If symptoms persist . . .
I WAS outraged when I heard last week of the summary dismissal of 600 em- ployees from Guy's Hospital. To think that the management would find no more than 600 out of a total staff of 8,000 whose contribution to the hospital was, well, negligible. They must walk around with their eyes shut.
In the same week, my excellent secret- ary was sent on something called an orientation course. She has been a medic- al secretary for 38 years, and as far as I know has never had any difficulty in finding her way round the hospital. The course lasted two days and she returned from it in a state of genteel rage. She brought with her a brown folder of orientation documents.
One of them was entitled Medical Terminology. It is divided into two col- umns, the left headed Specialty and the right Part of Body. There we learn that dental is to teeth as psychiatric is to mind. The part of the body with which bacteri- ology is concerned is bacteria, which equals germs.
While on the latter subject, let me quote from a document entitled Infection in Hospital — The Need for Care: What are they trying to do? Do they
Infection is caused by germs (microbes). Germs are everywhere, surfaces are cov- ered with them. They are in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat.
want to turn my secretary into a neurotic who won't touch her word processor until she's washed it down with disinfectant?
Later in the document, my secretary is informed that she 'may be required to wear special clothing, rubber gloves to protect [her] hands and overalls to keep [her] own clothes free from hospital germs'. No doubt, therefore, she will soon be sent on a course to learn the technique of typing in rubber gloves (she has already been on the one-day course on how to answer the telephone properly).
The printed instructions about what to do in the case of fire were among the orientation documents. The first person to notice the fire and raise the alarm is called the Assembly Point Leader; he will nominate a Squad Leader and six mem- bers of staff, and will give to the Squad Leader a Waistcoat (presumably fire- proof), a Squad Leader Board and Iden- tification Bands for the Squad Leader's Team. Then he will nominate a Direction Leader and two staff, and give the Direction Leader a Waistcoat, a Direc- tion Leader Board and Identification Bands for the Direction Leader's Team. By then the whole city should have burnt down, so no further action will be neces- sary, apart from retrieving the Identifica- tion Bands from the ashes.
The orientation course is held every month for new staff and old, staff who have never undergone it. On average, each course is attended by 20 people. Thus are lost 480 working days, equiva- lent to two full-time employees for a year. When one takes into account the other courses held, it is clear that many extra people have to be employed be- cause of them.
This has its advantages, of course. If new staff are needed, then so are orienta- tion courses. And running orientation courses is a highly-skilled, full-time job.
Theodore Dalrymple
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