Strange Hospital Visitors

From animals to imposters, here are a few tales of some odd hospital "visitors."

Pet Therapy?

In a story which made international news in March 2008, a hospital in Hawaii restated its rules on visits by pets after a well-meaning individual brought a horse to the hospital in order to cheer up a family member. The man and horse got to the third floor (via elevator) before being stopped by security and the nursing supervisor. Unfortunately, after all the effort, it turned out not to be the patient's horse ….

Imposter – Part 1

A 2002 action by a state licensing body describes how a nurse went to a facility at which she was not assigned nursing duty, but at which she had worked approximately three weeks before. The nurse was wearing dark slacks and a nurse's smock. She proceeded to take control of a patient from a family member who was taking the patient for a ride in her wheelchair, and then brought the patient to the patient's room, where she provided personal care services for the patient. She had never been assigned care of the patient previously, nor had she been directed to that day.

Imposter – Part 2

A story that received a lot of press in the United States in March 2007, told of a Texas TV reporter who tried to engage in some investigative journalism into security in the maternity wards of two local hospitals, following the kidnapping of an infant by a person posing as a staff member. Her efforts resulted in her being arrested on suspicion of two counts of attempted aggravated kidnapping – which resulted in someone coughing up a bond of $10,000 for her release.

Aw, Rats! I've Been Waiting for My Surgery for Weeks!

A March 2008 Reuters "Oddly Enough" article reported how a British teenager's operation – which he had been waiting for 11 months to have – was cancelled after an unwelcome visitor, a rodent, died while trapped in the single-storey building's roof space. The doctor told the teen that, despite the stench, he could have the surgery, because the deceased was outside of the operating theater and posed no infection risk. But when the patient asked the doctor, "If you were me, would you have the operation?", the doctor said no, so the patient decided to wait.

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