Talk:Hospital/Archive 1

Do we really need redundant lists of hospitals?
It is ridiculous to me that we have two lists of hospitals, one on this page and one in the List of hospitals article.

I think the better solution would be to delete the list on this page and to move the List of hospitals link up so that it is the first link following the article, so that people who want to add their favorite hospital can go there instead.

Last time I checked, Wikipedia is not supposed to be a Web directory &mdash; that's the Open Directory's job! --Coolcaesar 30 June 2005 21:05 (UTC)

List of US hospitals
I am removing the following list of American hospitals from the article. As noted by Coolcaesar above, there are lists of hospitals elsewhere. Uppland 00:32, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

The United States is home to some of the most technologically advanced hospitals in the world that have patients come from all over to have special procedures or operations. Some of these include:
 * Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri
 * Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas
 * Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles
 * Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio
 * Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina by Raleigh
 * Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan
 * Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami
 * Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore
 * Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center in Los Angeles
 * Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston
 * Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota by Minneapolis
 * New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City
 * Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas
 * San Francisco Medical Center in San Francisco
 * Stanford University Medical Center in Stanford, California by San Jose
 * Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston, Texas
 * UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles
 * University of Chicago Hospitals and Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois
 * University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago, Illinois
 * University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan by Detroit
 * University of North Carolina Hospital and Clinics in Chapel Hill, North Carolina by Raleigh
 * University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pittsburgh
 * University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas


 * Thanks for following up on this. I have been too busy with work at the law firm and with working on Lawyer to follow up on this issue.  --Coolcaesar 07:21, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

All the ratings about hospitals were made by tecnitians .But nobody knows the patients opinion. I would like to obtain de vote of the patients to cualified the American hospitals .Dr Hirose

Guenter Risse, historian of hospitals
I hope some points in this book can incorporated in the future. I have not read the book but read about it in How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas Woods. Guenter's book can be found here. Mending Bodies, Saving Souls. It is a highly praised book. Marax 07:31, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

History of hospitals
I disagree with having the sentence "Sri Lankans are perhaps responsible for introducing the concept of dedicated hospitals". Because at this point it's a matter of semantics. Because, what is the concept? A place solely for people to bring a sick person for healing? We know this existed elsewhere (Asklepions). A place for effective medical care (what's the standard for this)? How about clearly delineating the concept? Because it has religious bias does not make it less of a hospital (many hospitals today have religious saints' names). In fact even the ancient hospital at Mihintale, sri lanka is next to a monastery. It's known 4th century BC physician Hippocrates (who is really famous for some of his secular medical works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocrates ) got his training at the Asklepion of Kos by Herodicus where people brought their sick for healing. See more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_in_Ancient_Greece

If you google "the oldest hospital in the world" (include the quotes).. you will find people calling certain asklepions that. Are we to ignore that?

One other point .. the 6th century AD text "Mahavamsa" in the translation at lakdiva.org states: "On the further side of Jotiya's house and on this side of the Gamani tank he likewise built a monastery for wandering meudicLnt monks, and a dwelling for the ajivakas and a residence for the brahmans, and in this place and that he built a lying-in shelter and a hall for those recovering from sickness. "

What types of physicians treated the patients? Was physician treatment later introduced?

Semi-protect?
This page has been blanked 17 times in the past 2 days by anonymous IPs. Might it be worth putting semi-protection on it for a while to prevent further abuse? Lurlock 02:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Hôtel-Dieu de Québec
Hi. I added the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec to the Modern History section because its (French) website says it was the first hospital in North America. While I think that notable and belongs somewhere, I now wonder if it is in the appropriate position. The positioning in the paragraph would suggest it as an example of a more modern, secular hospital. I can't say that it was. I flag it for someone with more experience in this area. Canuckle 23:57, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I resolved it by adding North America to the section above it. Canuckle 22:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Ashoka
Well that material contradicts the very respectable Encyclopedia Britannica. And that material might not necessarily be true as the ISBN or the quotes are really not available. Not to mention that the material I removed was kinda NPOV and that spoils he whole 'neutrality' thing ('there are historians who strictly dispute the claim that Ashoka built any hospitals at all'— who are these people and who sees them and why don't they get heard on Britannica? who writes 'ancient Asia' and why am I hearing from 'The Nurses should be able to Sing and Play Instruments'?).

