Hospitals in the UK have this wonderful system called "Patientline", which provides TV, radio, telephone and internet at a patient's bedside. Patients pay up front and can get a number of hours' worth of TV or telephone calls at a specific rate. Family members can contact their loved ones at the rate of 39p/min off peak or 49p/min peak (mobile and international rates vary, please contact your operator for more information). Fuck off, you parasitic bastards.
I just phoned Connie. It took 2 minutes to get through to her after hearing all the shit from the automated information line.
She's OK, but annoyed that we forgot her makeup bag: "I haven't got any eyebrows, I need my eyebrow pencil!". And she's not had any sleep because of a death on the ward and a talkative neighbouring patient. When she did finally drop off, a nurse woke her to see that she was OK (not dead): "Constance, Constance, are you OK? Your pulse has dropped to 20!"
The doctors seem to think that she'd had a reaction to long term beta-blocker use and that a few days off them would restore her to "normal" without the need for further intervention (e.g. pacemaker).
We'll see...
14 comments:
Yes, that explains my £60 mobile bill last month. But then being able to dial direct to a patient's bed is pretty useful.
In addition to the phone the patient gets tv, answerphone and internet (although weirdly I could get on blogspot.com but not flickr) - all at a cost (kids get free TV).
Cor, that was an early post.
My mother was in hospital after Christmas with a broken wrist. She has difficulty enough with mobile phones, so she was completely baffled by Patientline.
Glad your mother is on the mend.
Patientline does have it's benefits, but the cost is way too prohibitive to many.
The one thing that irks me about it is that the fucking bored to the edge of death patients have to pay for the privilege of watching the telly, at the rate of £3 a day, or something. That's £90 a month! Given that a telly license for the whole bloody year costs just over that, someone somewhere (ie Patientline) is making a nice fat wad from each and every ward.
And half the websites are blocked. Some hospitals even provide a list of 'allowed' sites - access to everything else is forbidden, just in case you surf the porno sites in search of wanking material to relieve the boredom.
Cunts.
And I forgot to say:
You do realise that if Mumsy is fitted with a pacemaker, you can play new party games at Crimbo next year, like 'Pass the cobalt magnet' and the like. That'd be fun!
Wow, I guess there are some pluses to living in the United States. We had that sort of system back in the mid-70s. Now it's all free. Of course, it's probably added in to the total bill or something ...
Ah, but we have free healthcare.
I'd much rather have that than free telly.
Yeah, but does the old saying that "you get what you pay for" apply to the healthcare over there?
I'm spoiled, I live in Houston and people from all over the world come here to get medical attention.
Tina~
Glad to here your mum feels well enough to be concerned that she doesn't have her eyebrows on. :-) That's a good sign. love ya! m.
I'm so bored. 6 minutes of work to go and they are dragging SOOOOOOOOO much more than the rest of the day.
It's no wonder so many people die in hospitals; it must be something to do with the boredom....
Glad she's on the mend.
And appalled -- appalled! - by the vampire-esque ways of the hospital.
I guess it's still better than our health care system which charges exorbitant amounts for everything BUT the tv.
Glad she's getting bettery.
Slip her a codeine or two
Hope Connie's feeling better Sniff.
Personally, I'd rather just watch my own TV at home than be in the hospital. I think we may have to pay for the TV if you're in the hospital in Canada. However, our healthcare is affordable (I've never seen a bill) and good so I don't mind.
Is she better yet then?
Updates required.
Hourly.
glad to hear your mother is improving Tina.
We have 'free' healtcare here too but you pay in taxes. a lot!
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