Ideas And Possibilities For 2012

[Rotten Ali 600]

Since we were watching Norman Spinrad last year I'll add this bit of news into the mix from his occasional blog...

 

Sunday, February 27, 2011HOSPITAL TIME SLEEP DEPRIVATION

 

Having spent 22 days sleeping in the Memorial Sloane Kettering cancer hospital as a patient and then sleeping beside Dona Sadock who was a patient in the Mount Sinai hospital both in New York, I have been forcibly struck by both hospitals’ cavalier disregard for the human need for a proper night’s sleep.

 

Mind you, these are elite institutions. Sloane Kettering has a well-deserved reputation as the best cancer hospital in the world, with the inevitable occasional exception, the doctors, nurses, and nurses’ aids were all first rate, and even the food was quite good, and the same could be said for Mount Sinai..

 

But both hospitals quite literally torture patients with the sort of sleep deprivation techniques used by the CIA, the Mossad, and the interrogators at Guantanamo. In the wee hours of the morning--4:00 AM, 5:00 AM--you are abruptly awakened to have your blood pressure and temperature taken. Maybe you succeed in falling asleep again, only to be awakened 20 minutes or so later to have blood taken, after which maybe replenishing the intravenous infusions, and then doctors’ rounds, whatever, so that by a civilized hour like 7:00 AM you have been repeatedly awoken several times.

 

After a few days of this, you’re chronically sleep-deprived to the detriment of your general health and of course your recovery from whatever you’re in the hospital to be treated for. If you’re savvy enough to realize this even though the doctors and nurses don’t seem to, you may try to compensate by going onto “Hospital Time,” trying to go to sleep by 9:00 PM or so in order to catch 5 or 6 hours of real sleep before you’re rousted for the first time in the very early morning, and by the time you leave the hospital, you’re both sleep-deprived and throughly zoned without leaving your time zone of origin.

 

Inquiries reveal that this counterproductive practice is SOP at most hospitals. Complain about it to doctors or nurses are answered with a shrug and the explanation that this is just the way it is, like it or not, unhealthy though it certainly is, Hospital Time is an ingrained facet of hospital culture.

 

Obviously it damned well shouldn’t be. It makes it harder for patients to recover, tends to increase hospital days because of the additional strain on the health of patients, and therefore also contributes to higher medical costs than if patients were simply allowed proper time for uninterrupted sleep.

 

So two simple and reasonable suggestions for hospital administrators:

 

1)Let the day start for patients no earlier than 7:00 AM. Forbid them to be awoken before then for anything short of true necessity.

 

2)Combine all routine morning taking of various vital signs, replenishment of intravenous infusions, and so forth into one continuous visit, so that if the patient do manage to get back to sleep again, they are not woken up again and again at short intervals.

 

Far from increasing hospital costs, it will reduce them by speeding recovery timed , or rather not impeding them with chronic sleep deprivation. It may even make doctors and nurses more alert and competent by allowing them better sleep cycles too.

 

My Dona generally recovers from minor illnesses by long sleeps, sometimes as long as 15 or even 24 hours. I’m just not able to do this, but I wish I could. A good night’s sleep may not always be the best medicine, but sleep deprivation is always metabolic poison.

 

I've been on the lookout for having him on my Rotten.com team, but I've pulled him out since he is very hopeful of having now got topside of his major illnesses.

[maryportfuncity 10,647]

Daily Telegraph packs another shot of British spunk into the obits.

[deathstar 1]

Sorry if this has been mentioned but haven't gone through all six pages but why oh why is Betty White not in the 2011 list all the other Golden Girls popped their clogs so surely an 89 year old woman should be a shoe in.

 

No Bruce Forsyth, no Steve Jobs, no Eric Sykes, no Leslie Phillips what is going on here???!!!!

[msc 18,476]

Eric Sykes has been a bad pick five times already on the Deathlist.

[Paul Bearer 6,102]

Sorry if this has been mentioned but haven't gone through all six pages but why oh why is Betty White not in the 2011 list all the other Golden Girls popped their clogs so surely an 89 year old woman should be a shoe in.

 

A friend of mine recently went to a TV studio (CBS) to sit in the audience of 'Hot in Cleveland' and reported back that Betty looked great and was very funny and fiesty between takes.

[Spade_Cooley 9,535]

Here's an interview with American billionaire David Murdock, an 87-year-old who claims that a sore throat he suffered earlier this year was his first ever bout of illness. He's planning his 125th birthday already, but pride is quite often followed by something else.

