Beeping Mad!

Laurie

Laurie

Active member
Having spent three of the last four weeks viewing life from a hospital bed I've been close to suicidal over the amount of portable equipment fitted with beepers.  o_O 
Since their sole purpose is to notify hospital staff of various functions/misfunctions why should we, the paying public be driven potty by their continuous racket?
Idea  :sneaky: Why not convert all the beepers to ultrasonic devices and fit all the hospital staff with bat detectors?
Got to be worthy of a Nobel Peace (and Quiet) Prize......?
 
S

Speleofish

Active member
We're working on a system to do almost exactly what Laurie wants. The constant beeping is almost as irritating for the staff as the patients..... May take a while, so earplugs, iPods or noise-cancelling headphones are probably sensible equipment for any conscious patient.
 
droid

droid

Active member
After my crash I got out early by being bad tempered and awkward.




No change there, then, you say.... :-[ :LOL:
 
tony from suffolk

tony from suffolk

Well-known member
Best wishes for a speedy recovery Laurie!

With regards to the beeping, I feel your pain. I have to attend a hospital day unit every week to have a pint of blood drained off (to reduce the iron levels in my various organs) & the various drips attached to my fellow patients beep relentlessly as they empty. Drives me bonkers!
 
C

crickleymal

New member
As a soon to be retired nhs radiotherapy engineer I know what you mean. The beeps and pings are there for a reason and the staff should really be attending to correct the problem or turn the machine off. Most of the noises will be because the pump has finished delivering the medication so it should just be turned off and disconnected from the patient. If they're going to ignore other things like blood pressure too high or pulse rate outside limits then they can mute the alarm.
 
Pegasus

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
crickleymal said:
As a soon to be retired nhs radiotherapy engineer I know what you mean. The beeps and pings are there for a reason and the staff should really be attending to correct the problem or turn the machine off. Most of the noises will be because the pump has finished delivering the medication so it should just be turned off and disconnected from the patient. If they're going to ignore other things like blood pressure too high or pulse rate outside limits then they can mute the alarm.
Click to expand...

The things I learn reading various UKC posts, every day's a school day....

Hope you're feeling better, Laurie  :)
 
T

Tripod

Member
A long time ago, when my eldest son was a teenager, I alerted a senior member of nursing staff to a potentially very harmful practice. Pumps, with beeps, were being used to deliver intra-venous (IV) medication and the nursing staff had got into a habit of turning the "beep" off when it sounded, returning later to top up the medication. What they had not noticed was that stopping the "beep" restarted the pump, which then went on to push air from the now empty IV line into the patient. I shudder to think about the possible consequences of this, what might have happened to my son and to others in that ward and elsewhere. Sadly I am was not surprised at this example of failing to take in the whole picture and respond in the way the staff did to what they perceived as an irritation.
 
Alex

Alex

Well-known member
Sorry to hear you are in hospital or even worse in Mc Donanld's now that place bloody BEEPS!
 
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