Medical Furniture Woes

Every fat person has talked about going to the doctor's office, and in a sea of narrow chairs in the waiting room always with arms, realize they either have to remain standing or have to endure the embarrassment of going up to the counter, and asking the office ladies to come up with a spare desk or roller chair.

This happened in two doctor offices I went to for years. Some of the more enlightened ones sprinkle a couch or two in the waiting room to help you out, but too many others, seem to almost adhere to a plot to buy the most narrow chairs with arms possible. While fat people today can find good chairs in restaurants, and other places [the marketplace had to accommodate more Americans as they grew bigger], this has not gotten into many doctor offices. Russell Williams in the size acceptance world would campaign for more access for fat people concentrating on chairs, while I didn't agree with him on many things, I definitely did with that.


But this isn't the only thing Ive noticed about the medical world.


Who but the most spry 12 year old can even CLIMB on top of these things?

Don't forget most people going to the doctor, are the elderly, sick and many overweight people. Even when I weighed in the 200s, I could barely hike myself up onto the typical medical examining table. There was one time, I did so, and put feet on a foot rest getting down and almost tipped the entire thing over. I know most people in their 70s and 80s are not either.

I know they want the doctor to be able to preserve his back, and make things easier for them, but when they keep making furniture most patients find formidable to even get on, then that is a problem.

Then there is your typical hospital bed. They are nightmares for the fat too. In one hospital just sitting on the edge of their hospital bed, I almost flipped the whole thing over. My old small town hospital, used to put me on the "bone bed" the one with the metal rack to hook broken limbs too, because it was the only bed that had the weight to it to remain stable with me in it. I don't think I barely slept, I begged the doctor, let me go home. He relented after 10 days to release me. That is one thing too, in the ER you'll see more of those impossible to get onto examining tables and nightmare beds, so even though you are shivering to death, you are hunched over in the one chair you could find without arms.

Hospital beds are UNCOMFORTABLE. Comfort affects illness and health problems. They are far too narrow--even people of more average size attest to that, and even if they prop you up, more then often you end up sliding into the hole. Don't think that hospitals have a vast array of bariactric beds either, maybe they will special ship one in if you are Walter Hudson but don't count on it. One nursing home bound friend, has relayed to me about how her own bed is a nightmare, and she knows she is not getting needed rest because of it.

I actually have considering writing medical furniture makers, to tell them they need to step it up and think a bit of the patient's comfort and limitations.

Something is being lost in the translation here.