I won't bet that the material is undisputed. Anyways, the quote I provided was better than the material given and hence renders the material useless. Piercey & Scarborough are better than 'The Nurses should be able to Sing and Play Instruments' on any given day.

Regards, JSR (talk) 01:46, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but the above arguments don't really count - one contradictory reference does not make another useless, and citing the fact that some historians strictly dispute other's findings is not POV. Calling a research article "The Nurses Should be able to Sing and Play Instruments" doesn't make the reference untrustworthy, and the Britannica is not the end of all argument (see also my points below on having both sides in a dispute, Wikipedia is not about providing THE definitve one answer). Ingolfson (talk) 06:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * From 'The Nurses should be able to Sing and Play Instruments':


 * One of those '101 textbooks' Finger, Stanley (2001). Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations Into Brain Function. US: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195146948.  states that one of the edicts of Ashoka (272 - 231 BCE) reads: "Everywhere King Piyadasi (Asoka) erected two kinds of hospitals, hospitals for people and hospitals for animals. Where there were no healing herbs for people and animals, he ordered that they be bought and planted."


 * I have replaced the singularly poor research of 'The Nurses should be able to Sing and Play Instruments' by Piercey & Scarborough (2008).


 * JSR (talk) 02:19, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi JSR - you removed material without giving a reason and even without replacing it with contrary information. As I noted in the edit summary - please provide counter-references and discuss in-article - it is not your call to say which are good references and which aren't (a historical dispute needs to be included, not whitewashed).


 * Also, you deleted a paragraph which wasn't even about Ashoka, and then you deleted the Ashoka claim even though right in there there was already a referenced statement that calls the Ashoka claims a historical mistake. That is how Wikipedia works - not by deleting something, even though many might consider it untruth (or even though it may actually be wrong!). Wikipedia is not about truth - Wikipedia is about giving an account of the information that is available. And that requires both the Ashoka claim to be made, and the counter-arguments to be included as well - rather than removing part of the discussion. Regards Ingolfson (talk) 06:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * My apologies, I accidentially had you on the OTHER side of the argument. You ARE saying Asoka built hospitals. But actually, that doesn't change much at all. Both sides of the argument still deserve to be heard, and including three lines of historical criticism from a university research paper are certainly not undue weight. Ingolfson (talk) 06:37, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

No problem, I understand that we only need to have one mention of 'hospital w.r.t. early south Asia'. If there is going to be that one mention then either Piercey & Scarborough or Stanley Finger are the most reliable versions at hand. Personally I think that even using both Piercey & Scarborough and Stanley Finger in one article to cover 'hospital w.r.t. early south Asia' is undue weight. One source on 'hospital w.r.t. early south Asia' is good enough since they're both detailed.

Now adding anything else is just undue weightage. Having given my reasoning, do I have your go-ahead to remove the other mention which says the same thing and the undue weightage of 'The Nurses should be able to Sing and Play Instruments'? (which may have been nessesary prior to the introduction of Piercey & Scarborough) A research paper that seems to have placed and Oxford University Press books and the Encyclopedia Britannica under the label of 'history 101' is really not credible. We should also remove 'Ancient Asia' heading. All the best :-)

JSR (talk) 11:12, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Uhm, no. You do not seem to get my point. You want to remove this - apparently because it irks your sensibilities and also because you apparently feel that including something that's contrary to the content of what you consider good sources should not be on Wikipedia? Your P&B section says Ashoka built hospitals. Wujastyk (stop saying the name of his paper if it irks you) says: "No, that is a mistake made by other historians. Ashoka didn't build any hospitals." If you remove this, you would ignore (worse, now that you know it, misrepresent) the fact that there is obviously a historian dispute here.


