This is the telephone found in patient rooms at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, Florida. How does it make you feel?
Maybe not so bad if you’re not ill or don’t have any disabilities. You might even pay extra for it on EBay. But, from a patient’s perspective, it sucks! You might ask why would you put an ugly, antiquated, heavy and hard to use piece of equipment in a hospital room? Sick people are weak, disoriented from medication, feeling generally lousy, etc. The last thing they want to wrestle with (quite literally) is your excuse to save a few bucks. Or, perhaps you would have us believe that this has been an oversight for the past 20 years (I’m guessing at the approximate age of this beast). Try using that clunker when you are weak, have the use of one hand, or it’s dark in the room, etc. Wouldn’t patients feel better, and maybe heal quicker if the hospital actually demonstrated that they cared? Do all of us a favor and start here…put a cordless with a lighted keypad in the room. Give us a glimmer of hope that you care, especially when we’re sick!