“Modern medicine carried to the nth degree. It’s incredible, really it is. It’s like some science fiction setting. A machine taking care of a host of mindless people. It’s almost as if these patients aren’t people.”
“They aren’t people.”
“I beg your pardon?” Susan looked up from the patient toward Michelle.
“They were people; now they’re brain stem preparations. Modern medicine and medical-technology have advanced to the point where these organisms can be kept alive, sometimes indefinitely. The result was a cost-effectiveness crisis. The law decided they had to be maintained. Technology had to advance to deal with the problem realistically. And it has. This hospital has the potential to handle up to a thousand such cases at a time.”
There was something about the basic philosophy Michelle elucidated that made Susan uncomfortable. She also had a feeling that her guide had herself been very carefully indoctrinated. Susan could tell that Michelle did not question what she was saying. Nevertheless Susan did not dwell on the institute’s philosophical foundations. She was overwhelmed by the place’s physical aspects. She wanted to see more. She looked around the room. It was more than a hundred feet long, with a fifteen- to twenty-foot ceiling. In the ceiling the maze of tracks was bewildering.
There was another door at the far end of the room. It was closed. But it was a normal door with normal hardware. Susan decided that only the doors they had so far traversed were centrally controlled. After all, most visitors, the families, never came into the main ward.
“How many operating rooms are there here in the Jefferson Institute?” asked Susan suddenly.
“We don’t have operating rooms here. This is a chronic care facility. If a patient needs acute care, he is transferred back to the referring institution.”
The reply was so fast that it gave the impression of a reflex or trained response. Susan distinctly remembered seeing the ORs in the floor plans she had obtained at City Hall. They were on the second floor. Susan began to sense that Michelle was lying.
“No operating rooms?” Susan deliberately acted very surprised. “Where do they do emergency procedures, like tracheotomies?”
“Right here on the main ward or in the ICU visiting room next door. That can be set up as a minor OR if needed. But it rarely happens. As I said, this is a chronic-care hospital.”
“I still would have thought that they would have included an OR.”
At that moment almost directly in front of Susan, one of the patients was automatically tipped back so that his head was about six inches below his feet.’
“There is a good example of the computer working,” said Michelle. “The computer probably sensed a fall in the blood pressure. It put the patient into the Trendelenburg position prior to correcting the main cause for the blood pressure fall.”
Susan was barely listening; she was trying to figure a way to do a little exploring on her own. She wanted to see those operating rooms indicated on the floor plans.
“One of the reasons I asked to come here was to see a particular patient. The name is Berman, Sean Berman. Do you have any idea where he is located?”
“No; not offhand. To tell you the truth, we don’t use names here for the patients. The patients are given numbers, sample 1, sample 2, etcetera. It’s infinitely easier to key into the computer. In order to find Berman’s number, I’ll have to match the name with the computer. It takes a minute or so, that’s all.”
“Well, I would like to find out.”