Hospital Policy

Most hospitals I have had the opportunity of visiting are clean, efficient organizations. This has become a standard feature ever since hospitals began taking a book from efficient corporate entities and began adopting hospital policies. Nowadays, most hospitals have policies on almost everything. There is a hospital policy for admissions. There is a hospital policy for discharging patients. There is a hospital policy pertaining to the rules and regulations governing patient, nurse and doctor behavior. And there is also a hospital policy governing the kinds of equipment permitted and their actual uses. I understand and appreciate the need for such hospital policies. After all, if these hospital policies can make hospitals safer, cleaner and more efficient places, I am the first one to root for them.

... most of the hospitals I have visited have a hospital policy on visiting hours ...

But if there is one hospital policy that I was never able to comprehend, it is the hospital policy governing visiting hours. Without exception, most of the hospitals I have visited have a hospital policy on visiting hours. And again, without exception, all of these hospital policies on visiting hours make no sense. For one thing, the scheduled visiting hours are created such that they warrant a leave of absence from work in order to visit a patient in the hospital. The first session according to these skewed hospital policies starts at an unearthly hour before lunch hour and ends just before the lunch hour. So, if you are planning g on visiting a friend or relative in the hospital, and plan on doing so during your lunch hour, forget about it. You might make it to the hospital in time, but you will surely be shooed away within a matter of minutes. Any explanation will begin and end with a framed copy of the hospital policy on visiting hours. One particular hospital that I was arguing with even had the gall to give me my own copy of the hospital policy on visiting hours for reference during future visits!

... made impossible by this warped hospital policy ...

Forget the first session. Most hospital policy documents have an even weirder timing for the second leg of visiting hours. Typically, this session, according to the omniscient hospital policy, begins at four in the afternoon and ends right at six in the evening. Now I don’t know about your office, but mine frowns on anyone who tries to take a couple of hours off during the day. And even though my contract states that office timings are from nine in the morning to five thirty, I can’t remember the last time anyone was able to leave the office before seven. So trying to visit my friends or relatives, who are stuck in the hospital, is made impossible by this warped hospital policy

... I tried my best to argue with hospitals on this particular hospital policy ...

Believe me when I say that I tried my best to argue with hospitals on this particular hospital policy. I explained to them patiently and calmly about how it made my hospital visits impossible. But all the administrators and formidable nurses I spoke to gave me a look as though to say that if I were interested in visiting a friend who was in hospital, I would have to find a way to adjust my schedule. And some of them even gave me the look that signified that I probably didn’t care enough!