OK, it was a small town hospital. I'll start with that. They had the equipment needed for diagnostics, the medications required, staff with great attitudes and the needed knowledge -and in at least my case, connections within the larger system to pick brains where needed.
What surprised me, increasingly as days passed, was the lack of room cleaning... and "me cleaning".
Nobody swept the floors in the 4 days I was there, though the wastebaskets got emptied before they overflowed with all the empty IV pouches that had gotten emptied into my veins, along with other detritus, like the connector from IV bag A conneting into the tubing from IV bag B... or C or D, as they all combined into a single needle in me. They also contained a pair of gloves from every person who came into my room, grabbed immediately inside the door from a stack of boxes in a range of 4 sizes, worn until the person left. That was duly noted and appreciated.
Once out of the ER, and deemed non contagious, I saw no more face masks on staff around me. There's a new covid making the rounds however. Are they sure they don't have it to share?
The bedding was never changed in 4 days, though after Steve left the large recliner to drive home until it was time to come back and get me over two days later, that became my permanent location instead of the "trap" of a bed. It was much easier to sleep in, get into and out of, and didn't press on my shoulders. The wonderful warm handmade quilt frequently landed on the floor as I got in/out of bed or chair in order to "dance with Miss Ivy". There was a pad put on the chair after Steve left, plastic on the chair side, something along the lines of absorbent paper on the other, which also made its way to the floor and back again as it - and I - moved around. Pillows wound up wherever, and back again, often times with required assistance.
In every hospital stay I've had previously, either there was a shower in the room with soap, washcloth and towel, or a nurse assisting me in the process while bed bound.There were no towels here except the paper ones from the sink dispenser roll, soap being a spit of foam from a wall dispenser barely adequate for post toilet hand cleaning, and if used, the dropped paper towels threatened to spill out of the small wastebasket in the area. I did have to remind myself those actually did get emptied, since they were so quickly refilled. I'd initially thought they hadn't, until about the third day, watching one person's technique for doing it, recognized it, realizing I had seen it done here before. I hadn't thought I'd been that sick. Surprise!
The part that actually bothered me, since I was a bit too sick to be all that fussy about most of it, was the lack of attention to the toilet. There were a couple of long brown streaks on it, one low outside in front of the bowl, another high inside across the back of the bowl The curtain hid the toilet when it was pulled. When open, they were plainly across the whole room. They'd been there long enough to have dried by the time I used it, but not rubbing off - visibly - during my use didn't seem an adequate reason to ignore them.
The other stuff - floors, sheets, etc., wouldn't have bothered me ordinarily. Whatever dirt accumulated on the floor from people's shoes was not apparent. No pieces of stuff were felt underfoot as I crossed the floor, though I did wear my own socks until I was given a pair of non-skid ones. If I developed BO during my stay, nobody complained, and my nose still takes holding up my glasses as its sole responsibility. When I was in a hurry to get to the toilet - which I always was because of the IV pole entanglements - I didn't worry about something that for whatever reason was not rubbing off onto my clothing - that I could see anyway. And yes, I have now checked my clothing, previous to putting things in the laundry basket. I do promise you, however, it wasn't brown paint.
But as the days passed, and my mind started to clear, I started to notice things that still weren't happening in the room. Or at least not in ways that my memories of many previous hospital visits resurfaced for me to compare with. So I'm wondering whether standards have changed for cleanliness in hospitals? If so, why?
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