 * As for undue weight (Wujastyk might just be a drunk art student trying his hand a writing a medical history paper, after all), well, Wujastyk is "Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow, Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL". Now I don't claim that this told me jack squat ten minutes ago, but it checks out, he is listed on the staff website of a major university, jadda jadda jadda.... - any criteria for a reasonable reference is clearly given. Right or wrong, his opinion is notable.


 * So, in short - no, you do not have my agreement to remove this. If you feel there is duplication, please go ahead and combine sections, but do not remove the references and the disagreement spelled out here, please. Regards, Ingolfson (talk) 11:45, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Lets keep our comments to the material and not to each other. Let me see: Britannica for Ceylon and India, Wujastyk for counter-Ashoka, and Finger for counter-Wujastyk. Done. JSR (talk) 14:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The last sentence of this article:
"Hospitals are nowadays staffed by professional physicians, surgeons and nurses, whereas in history, this work was usually done by the founding religious orders or by volunteers with itchy balls" is confusing. What is meant by "volunteers with itchy balls?" Is this something added by vandals? 152.132.10.128 14:59, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Etymology
I thought hospital was a latin word, from which hospitality and host derive. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.140.6.2 (talk • contribs) 12:33, 13 Jul 2007 (UTC)

Someone has added "hoSPITals" are called such because people like to spit in them. Vandalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.36.161 (talk) 15:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Reverted. — ¾-10 00:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Electrical and Information
Do we really need to know about the electrical substations at the National Institutes of Health, or the carrying capacity of pneumatic tubes? If it isn't completely general (about hospitals), surely it doesn't belong in this article? GBM (talk) 17:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Muslim Hospitals vs. Greek Hospitals?
In the history section under the subtitle "Medieval Arabia," the article states, "Unlike in Greek temples to healing gods, the clerics working in these facilities employed scientific methodology far beyond that of their contemporaries in their treatment of patients." From the 8th to the 12th century, Greeks were throughly Christian and no longer pagan. They did not worship the ancient Greek gods nor did they bring their sick to the ancient pagan temples to be healed by their ancient gods. This is just very anachronistic and poor history. It mistakenly describes Christian Greece in a way that is 400 to 800 years off (if we take the 800 to 1200 time frame). Further, it seems culturally biased. It strikes me as coming from someone with pride in "Medieval Arab" and/or Turkish culture. So, I will remove it soon, if i don't see any objections. (BTW-- I am not Greek and have no ethnic bias here, it is just bad history and seems biased).

Fixed. --Genie (talk) 21:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Request for spelling correction
The term "nosocomial" is misspelled: "nosocomical", and since this is a link to another wiki page, that link is broken. Is it possible that one of y'all could fix that? My apologies if porno there is a better way to seek correction of a semi-protected page - I could not find that. Thanks much, Alicia Diehl. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aliciadiehl (talk • contribs) 22:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I have fixed it, thank you for pointing it out. The page will be unprotected again in about a month anyways. Ingolfson (talk) 06:31, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

The Chester County Hospital
701 East Marashall Street West Chester, PA 19380

The Chester County Hospital is an independent, not for profit hospital located in the heart of Chester County. David Dennis (talk) 18:46, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Hospital Costs
Base hospital rates are significantly more expensive than than the nightly rate for the least expensive room of the "Seven Star" [Burj Al Arab Hotel] luxury hotel, a building whose construction cost more than a billion dollars, and was surely every bit as expensive per room as a hospital, if not more so. That hotel has a full-time professional dedicated to satisfying each individual guest's every need, who I am sure is paid at least as much as a hospital nurse.

Hospitals do not have full-time doctors or nurses assigned to each patient, and are downright uncomfortable compared to the Aurj Al Arab. Furthermore, most hospitals lose money while the Burj Al Arab certainly makes money.

