Too Many Shocks

With the growing array of plug-in appliances in the average U.S. home, the danger of electrical shock is considerable. In hospitals, the hazard is often far greater. And the sicker the patient is, the greater the danger, for he is likely to be wired to a battery of electronic monitoring and assistance devices. Yet while most household devices from irons and toasters to dishwashers come with a little tag reading "UL [for Underwriters' Laboratories] Approved," there is no comparable standard of approval for hospital equipment.

According to Dr. Carl Waldemar Walter of Boston's famed Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, there are 1,200 "electrocutions"--deaths by electrical shock --in U.S. hospitals every year. Though the statement has provoked incredulity (a spokesman for the American Medical Association insists that it is "exaggerated by about 1,175 cases"), Walter stands by it. "I don't think it's an unrealistic figure," he said last week, "since we have about 7,000 hospitals and 30 million hospitalized patients a year." The figure would be far greater, he notes, if it included patients who suffer cardiac arrest as a result of electrical shock but are resuscitated.

On the Alert. Electrical hazards in hospitals fall into two main categories: 1) those resulting from the complexity of the equipment, which may be made by different manufacturers and thus have incompatible grounding systems, and 2) those arising from simple causes, such as worn cords and broken plugs.

In the operating room, recovery room or intensive-care unit of a modern hospital, the more sophisticated devices may actually be safer than the routine ones, because they are used by highly trained physicians and nurses who are on the alert for danger signals. Even so, says Walter, such vigilance may not always be sufficient. In a situation involving a patient who has an electrical lead going into his heart or a major artery, for example, a minute accidental current leakage, ordinarily considered negligible, may stop a patient's heart. Perhaps more dangerous in the long run are the heating pads, blankets, bed controls and reading lamps that everyone takes for granted. If current from any of these ungrounded appliances reaches a patient's body, he may suffer burns or electric shock. Even when the supposedly safe three-prong plug with a ground wire is used, there is still a danger. Because the equipment is plugged in and out so often, usually by undertrained aides who understand nothing about electricity, the ground wire may break inside the cable or the plug.

Detachable Head. To reduce the danger, the health-products division of Borg-Warner Corp. is using a heavy-duty plug with a detachable head that may be open for inspection. Borg-Warner has also introduced a low-voltage hand control for the patient's tip-up bed; even if there should be a leakage of current, the resulting shock would be only 16 volts, not enough to be harmful even to a very sick man.

Every year since 1962, with monotonous regularity, bills have been introduced in Congress calling for approval by some federal agency of hospital electrical devices to ensure that they meet minimum safety standards. So far, all the bills have been killed in committee.

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