(What exchanging of stories those recreation rooms
have witnessed!) On the one hand, then, the seriously ill patient is not
annoyed by the rovings in the ward of the walking patients; and on the
other the walking patients are not irked by the necessity for keeping
quiet at a period when returning health stimulates them to a wholesome
desire for fun. Both kinds of patients, thus, may legitimately be said
to get better more quickly than they would have had a chance to do were
it not for the recreation rooms. It is within the writer's knowledge
that the medical staff of the hospital, on being consulted as to the
"bed value" of the recreation rooms, unanimously agreed that their
existence reduced the average sojourn of the hospital's inmates by a
definite "per day" ratio: that ratio, so far from showing a bed-space
waste, worked out at a per-annum gain of bed-space equivalent to a
ward--if such a colossal ward could conceived!--of upwards of 300 beds.
So much for a point which might not appear to be worth detailed
explanation, but which has here been glanced at in order that critics
(for, unbelievable though it sounds, there have been curmudgeons to
growl of spoiling the wounded by too much pleasure) may be answered in
advance.
Pages:
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115