When I spent a night in a hospital, I received less than half an hour of a doctor's time, maybe an hour or so of a nurse's time and yet was billed over $8,000. My insurers got that to $3,000. I wouldn't have thought the services I got were worth $300, particularly since service was slow, and I spent lots of time waiting around.

If you'd told me when I entered the emergency room that what I was going to receive would cost $3,000 there is no way in the world I would have gone. The services I received were, at best, worth 10% the price paid by my insurers.

If a hotel with an explicit desire to "soak the rich" with the world's highest room rates is a better deal than a hospital, I think there's something very wrong with the cost structures of the latter.

Why are hospitals so expensive, and what can be done about this? It seems to me this is much more important than the issue of who (the government or insurers) will pay for medicine. What's important is making medicine affordable, so people don't need expensive insurers or government agencies to pay their bills.

Although obviously this is a personal rant that has no place in Wikipedia thanks to its non-neutral point of view, I am hoping this will inspire someone to write about hospital costs and exactly why it is so expensive to stay at a hospital considering the poor condition of many hospitals, the laughable wages they pay for most jobs, and the awful service they give patients. We're getting lousy service that should cost pennies and we're paying dollars for it. I'd like to know why.

David Dennis (talk) 19:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Surely there must be research (or even only opinion pieces by notable sources) which discuss this. Sure you don't want to give it a try yourself? Ingolfson (talk) 06:40, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Layout change
I'm just wondering. It looks like the layout at the top of the page could be different.--Doctor Williams (talk) 05:52, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but could you clarify on this Williams?--Nurse Short (talk) 05:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The contents box, the two pictures and the introduction text should all stay, but just look at the way they are positioned on the page!--Doctor Williams (talk) 05:55, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah. Yes, I see what you mean now.--Nurse Short (talk) 05:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * So, what shall we do about it?--Doctor Williams (talk) 05:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Funny. I was just about to make the exact same comment for you. :) This is a tricky one though. The contents box cannot be re-positioned and the text... We'll have to re-align the images somehow - or resize them?--Nurse Short (talk) 05:59, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you really think re-sizing them is a good idea?--Doctor Williams (talk) 06:00, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Mmmmm... probably not. So we would have to re-align the pictures wouldn't we?--Nurse Short (talk) 06:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid so...--Doctor Williams (talk) 06:02, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Re-aligning plan
So how exactly shall we re-align these images?--Doctor Williams (talk) 06:05, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, we would need to take into account the lengths of the captions.--Nurse Short (talk) 06:07, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Mmmmm. Indeed, yes.--Doctor Williams (talk) 06:07, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The India image has a shorter caption message.--Doctor Williams (talk) 06:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, it does.--Nurse Short (talk) 06:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * "For other uses, see Hospital (disambiguation)." This has to stay, but it shouldn't (hopefully) make much difference, should it?--Doctor Williams (talk) 06:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No it shouldn't. I hope not.--Nurse Short (talk) 06:12, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The sizes of the images are good... Hey, what if we aligned them both to the right? Preview it!--Nurse Short (talk) 06:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah! It looks better. When more text is added it will clear up the white space.--Doctor Williams (talk) 06:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed? Do you want to do the edit? Or myself? Do you have any text to add?--Nurse Short (talk) 06:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That is better. But no, I do not have anything to add. Do you want to look for some text to add? Or do you have text to add?--Doctor Williams (talk) 06:19, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I don't have text to add.--Nurse Short (talk) 06:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay. But I think we should add text to the opening.--Doctor Williams (talk) 06:22, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Adding text to the opening
Let's discuss how we can add text to the introduction in this section.--Doctor Williams (talk) 06:22, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I started to clean the grammar up in the intro but soon realised it was going to become a Herculean task. Would others like to pitch in and fix the rudimentary grammar errors that are rife throughout the article? I'll pop back and do some more later Areocam (talk) 05:53, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Misuse of sources
A request for comments has been filed concerning the conduct of. Jagged 85 is one of the main contributors to Wikipedia (over 67,000 edits, he's ranked 198 in the number of edits), and practically all of his edits have to do with Islamic science, technology and philosophy. This editor has persistently misused sources here over several years. This editor's contributions are always well provided with citations, but examination of these sources often reveals either a blatant misrepresentation of those sources or a selective interpretation, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent. I searched the page history, and found 15 edits by Jagged 85 (for example, see this edits). Tobby72 (talk) 17:20, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * That's an old and archived RfC. The point is still valid though, and his contribs need to be doublechecked. Tobby72 (talk) 20:58, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Chronologic order
It seams that this article folows, when dealing with the history of "hospitals", a chronologic order. Then why is the "medieval european", that makes reference to "hospitals" in the sixth century, following the "islamic medieval" that only has references to the eighth century? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.132.25.187 (talk) 20:49, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

