From Cape Times, 6/13/96.
CLEANER POLISHES OFF PATIENTS
"For several months, our nurses have been baffled to find a dead
patient in the same bed every Friday morning," a spokeswoman for the
Pelonomi Hospital (Free State, South Africa) told reporters. "There
was no apparent cause for any of the deaths, and extensive checks on
the air conditioning system, and a search for possible bacterial
infection, failed to reveal any clues."
However, further inquiries have now revealed the cause of these
deaths. It seems that every Friday morning a cleaner would enter the
ward, remove the plug that powered the patient's life support system,
plug her floor polisher into the vacant socket, then go about her
business. When she had finished her chores, she would plug the life
support machine back in and leave, unaware that the patient was now
dead. She could not, after all, hear the screams and eventual death
rattle over the whirring of her polisher.
"We are sorry, and have sent a strong letter to the cleaner in
question. Further, the Free State Health and Welfare Department is
arranging for an electrician to fit an extra socket, so there should
be no repetition of this incident. The enquiry is now closed."
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