Last night I enjoyed a pleasant visit to my local Jersey City emergency room courtesy of a sudden and acute allergic reaction of mysterious origin. One moment I was sitting on my bed watching TV, the next I was in an agony of itch, contorted with stabbing pains and puking on the kitchen floor. Hello, ambulance. Hello, hospital.
There's a lot of interesting things going on in an emergency room at 2 in the morning, as you may imagine. Like the guy in the next bed over who had been mugged for his Ipod up on Palisade Avenue, and was running on so much adrenaline he wouldn't stay put. He came over to my side of the curtain to congratulate me on not taking the anti-nausea shot the nurse wanted to give me, and then he asked if I thought that the lengthy razor slash down the side of his face looked "very bad". I told him that in my not-at-all-professional opinion that it looked ok, and that I didn't think it would need stitches. We were pretty simpatico after that. After getting a prescription for an emergency allergy shot, and drinking some vile green concoction, I was allowed to leave, giving my buddy in the next bed over a thumbs up on the way out.
The experience got me to thinking about entertainment options in the hospital. Sure, eavesdropping on the neighbors or chatting up ward mates is kind of fun, but besides that, it's pretty boring to sit in a bed for hours at a time waiting for someone to come poke you with a needle or to take your blood pressure. Hospitals in the UK look to make the time for their patients go faster with in-house radio or television stations. According to the Hospital Broadcasting Association, "There are hospital radio or television services in around 90% of hospitals in the UK."
Generally small volunteer-run operations, many of these radio stations have websites where patients or their friends can make requests, or you can see what might be playing at any given hour. From Wikipedia: "Most stations are on closed-loop wires and can only be heard inside the hospital wards on headphones or speakers next to the patient's bed. There are a few stations using AM or FM free-to-air transmission... some stations broadcast for only a few hours each week, with others using computer technology to provide their service 24 hours a day... Ward staff in many hospitals report that when a record request show is in progress, patients forget that they are ill for a couple of hours, while they enjoy listening to their choice of music and the choices of their fellow patients."
Here's a list of UK Hospital radio station websites you can check out, and one American hospital where the phenomenon's jumped shores. I've already requested that the Barnet Hospital station play "Itch and Scratch" by Rufus Thomas (hear it on Debbie's January 17, 2005 show here (2nd song)), for all the patients in the allergy ward.
Bishop Auckland General Hospital
Miami Children's Hospital (part of the Radio Lollipop Project started in the UK)
Wasn't it a British hospital radio dj who broke Jonesy's record?
Posted by: Goyim in the AM | July 19, 2006 at 01:40 PM
oh, was it?!? i'm not sure...
Posted by: Megan | July 19, 2006 at 02:03 PM
Bishop Auckland General Hospital is my local hospital - my 3 kids were born there, and we have spent many hours in Accident & Emergency, with the usual child (and adult) ailments. The Hospital radio is pretty damned good, actually - the volunteer staff really seem to enjoy what they are doing.
Posted by: Gary Grainger | July 19, 2006 at 06:26 PM
Ah, nice to see a bit of recognition for hospital radio. I volunteered for Ashford Hospital Broadcasting Service (under the William Harvey Hospital link) for a few months in 1994, was a great laugh. Took part in a 50-hour continuous music marathon for fundraising.
The pensioners in the ward always used to ask for the most crushingly obscure/boring songs from wartime though...
Posted by: Graham | July 20, 2006 at 09:57 AM
Golly, your post reminded me of the League of Gentleman character, Mike King who was the hospital dj. Les McQueen does a fill-in for Mike King in one of the episodes. I digress.
Hope you're well and haven't had a relapse.
Posted by: Krys O. | July 20, 2006 at 10:14 AM
Winamp used to let you access up to 5000 Shoutcast radio streams, and you'd find tons of 911 Emergency streams from all over the world. Also some Dutch police scanner streams and a bunch of other random similar stuff. But now you can only go up to like 30 shoutcast streams for some reason - sucks.
However, if you go to www.shoutcast.com - you can type "scanner" into the search field and get back 6 pages of random scanner streams. And if you have a mac, you could use Audion to check out the scanner streams AND put effects on the audio. Police 911 scanner on heavy dub delay is a special treat
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Posted by: multiplexstaffing | January 05, 2009 at 08:25 AM
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Posted by: Massachusetts Cpr Certification | February 06, 2013 at 02:07 AM
Entertainments in hospitals in the form of televisions and in-house radio are a sure way to lift up the spirit of patients. A patient tends to get very boring sitting idly for long, and sitting alone for a longer stretch of time also make one ponder more of his/her own ailments and injuries and suffer, but with the entertainment options in-hand, the mind can be diverted from the immediate suffering and relax the patient.
Posted by: Jami_cnaclasses | April 11, 2013 at 08:17 AM