Every Hospital Patient Has a Story
The Decline of Compassionate Care giving in American Hospitals

by Phyllis Chesler
Pajamas Media
November 10, 2008

http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/372/every-hospital-patient-has-a-story-the-decline

Excerpt:

Every hospital patient has a story. Just stop anyone on the street. Ask your relatives and friends. If they've done time in a hospital they'll tell you about some indignity, perhaps a nightmare or two. If you haven't heard these stories, it's partly because you haven't asked, or more likely, because most people want to forget about their hospital experiences if they can.

It is hard for me to write about such minor humiliations. Why? Because in terms of science and medicine, we are blessed to be alive in the American twenty-first century—and we know it.

In the past, amputations took place without anesthesia as did tooth extractions. Miracle medicines did not yet exist, doctors infected their patients because they did not wash their hands, the mentally ill were chained to the wall and left to live (or die) in their own filth. Women routinely died in childbirth and indeed, gave birth in great pain. Infant and child mortality rates were high and, if you broke a bone or fell, you were plumb out of luck.

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