japan, there was a nuclear incident in an area. To clean that area, elderly people volunteer to go because they don’t want the younger generation to have a chemical reaction.

I am bringing this logic to support my point that hospitals should be for patients who need treatments. Canada’s nursing homes are facing lots of troubles. Our military support group also suggested that workers try hard, but the management isn’t supporting them enough to solve the problems.

That’s why we need to ask our government not to privatize nursing homes anymore. Instead, they should create enough government-owned nursing homes for the elderly so that nobody worries about where they will go in their old age or who will care for them.

I am not supporting the act. We can’t forcefully remove any patient when we don’t make the proper solution for them. We need to ensure good homes for them first. We may not take more patients like this to stay in the hospital, but we can’t forcefully move anyone. Elderly people also have a voice to make the decision for themselves.

 

References:

1.      hospital noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com. (2023). Oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/hospital#:~:text=hospital-

 

2.      Staff, R. (2020, April 27). False claim: Hospital stands for “house of sick people in trauma and labor.” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-hospital-stands-for-idUSKCN229262

 

3.     Sasaki, K., Gr, A. 72-Year-Old, & plant, mother who has volunteered to help clean up the F. nuclear. (n.d.). Japanese Seniors: Send Us To Damaged Nuclear Plant. NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/2011/09/12/140402430/japanese-seniors-send-us-to-damaged-nuclear-plant

Archard, D., & Caplan, A. (2020). Is it wrong to prioritise younger patients with covid-19? BMJ, m1509. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1509

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