Quote:
Originally posted by NotFromHere
But that's not the way it's moving is it? Isn't there a facility in Portland that manufactured a large gurney and ambulance for people over 400 pounds - since previously there weren't any? Isn't it a sign that if you're too big to fit in an ambulance that maybe perhaps that is your fate?
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In my college years, I worked in a hospital as a nurses' aide. There were three patients that required special beds because they weighed over a certain amount. (I think the limit on the "normal" beds was 350, but I know one of the patients was in the 400s.)
Story relating to one of the patients At one point one summer (late 80s early 90s), we had more patients that needed the bed than we had beds.
The biggest problem for all patients that are bed confined is bed sores. "Normal" patients who are confied to their beds will develop sores where their body weight presses down the most. Usually on their backs, their hips and their shoulders. That's why nurses turn bed confined patients every two hours or so: to evenly distribute the weight, and to make sure that certain pressure points are not overly burdened with the weight of the patient. Even with turning, the sores can develop very easily, and once they develop, they're very difficult to treat. We had one patient who was paralyzed (fortunately) from the neck down. I could literally put my fist inside the hole in his back.
Anyhow, the problem with these morbidly obese people is that they have even more weight pressing down, and it's very hard to keep the weight from pressing down on the pressure points. The beds that help prevent pressure ulcers are ususally some sort of air system, so the patient is lying on a sophisticated air mattress that presses up in the spots most likely to have pressure ulcers, and the weight isn't pressing down on anything. Of course, the heavier the patient, the more likely that weight is going to overwhelm the pressure of the air.
I'm certain that in the decade or so that I've bee out of ICUs the equipment has gotten more sophisticated, but it's very expensive, and I'm sure that they're probably needing more of it than they did back then.
