[jyl]

I had lunch last week with a friend who is head of nursing at a Bay Area hospital. They'd just installed overhead patient lifts in a bunch of the rooms. These lift a patient, move him out of the way for bed changes, transfer him between bed and chair, even turn the patient over in bed.

Why did this smallish hospital spend $1MM on this stuff? Because their patients are getting fatter and fatter. It sometimes takes five nurses to lift, roll, move a patient. The average age of his nurses is 50 y/o and as they struggle to lift more 300# pts, the rate of workplace injury is going out of control.

He thinks there should be dedicated facilities for obese patients, that have the equipment and staff necessary to safely handle them, and mandatory, hard-core diet and exercise programs to get their body weight down. You came in for a knee replacement? Welcome to the stalag.

He also thinks there should be no "futile care" provided unless the patient's family produces a credit card. No more spending $100,000 to prolong some 90 y/o's life by a few painful weeks.