Technical question...regarding hospital beds
By vanny
@vandana7 (98823)
India
October 22, 2018 6:05am CST
One thing I hate about hospital beds here. Mattress is covered with material that does not let liquid percolate.
It facilitates raising the person waist up so that the person can sit, watch TV, read, etc., instead of lying down continuously.
What this does is, the person slides on that macintosh material, moving forward till legs touch the other end.
The care giver has to call somebody to help them lift the patient up and make the patient's head reach the pillow end once more.
This moving up process must most certainly hurt the patient especially somebody with back or hip injury. Naturally, the patient would prefer to remain in lying position instead of risking getting up, which will make the patient dizzy not to mention prone to more bed sores.
I think this sliding can be prevented by by dividing the bed into four or six units each of which can be raised even higher than normal or lowered with lever rather than just half beds being moved up and down. Effectively, I thought of it something like snake's scales type of movement so that the patient does not slip off easily.
I don't know how it is at your end. But if you have better solutions at your end, please let me know.
6 people like this
7 responses
@LadyDuck (458006)
• Switzerland
22 Oct 18
For what I read from @owlwings our local hospital has the same kind of beds. The mattress is surely covered with prevents liquids to percolate, but the mattress is covered by two layers of bed sheets and I have not noticed that my husband was annoyed. He could sit without sliding. I show you a photo of our beds. Every part can be moved electrically.
4 people like this
@vandana7 (98823)
• India
22 Oct 18
Our hospital beds are manually operated, I see only one joint there unlike what owlwing has mentioned. I would have opted for two at the shorter end preventing excessive slipping. Two layers of bed sheets ..actually bed sheets do not say on the mattress after moving so much. There was also one more sheet that was added at the waist level down. That one was disposable so I guess it is made from some paper or cellulose like our kitchen mopping cloth.
3 people like this
@vandana7 (98823)
• India
22 Oct 18
@LadyDuck They are tied to the frame? Here they are not...that is interesting indeed. Usually care givers have tough time. Hospitals cut costs by having limited number of nurses and other helping staff. A nurse under training was drawing only about 9000 INR about 4 years ago. That would be 125 dollars or so by today's rate. That is per month. Doctors take away bulk of profits, with no liabilities of course. The helpers who give bed pan, change bed sheets etc., get half that. A ward of almost 24 private rooms has only about 2 helpers and four nurses. Care givers have tough time to find the nurse for any help.
3 people like this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
22 Oct 18
Our hospitals - or, at least, my local one - have beds where the mattress support has two joints, one at the hip and one at the knee. The bed can be arranged to be flat, to have the foot end raised or to have a shallow 'N' configuration, giving support at the hip when sitting up by raising the section under the knees slightly.
They can also be adjusted for height, of course, so that making the bed and getting into and out of it can be done easily. All of this is done electrically with a controller so that the patient or the nurse can adjust it as required without effort. Every bed can be easily detached and moved to a different ward or to another department -surgery, for example - either by hand or by a motor unit which fits onto the bed. This saves patients having to be moved onto a gurney when going for surgery or transferring to another ward.
They still suffer from the problems of a slippery mattress in that when they are in the sitting up or reclining position, the pillows tend to end up down one's back instead of behind the head. This is usually remedied, however, with more pillows!
3 people like this
@vandana7 (98823)
• India
22 Oct 18
I was the care giver for my aunt a couple of years ago. I tended to use a lot of pillows at the foot end...to prevent her from slipping when she was made to sit for eating. But it did not really help. Every time she had to be pulled back, I could see that she was in tremendous pain. She had hip injury. Eating, drinking water, everything was problematic. She is a brave one, and did not complain. But I wished I could have done something to prevent it. Two joints must certainly feel better than a single joint as our hospital beds are. Imagine a person being lifted on one side by the nurse and another underarm being lifted by caregiver. That too with hip surgery.
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (45484)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
22 Oct 18
I had the same sort of bed Owlwings mentioned, for my mother. When I had her sitting up, I would also make the mattress bend under her knees a bit so that it would be more comfortable.
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (45484)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
23 Oct 18
@vandana7 I see your worry.
1 person likes this
@arunima25 (85269)
• Bangalore, India
22 Oct 18
I didn't realize it earlier. But you seem to have a valid point.
1 person likes this
@vandana7 (98823)
• India
23 Oct 18
And it was not an ordinary hospital...it was Apollo. All rooms have manual beds to date. There should be a way to help them slip back rather than drag them up holding their shoulders. And people do need to get up ... since they can't turn with injuries. Even daily routines like bedpan becomes tough.
1 person likes this
@arunima25 (85269)
• Bangalore, India
23 Oct 18
@vandana7 I didn't realize it when I was admitted to the hospital. Since I could move on my own. But definitely it will be a discomfort for elderly and ones who need assistance.
1 person likes this
@nawala123 (20852)
• Indonesia
12 Nov 18
@vandana7 staying at hospital (hospitalized) is bad thing, and the bed make it worse
1 person likes this
@vandana7 (98823)
• India
12 Nov 18
@nawala123 We need to find a better way. I was wondering if waste thinner an softer plastic was shredded and pushed in thin covers like duvet and used as bed spread instead of simple bed spread, would it feel as easy to slip off. If they are not slipping off, the problem does not exist, right?
