Deadly Housekeeper

[StevenRN]

I found this article. Reckon it's true. Probably happened even in the USA!

I've seen a few housekeepers who could've easily killed a few!

South African Health - Pelonomi Hospital

Date: 26 July 1996 10:08

"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."

from (Cape Times, 6/13/96)

BTW, the headline of the newspaper story was, "Cleaner Polishes

Off Patients."

[babynurselsa, RN]

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/cleaner.asp

here it is.

[Gumshooz]

:stone WOW! How could the person just unplug something like that and even realize why its there. If the cleaner had just took extra time to see where it was coming from then that hopefully wouldnt have happened to anyone of the patients. People just amaze me...

[Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN]

Snopes.com says the story is fake.

[mtymom]

I was going to say that the story is fake. I saw it on a TV show about Urban legends. By the way, most vents have a backup battery and alert someone when it is shut off.

[bettystlouis]

:uhoh21:

] [/[/b]QUOTE]strange things do happen in hospital. a patient came in for a chole,after talking with her i notice she had been reading abook about unexplained deaths in hosp. her sister died 2 years earlier after surgery {unexplained} healthy medical hx. after coming back to work i found out this pt.also died ,her daughter said "just like aunt so and so"

[RosesrReder, BSN, MSN, RN]

Snopes.com says the story is fake.

I hope it is.

[Adam D. RN2005]

I was going to say that the story is fake. I saw it on a TV show about Urban legends. By the way, most vents have a backup battery and alert someone when it is shut off.

Not only that, have you heard the screaching alarm that goes off when they loose power.

Adam, RN

[jschut, BSN, RN]

My goodness...imagine if it was a real story (if it isn't!)!!!