[JR976evil 906]

Here's an interview with American billionaire David Murdock, an 87-year-old who claims that a sore throat he suffered earlier this year was his first ever bout of illness. He's planning his 125th birthday already, but pride is quite often followed by something else.

 

With 38 years worth of preparation sure it will be quite something

[Whitehouse 872]

A little known actress who did some things in Hollywood, Elyse Knox, also mother of Mark Harmon, better known as special agent Gibbs from NCIS.

 

93 years old now.

[deathstar 1]

Maybe we need to start thinking older Coronation Street actors Bill Tarmy and Geoffrey Hghes are there but what about Betty Driver nearly 90, Emily Bishop, Rita and Ken nearly 80.

[JR976evil 906]

Maybe we need to start thinking older Coronation Street actors Bill Tarmy and Geoffrey Hghes are there but what about Betty Driver nearly 90, Emily Bishop, Rita and Ken nearly 80.

 

And that's just the remaining cast, take into account also Jean Alexander (Hilda Ogden) b. 1926, Thelma Barlow (Mavis Wilton) b. 1929, Liz Dawn is not well these days either...

 

quite a few soap stars past and present worth keeping an eye on

[Spade_Cooley 9,535]

For those of you who fancy low-picking-yet-really-really-really-not-famous fruit, how about the 98-year-old grandmother of Frank Lampard's ex-girlfriend?

[CaptainChorizo 1,983]

Doubtful he would get a UK Obit but NFL Films President Steve Sabol was just diagnosed with a brain tumor and is going to undergo radiation and chemotherapy.

 

Might be one to keep tabs on for 2012 in any Us based pools.

[Lard Bazaar 3,799]

Does someone want to kill Wyclef Jean?

[JR976evil 906]

Does someone want to kill Wyclef Jean?

 

Someone who didn't realise he was no longer running for the Haitian Presidency perhaps?

[DevonDeathTrip 2,358]

Musical entertainer Roger Williams, "Pianist To The Presidents", 86, is suffering from pancreatic cancer.

[Toast 16,142]

Apologies if this has cropped up before, but Mirror hack Sue Carroll is also suffering from pancreatic cancer

[themaninblack 2,112]

I tell you what, Guardian sketch writer Simon Hoggart is one to watch after seeing him on BBC News 24 earlier today...

[Davey Jones' Locker 1,324]

I was surprised to learn that John Astin (Gomez Addams) is still alive. He was born in 1930, so he was only in his early- to mid-30s when he appeared in the Addams Family.

 

Also, another old television actor, Gavin MacLeod, (the captain of the Love Boat) was born in 1931 and had a battle with alcohol in the past.

[Paul Bearer 6,102]

I was surprised to learn that John Astin (Gomez Addams) is still alive. He was born in 1930, so he was only in his early- to mid-30s when he appeared in the Addams Family.

 

Also, another old television actor, Gavin MacLeod, (the captain of the Love Boat) was born in 1931 and had a battle with alcohol in the past.

 

 

I thought he'd die'd a couple of years ago. Anybody want to confirm?

[JR976evil 906]

Apologies if this has cropped up before, but Mirror hack Sue Carroll is also suffering from pancreatic cancer

 

Wasn't aware of this, definitely one for next year's DL I'd say

[deathstar 1]

I tell you what, Guardian sketch writer Simon Hoggart is one to watch after seeing him on BBC News 24 earlier today...

 

He looked absolutely shocking How he used to look:

 

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http...1t:429,r:18,s:0

 

 

How he looked in January:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12174150

 

He looked much much worse on BBC news last week.

[themaninblack 2,112]

I tell you what, Guardian sketch writer Simon Hoggart is one to watch after seeing him on BBC News 24 earlier today...

 

He looked absolutely shocking How he used to look:

 

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http...1t:429,r:18,s:0

 

 

How he looked in January:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12174150

 

He looked much much worse on BBC news last week.

 

His father incidentally is still alive at 92...

[Shock Limelight 0]

Indian Guru Sai Baba in time?

Baba, who celebrated his 85th birthday in November last year, was not keeping well since the past six months.

[Windsor 2,233]

John Bardon is leaving Eastenders.

 

He suffered a stroke a few years back...he obviously hasn't recovered as well as he had hoped.

[DevonDeathTrip 2,358]

The Daily Mail are either late filing their April Fool report, or they are actually serious. They are querying if U.S. government microwave mind-control tests causing TV presenters' brains to melt down?.

 

Please let Piers Morgan be next.