The quest for rest in a modern hospital

Credit: oddmenout on Flickr

“Everyone says they can’t sleep. Unfortunately it’s just part of being in the hospital.”

Hospitals are so hectic that patient slumber has taken a backseat to monitoring vitals, to rounding, and to procedures. Plus, they're just plain loud. What bodies need a lot of when sick is sleep, and the environment in hospitals does not provide it. Are these places of healing doing more harm than good? asks one medical student at Stanford.

Remember this article in The Atlantic last year about sleep deprivation in hospitals? It's unfortunate that not much attention has been paid to this subject. Perhaps this oversight is because "sleep interruptions do not reduce patient satisfaction, because patients assume that all of those interruptions are medically necessary," as one doctor was quoted in the article.

The onus should not lie with the patient for making sure that he gets enough sleep, but it unfortunately does in most institutions. For now, until the system changes, request that your team "clusters care" to prevent nighttime interruptions.