Rest? Guess Again

The young mother has her baby, and snuggles down in her hospital bed for a few days of rest. What does she get? Most often a lot of unnecessary frazzle, a topflight gynecologist told the Chicago Medical Society last week. Fumed the University of Michigan's Dr. Norman F. Miller:

"At some absurd hour in the early morning, she is awakened. The technique used for this cruel intrusion will vary. It may be a thermometer inserted in her mouth, a pitcher of ice water placed on her table, or orders to get washed and readied for a breakfast which commonly arrives an hour or two later. Any attempt to snatch a brief rest during the remainder of the day is likely to end in disappointment due to the parade of the VIPs, who so space their visits that there is never an idle moment: the baby, the nurse, the nurse's aid, the room duster, the toilet polisher, the floor mopper and the doctor.

"I do not mean to be facetious ... I sincerely believe this has come to be one of the most serious bugaboos of hospital life . . . Frequently it marks the beginning of the well-recognized emotional tension and fatigue syndrome observed in new mothers."

Dr. Miller fears that the patient's welfare is being sacrificed to the false gods of streamlining and standardization. Hospitals, he thinks, should ask themselves a few searching questions, e.g., "Are bedpans and ice water distributed early in the morning because the patients need them, or because they are the night crew's responsibility? Is the early-morning temperature taken because it helps the patient, or merely because it is required for an acceptable hospital record?"

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