The Future of America

A hospital in St. Louis, Missouri is going to such lengths to accomodate their growing clientele as "replacing beds and wheelchairs with bigger models, widening doorways, buying larger CT scan machines, even replacing slippers and gowns."

The same hospital reported that roughly 1/3 of the 900 patients they saw that year weighed more than 350 pounds.

Nursing unions are now demanding that hospitals get portable hoists because the nurses cannot physically move their patients anymore without risking or suffering from physical injuries themselves.

Some doors at the St. Louis hospital have been widened from 36 inches to 52 (that is 4 feet, 4 inches). A Cooper Mini is only 14.5 inches wider than these new doors (66.5 inches).

"A special chair for obese patients is large enough to accommodate physical therapists Dawn Caplan, right and Natasha Miriani." (see image above)

In some cases, syringe needles with a length of 4.5 inches could not reach through the fat in order to get the injectable solution where it needed to be.

Even specially made body bags had to be ordered.

The hospital says that it is seeking ways to ensure that all of its patients are treated with dignity.

Are the hospital's practices and facilities stripping these people of their dignity or is there something else doing it? How far are we willing to go to accomodate such a condition that can hardly be said to be any less damaging than alcoholism, smoking, or doing illicit drugs?