First Hospital
First Hospital in the world was introduce by Muslim. In March 627, the first Hospital was made up using tent by Rufaidah bint Sa’ad as a leader for volunteer nurse to treat injuries soldier in war, which named "Battle of the Trench" or "Khandaq Battle". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Faizulizwan (talk • contribs) 09:42, 8 December 2011 (UTC)


 * That does not appear to be true, as the article already contains cited evidence of hospitals dated from 900 years before that date. OwainDavies (about)(talk) edited at 10:25, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Hetep and Respect, the earliest hospitals in recorded history are found (some still standing after thousands of years) in Classical African Civilization, Kemet (Ancient Egypt. This article aided by world input deserves much credit for getting that part right.

"...The earliest documented institutions aiming to provide cures were ancient Egyptian temples..."

The earliest "hospitals" were called Per Ankh (House of light)in metu neter (hieroglyphics). We still use the Rx of the Kemetic pharmacological system to this day, along with the magic wand of Tihuti (Greeks called it the Caduceus)worn by modern doctors and found through out modern medicine.

Doctor's Tools on Per Ankh (hospital) in Kemet Historicity is important to the forward movement of mankind --Aunk (talk) 00:44, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

How much?
"There are over 17,000 hospitals in the world"

Orly? New York alone has over 40, my native little city - over 50, at least 500 across the small 46m-populated Ukraine - and 17.000 for the whole world? C'mon, I won't even bother reading a source stating that! Did you mean 17 millions? It's not that much for 8 billions of population u know) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.72.233.80 (talk) 22:41, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * According to, there are about 5,700 in the US, which sounds about right. Extrapolating based on population, there would be about 100,000 in the world. The WHO maintains stats on hospital beds per capita - that might be a more useful number to report. — RockMFR 17:49, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Pictures
We have many photos of the outside of hospitals from a distance but hardly any of the inside, a few photos of hospital buildings are OK but alone they do not give a proper visual representation of hospitals as a whole, what about the staff, patients, equipment, wards or other inside photos hospital areas, a few photos of these I think could replace ones of the buildings. Some of the many photos of hospital buildings here are not useful as they look like they could be any old building and show more of the car park and trees outside, not very helpful. Carlwev (talk) 10:30, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * We can actually replace some western hospitals with those of other countries, just for variety. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 06:52, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Spinoff History section
I propose to spin off the History section into a separate article, on the History of hospitals. This is largely a separate topic from current events, and has a very large bibliography on its own, covering many more countries. Are there any objections?Rjensen (talk) 05:32, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
 * ok I'll get started :) Rjensen (talk) 06:46, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Community Hospital
a brief description of the Community_hospital type is needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.37.173.247 (talk) 10:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Infection prevention
... depends on how you design and run your hospital 10.1016/S1473-3099(14)70854-0 JFW &#124; T@lk  14:53, 13 February 2015 (UTC)