Hospital bans bedside Bibles

Good idea
This is not a matter of censorship, it is a matter of controlling nosocomial infection. Hospital rooms are designed to have non-porous, non-absorbent materials: surfaces that can be easily cleaned and disinfected. Things that cannot be cleaned easily are bagged- the nurse call/tv remote/ pillow speaker thing-a-ma-jig is put in a new little plastic bag after each patient.

So removing the bible that so many patients have touched makes sense. I’m sure that they’ll provide a clergyman of your choice if you simply ask. Every hospital in which I have worked takes a patients spiritual well being quite seriously. There are a plethora of studies to show that patients who are allowed to practice their faith while hospitalized have better outcomes.

Re:but how many…
More people die from nosocomial (hospital acquired) infections than any other cause when hospitilized. Sure a lot of people get them from surgery or weakened immune response that precipitated their hospitalization (if ya weren’t sick ya wouldn’t be there), but preventing infection is much easier than treating infection.

I don’t think it is so much a matter of removing the bible but as removing any book that a patient may have touched. You really can’t disinfect a book. I’m sure there is no TV Guide, or at least no used TV Guide in the rooms. I would think they would remove a used Qua’ran too, I don’t think it is an anti-religious bias but an anti-germ bias.

Two of the most concerning hospital acquired infections VRE (Vancomycin resistant Enterococcus) and MRSA (Methcillin resistant Staph Aureus) can live on surfaces such as countertops or of course books. Both of these infections are very hard to treat because the antibiotics that are most commonly used for these are not effective (hence the word resistant in the name) so prevention -even if it requires throwing out books- is vitally important.

2 interesting web sites that discuss VRE and a pdf about MRSA are available.