Hospitals

Health care is available for people all over the world through a variety of institutions and systems. Some communities have better facilities than others, but most people in developed countries have ac­cess to some form of medical attention.

The most familiar health care institution is the hospital. Hospitals have provided care for the sick and injured for centuries, but modern hospitals bear little resemblance to earlier institutions of the same name. In ancient Greece and Rome, for example, temples were often used as hospitals. During the Middle Ages in Europe, hospitals were places of filth and death for the incurables and outcastes of society. This began to change in the nineteenth century with advances in medi­cal science. Today's hospitals are complex institutions providing so­phisticated medical care.

There are many different kinds of hospitals. The most familiar is the general, or community, hospital, where patients of all ages with all kinds of illness and medical conditions are treated. These hospitals provide a variety of services, including general and specialized medi­cine (therapy, cardiology, gastroenterology, urology, neurology, trau­matology and orthopaedics, gynaecology, etc.), general and specialized surgery, and obstetrics, to meet the general medical needs of the com­munity. Patients with acute problems stay there for only a short term, seven days on the average. Other hospitals provide more specialized care. Some treat patients with chronic illness, such as tuberculosis, re­quiring long-term care, or patients of one age group, like children. Specialty hospitals also include rehabilitation and psychiatric ones.

Hospitals can also be categorized by their means of financial sup­port. Most hospitals in the world are operated and financed by the government of their country. Other hospitals are private, non-profit institutions, known as voluntary hospitals. The primary mission of such hospitals is to benefit the community in which they are locatol Proprietary or investor-owned hospitals are run to make a profit.

Despite their growth in numbers, hospitals cannot provide servioB for all medical needs or patients. As a result, many hospitals are de­veloping outpatient facilities. A patient who remains in the hospital to receive constant medical attention is called an inpatient. An outpatient is ambulatory and visits the hospitals only as the need arises. Some frequent users of outpatient services are persons who need follow-u» treatment after a hospital stay, patients undergoing physical or occu­pational therapy, and psychiatric day-care patients.

The emergency units in hospitals are also becoming more impor­tant as all-purpose treatment centres. While these facilities have al-t ways been well used by the critically ill or injured, they are now also viewed as a convenient place to get treatment for conditions which are not critical. There are good reasons for this trend. Emergency rooms usually operate on a twenty-four-hour basis. Moreover, they are equipped with the most sophisticated facilities, available today.

Other institutions provide health care in addition to hospitals. Nursing (or convalescent) homes offer live-in arrangements for the sick and for convalescing patients. They are becoming increasingly popu­lar, particularly for the elderly. There are also prenatal clinics for pregnant woman, well-baby clinics for new mothers and their babies, and mental health clinics for those who need periodic psychiatric at­tention, among others.

In the delivery of health services, physicians play a central role by evaluating patient's health condition, diagnosing abnormalities and prescribing treatment. Physicians trained in family medicine/general practice or general internal medicine are called generalists or primary care physicians (PCPs), while those dealing with non-primary care are called specialists. The common medical specialists include anaesthesi-ologists, cardiologists, family medicine doctors, neurologists, obstetri­cians and gynaecologists, ophthalmologists (eye doctors), pathologists, paediatricians, radiologists and others.

Health

Are you the healthy-eating, clean-living, sporty type? Or are you destroying yourself with cigarettes, alcohol and junk food?

Do you carry on with life through headaches, colds or flu?

Or are you a hypochondriac who goes straight to the doctor if you're feeling a bit tired?

Whatever your type, we all love hearing about other people's illnesses and accidents.

Here are interviews with four London students about their health and their attitudes to it.

Kate Nolan, 15:

I don't smoke, and I never will; I'm sure of that, I'm not paranoid about drink; I have a glass of wine now and then, but I'm not very keen on it. I've never been actually drunk. I get bad headaches sometimes if I'm very tired or stressed. Then I take paracetamol and have a rest, and that normally does the trick.

Rita Leung, 19:

I started smoking but I managed to give up after about one year. It's all a matter of will­power. You can do absolutely anything if you want to. That's what I believe. I can't understand drug addicts; they are wasting their lives, and they could stop so easily if they really wanted to. It's the same thing with diet. If you know certain foods are bad for you, or make you fat, just don't eat them.

Traditional Chinese medicine can help with psychological things as well as physical problems. Some people have stopped smoking after being treated with acupuncture.

Ciaran Mitchell, 18:

I smoke about twenty cigarettes a day. I know it s bad for me but I tried to give up a couple of times and it just failed miserably. 1 find that I don't really have the will power.

I play football, American football and volleyball. I find 1 have more energy since I've been playing. But it's not always good for your health - at the moment I've got two cracked ribs from playing American football!

I broke all the bones in my left arm. I had three operations and a year of physiotherapy. My arm will never be the same again. But I'm right-handed, so it doesn't really have an effect on studies and things like that.

AIDS scares me a lot. I've known two people who have died of it. They thought they'd be OK. They didn't realize the risk, and they just ended up dying. It's really quite emotional time, realizing someone is going to die, just because they weren't careful

Mayssa Daye, 17:

I get colds quite often. Mainly, I just carry on as normal with a cold. But if it gets too bad, I go to the doctor and see what he gives me - cough medicine and antibiotics, mainly.

I was bitten by a dog once. I was at my ex-boyfriend s house, and we went out to the park. I was on the swings, and the dog doesn't like swings. So it decided to take a chunk out of my leg! I dldn't go to the hospital. I went to the doctor, and he gave me an injection. It wasn't too bad, but I won't forget it!

I don't smoke, but I do drink - occasionally. The main health problem I worry about is AIDS.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-13