Medical Jokes

Cleaner Polishes Off Patients

This is true story from the newspaper
The Cape Times (South Africa):


"For several months, our nurses have been baffled to find a
patient dead 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 cleaning lady 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 inquiry is now closed." (Cape Times)


The headline of the newspaper story was,
"Cleaner Polishes Off Patients"