bed-blocker

n. a patient who will not or cannot be moved to another medical facility, either due to a shortage of beds or because of the patient’s refusal. Subjects: English, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Health, Medical, Slang

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Citations: 1985 Donald Grant Globe and Mail (Toronto, Can.) (Feb. 18) “‘Bed blockers’ blamed for emergency ward crunch” p. P16: “Bed blockers” are patients who had been given acute care in a Metro hospital bed but no longer need that attention. They should be sent to a chronic care hospital but there are no available beds. 1992 Malcolm Dean The Lancet (U.K.) (Aug. 29) “NHS withdrawal from continuing care” p. vol. 340, no. 8818, p. 539: The son said she was not going to be moved. He was happy to pay for chronic care, but not for the six weeks of nursing care that the consultant had deemed necessary for the acute incident.…I can vouch for this story because Biddy is my mother, and I am the son who refused to move her. I confess that I suffered twinges of guilt in my stand. I realised she would be classified as a “bed blocker.” [2004 Chris Moncrieff Scotsman (U.K.) (May 10) “Politics Column”: Many veteran Conservative MPs who might have been expected to retire from the fray at the next General Election, are obdurately staying put.…Since Tony Blair is unlikely to send them to the House of Lords on retirement, they are opting to stay in the Commons, to while away their twilight years.…They are aptly known as “the bedblockers.”] 2004 Kate Legge The Australian (Apr. 17) “Age and the long wait”: A former railway worker who paid his taxes and worked hard to put two children through private school, Ray Smith had been languishing in Launceston General Hospital since August, waiting for a bed in a secure dementia facility. