Each patient had a mattress.
There were beds, but if a patient wanted a mattress, that came from home.
So on Saturday night, the hospital will find places for staff members to sleep over, including empty patient beds, air mattresses in conference rooms and doctors' on-call rooms.
"I've treated people for insomnia for 20 years and if a patient asks me what mattress he should buy, I can't tell him.
Following a discharge clean, nine environmental swabs were taken from each of the following sites: ceiling vent, sink, console, bed, patient/visitor chair, patient table, bedside locker, mattress and the pillow (following pillowcase removal).
In mid-July, a half-dozen patients lay on mattresses on the floor, tucked wherever they fit.
The geriatric E.R. — eight beds and six examining rooms — resembles a clinic more than it does an emergency room: there are nonskid floors, rails along the walls, reclining chairs for patients and thicker mattresses to reduce bedsores.
The tests consisted of "normal" carrying, as well as explicitly rapid carrying, of a dummy (78 kg) up and down a flight of stairs using the commercially available ambulance cots, which weighed between 48.5 and 50 kg including a mattress for the patient.
Body temperature was maintained at 37.5°C ± 0.5°C by the use of a warming mattress and a patient air warming system (Warm Touch 5700; Mallinckrodt, Hennef, Germany).
It could be shown that, in principle, IMRT of the whole peritoneal cavity is possible, though patient immobilisation using a vacuum mattress and a scotch cast mask was needed to obtain the required accuracy necessary in body stereotaxy.
