#8 Designing a Hospital Room

This is an intriguing idea. Today I am using the blogging challenge prompt: Design your own hospital room.

Let me play you something new.

My Ideal Hospital Room has..

Private Rooms - All hospital rooms should be private. It's hard enough to have a family member in the hospital, but having to share that time with perfect strangers is just awful. People need to heal, rest, and de-stress after procedures in peace.

Fully Padded Recliners or Rockers - Did you ever try to hold a baby or toddler in a hospital recliner? Why on earth do they have wooden arms? It's PAINFUL.

Tom is a kid who wants to be held and snuggled, and the only way I could do that in the hospital was to rig the recliner with pillows and folded up blankets. This would also allow a parent to sleep in the chair if necessary.

Pre-Surgical Children's Waiting Room - Once the kids are all prepped for surgery it could be hours before they are actually called back. Once we waited about five hours! I understand though - I don't want them to rush Tom's surgery because people are impatient. Sometimes you just have to wait. Then let's make the wait better!

At our local children's hospital we have a playroom the kids can play in after they are prepped but before surgery. It has everything for kids of every age; toys, games, puzzles, books, and even Guitar Hero. Parents can let the kids play and just try to relax.

I don't know the official name of this room but I will just call it the pre-surgical children's waiting room. This room is genius and every children's hospital should have one!

Toys & Books for EVERYONE! - Hospitals treat people of all abilities and need to be prepared for them. You need Braille books in the pre-surgical children's waiting room and in the eye clinic waiting room. Yes, really! I let my local children's hospital know about this. I could not find a Braille book in the pre-surgical children's waiting room during our last visit but I hope to next time. I will be checking. 

Tom checking out the Braille on his book.

A Mini-Fridge - The hospital we went to in Detroit had a mini-fridge in the room and it was awesome. I was breastfeeding at the time (pumping because Tom could not latch) so I just pumped and stored the milk in the fridge in our room. I missed that mini-fridge so much when Tom was hospitalized in Pittsburgh, and I had to label and sign out my own milk from the nurses who kept it for me. It just added unnecessary delays and I'm sure the nurses could have been doing more important things with their time than being milk police. It was also just plain convenient to have a mini-fridge in the room.

Healthy Food Options in the Cafeteria - Yes. People really want healthy food. Give it to us, please! It also sets a good example for children. We can hardly preach against obesity when hospital cafeterias are full of junk. FYI- I worked in a hospital and I remember the food in the cafeteria.

Blueberries!

Breast Pumps - Hospitals should have breast pumps that Moms can use while their child is hospitalized. Hospitals should be doing everything they can to make it easy for Moms to breastfeed. 

A Really Good Patient Handbook - A hospital may have great programs and resources for its patient but if the patient/family doesn't know about them, it doesn't matter! Tom was hospitalized about four times before I knew their was a "Child Life" resource that would send volunteers with age appropriate toys directly to our hospital room. Before that I lugged a huge bag of toys to every hospitalization to keep him entertained. Sigh. I wish I had known... There are probably other good things I still don't know about.

Reasonable Parking - $20 dollar-a-day parking for families of inpatients is crazy. I don't expect it to be free but there should be some help for families.