Yesterday the expensive new nine story patient wing of the Midland Memorial Hospital held an open house to display the new building. The rooms had pretty much what one might expect in modern hospital rooms, including computer monitors with Windows XP logos roaming around the screen.
However, the most striking thing about the rooms was the attention paid to bariatric patients. "Bariatric" is the polite word to describe someone with an energy retention system so efficient that the stored energy becomes a burden. The less polite word would be "fat."
Each patient room had double doors and a Guldmann lift to get the patient up out of bed. There were no demonstrations yesterday, but this Youtube video shows how one works. And the photo on the right shows one hanging in the background.
The standard rooms had GH3 units with maximum lift of 250 kg / 550 lbs., each powered by its own 24v NiMH rechargeable battery. Then there was one room on the tour map called the "Bariatric Room." That one had a GH3+ unit with maximum lift of 350 kg / 770 pounds. That lift was powered by two batteries. See a closeup below, right.
It's "goodbye sore back" for the beleaguered hospital staff.
Bonus -- if anyone needs a suggestion for a new year's resolution, here's mine: Keep the weight below 550 pounds, 770 tops.
P.S. I thought Microsoft was going to quit supplying updates for the XP operating system. Oh well, if the system gets a virus, what better place for treatment than at a hospital?
Comments