Research Query: Hospitals of 30 Years Ago

[dewline]

Wondering where one might look for visuals of semi-private rooms of hospitals circa roughly thirty years ago...?

Comments

[quietdarkness.livejournal.com]

Well, I wasn't working in a hospital 30 years ago, but I've certainly been in them at that time period, and I was a student nurse in them 25+ years ago, so I suspect that I have the information you are looking for.

Seriously, if you ignore the better decor and the tech gadgets, not that much has changed over the years. Semi private rooms have always had curtains that can be pulled between the beds for privacy. They had hand cranked hospital beds and hand cranked over the bed tables. A small night table usually was beside the bed. The floors were linoleum, the walls usually a beige color. Some hospitals had the sink in the room, and the bathroom just had the toilet and the shower. Nurses wore white uniforms (pants and dresses) 30 years ago, and in some places they had to wear their caps and their pins. Some RNs wore caps, and they had a black stripe on their caps, and each cap was different, depending on what school they graduated from. IV fluids usually were not run on IV pumps, that was saved for things like the intensive care units or for specific drugs on the floor. 30 years ago, they had started using plastic water pitchers and plastic cups and bedpans, same as today.

As they do today, the lights were generally located on the wall behind the patient's bed, and it had a string that the patient could pull to turn them on and off. Semi private rooms usually had one TV in the room, sometimes 2, one for each bed.

They had call bells in the room, one for each patient, just like today. They weren't as fancy as some of them today, but they did the job of working the television and calling to the desk.

If you need more info, ask away. God knows I have spent my career in hospitals.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Sounds close to what I remember from my last hospital stay as a patient right around the mid/late 1980's.

Count on being asked, with thanks!