So I’m in to see my friend at the hospital today—he’s had leg surgery and I stop by the ward desk where his room was—and while the nurse was quite nice, it was perfectly obvious she was sicker than shit, blowing her bulbous red nose and clutching a handful of snotty tissues between sneezes. Sitting next to her was an old lady in a wheelchair. Perhaps this is Dexter’s plan to kill elderly and vulnerable people to save the province much-needed health care bucks. —This Health Care System Needs a Fucking Kick in the Ribs
This article appears in Mar 25-31, 2010.
H1N2?
I was with this one right up until you started getting political, OP.
How can you observe a sick person at work and immediately jump to getting indignant about the health care system and start blaming the premier? Was Dexter standing behind this woman with a gun to her head?
have you seen that documentary about how many docs go from room to room w/o washing their hands; I’m no paranoid anal type about germs but i avoid hosp. like the plague (hey a pun) 🙂
gee, who would ever have thought that a hospital would have sick people there. yes, staff can actually get sick too,and sometimes, it comes on suddenly. been there, done that, many times over.and then someone has to fill her shift for rest of day and later maybe. it goes with the seasons, get used to seeing it more and more.
Having been hospitalized in Toronto during the SARS outbreak, during the 2nd wave an outbreak occurred on the floor I was on even though SARS cases were quarantined 3 floors away. The low levels of cleanliness and common sense were factors in the spread of that disease causing preventable deaths e.g the sharing of toothpaste tubes between patients with applications direct to the toothbrush yet we were required to wear face-masks 24/7. One of my room-mates and her daughter both died of SARS shortly after. And just outside my room, just audible was a radio which regularly played Coldplay’s ‘Clocks’… “Am I part of the cure or am I part of the disease?” Those were 4 of the most terrifying days of my life, followed by 2 weeks of monitoring the incubation period for symptoms. I have a healthy fear of hospitals now.
As for someone with a virus no matter the workplace, they should stay home to diminish the spread of the disease. Would you want your food server or preparer to go to work sick? Why should it be different for other professions. Yes, as someone said, hospitals are for the sick, but most people are not there for cold viruses. Nor do they wish to acquire one while there.
Unfortunately, that lady probably caught her cold from someone who came to work with a cold and perhaps she doesn’t have any sick days or whatever and can’t take time off and now gets to come to work to spread the love, once again.
It’s a cycle, really, and some people can’t afford to take the time off 🙁
I could never afford to take time off work either but I did it anyway. Better not to share the joy and my effectiveness at work was compromised by feeling like absolute worse than crap. You just have to catch-up later or try to budget for the inevitable annual week or two that wretched viral attacks will take control of your body. We all know it’s going to happen. If more people stayed home when they are ill less people would be at risk of getting sick. I cringe when I see people at work who are infectious because I know it’ll get around to me eventually.