Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Hospital floor can't take fat patients' weight

This article in the Evening Standard, a UK newspaper (title of post is link to article) just floors me (pun intended). Since when are buildings of any kind built with floors that can't withstand a substantial amount of weight? 30 stone is only 420 lbs, and they are saying the floors in the hospital won't handle that amount of weight? Then they probably aren't moving any heavy diagnostic equipment on any floors but the ground floor (in the UK, the first floor is what we call the 2nd floor, they go ground floor, 1st, 2nd etc, we go 1st (ground), 2nd, etc).
So if a patient weighing 420 lbs or more needs to be in an ICU ward that is not located on the ground floor, are they going to take a chance that the patient may crash through the floor if they put them there? Or are they going to make a make-shift ICU for them on the ground floor and hope they can give quality care in that situation?
If their hospital buildings are so shoddily built that their floors can't handle more than 400 lbs, then I don't think they should be allowed to put any patients on any floor other than the ground floor. After all, what about someone who is close to 400 lbs but needs a wheel chair and oxygen and other equipment? They are going to be over that 420 lb limit, so are they relegated to the ground floor also? This is just another way to blame fat people for the poor quality of care dished out by the medical establishment (I'm coming back to thinking we need the hippy phrase of the 60's, "Down with the establishment!"). You're too fat so we can't put you in the ward you need to be in, you'll have to make do with what we can find for you on the ground floor. You're too fat, we don't have exam gowns that will fit, you'll have to be naked and use a sheet to cover yourself. You're too fat, our gurneys, beds, wheelchairs, etc won't hold you, you'll have to find a hospital that does have equipment that can hold you (there isn't one nearby, oh too bad, so sad for you). And it's all your fault you're too fat, if you would just quit stuffing your face and get up off your fat lazy ass and exercise, you too could be magically thin (no, we don't want to hear about Health at Every Size, no, we don't want to hear that everyone deserves respect no matter what their size is, we just want you ugly, stupid, lazy, gluttonous pigs to die off so we don't have to deal with you because you make us look bad). And why do we make them look bad? Because we aren't dying from being fat, we're dying because they insist on mutilating our bodies to make us thin because all the diets they put us on don't work, we're dying because they refuse to look beyond our fat for the real cause of whatever illness/disease we have, but that's ok because fat people don't contribute much to society anyway, we're just a drain on resources (tell that to all the fat scientists, inventors, authors, politicians [wait, politicians, thin or fat, are a drain, I forgot for a minute], truck drivers, waitresses, nurses, business owners, entrepreneurs, and all the other fat people out there living their lives and supporting themselves, their families, and our economies).

3 comments:

  1. So...they're never had two 225 people standing next to each other? And how about when two doctors and two nurses are surrounding someone in their bed? That's probably a good 650+ pounds right there.

    This is the most insane thing I've ever heard.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 14 stone is 196lbs :)

    There is 14lbs to a stone :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. My bad, was supposed to be 30 stone, which is 420 lbs, I got the 14 lbs = 1 stone stuck in my head when commenting and didn't edit before posting. It's corrected now :)

    ReplyDelete

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