BIRMINGHAM, AL – This winter season has been historically busy with influenza A wreaking havoc on health care systems, which are filled to the gills with the sickest of the sick from coast to coast. In an effort to increase capacity and offset boarding in the emergency room, administrators at Birmingham Medical Center (BMC) have opened a new outdoor, rooftop, 50-bed med-surg unit.
“A bed’s a bed no matter where you open it at the hospital, so it’s obvious we have to do what’s right,” explained BMC CEO Chaz Moneybags, cozy in his numerous shiny expensive layers while drinking tea out of his gold-plated coffee cup. “That means opening beds up outside on the rooftop.”
The decision to open an outdoor med-surg unit has been controversial.
“There are going to be naysayers, but we think that our CEO has his heart in the right place,” explained BMC Vice President Timothy Cha-Ching, who plans to visit the outdoor roof unit in the summertime. “The patient is going to receive the same high quality care as would any other patient here at BMC. It’s just that it’ll be really windy up there, it’ll be freezing at night, and it’ll certainly get really wet if it rains or snows with there being no roof and all. Sure, the risk for hypothermia and death is tremendous, but at least they got admitted, right? Surely it’s better than just sitting in the waiting room. I really don’t see what’s not to like from either patients or providers.”
Patients are skeptical of the winter roof unit, citing the lack of heat, bathroom facilities, hot water, electricity, pretty much anything that you would find indoors in the dead of winter. To make matters worse, administrators said they wouldn’t be able to provide extra blankets to patients in this unit since that was a cost-burden.
Health care professionals are skeptical as well and stand unified in boycotting the new unit. One doctor summed up the sentiment as follows: “Are you nuts?! It’s f**king freezing up there!! I assure you, doctors, nurses, what have you, if any one of us are assigned to that crazy-ass unit, we’re turning in our letters of resignation, I promise you!”
