Feeling the Hospital Fear? Try These Tips

As the news media flings stories of Ebola, MRSA and MERS directly at your eyeballs, it’s difficult not to be terrified about a stay in a hospital. Like staying in a haunted house consisting entirely of superbugs and hacksaw wielding doctors, those clinical wards and endless white coats have been twisted into the stuff of nightmares by the tabloids.

Alarming visions and headlines aside, it’s nigh-on impossible to avoid a stay in a hospital – unless you’re planning to be gone before your time, so to speak. So, while your fear of superbugs prowling around wards is understandable, it’s neither realistic nor helpful to your condition. So, how can you walk through those hospital doors with your nerves in check?

Keep ’em keen, know it’s clean

Trapped in a hospital bed when all you can think of is the potential filth surrounding you is no way to feel healthier. After all, nobody wants to add a panic attack to their woes. But this idea of hospitals as clean as a Victorian slum is completely unfounded – they’re actually, by and large, the most hygienic places you can stay.

But neuroses don’t conform to logic, so you’ll have to force that hygiene information into your brain like a massive settee through a tiny door. Check out your hospital’s waste management system, ensuring that sharps disposal and ward cleaning is undertaken by professionals, and check the statistics for diseases contracted within wards – they’re sure to be much lower than you’d imagine.

The personal touch

The dread hits as you enter the ward. You’re certain there are germs surrounding you. The mere sight of a patient coughing gives you the fear. But you can at least take solace in one factor – you’re as clean as a whistle (PDF).

While it can be difficult to stay that way (anyone who’s ever been ill knows the effort it takes to even get dressed, let alone hop in the shower), ensuring you’ve brought all the right cleaning kit and get the help of nurses whenever you’re feeling filthy will mean your personal hygiene levels are never below par – even if you’re still suspicious of the ward you’re on.

Have a chin-wag

It’s good to talk, as that old BT advert used to claim – and it wasn’t half right. Even if your doctor appears to be more socially inept than an aggressively awkward guinea pig, an ability to communicate a procedure with lucidity is part and parcel of the job.

Count yourself lucky that such a bedside manner even exists. As recently as the 50s, a doctor had all the grace in examinations as a disgruntled mechanic tapping a Mini Cooper with his spanner. But now, stopping a patient fretting is inherent in the job description. So, if you’re feeling worried in your ward, remember one thing – it’s good to talk.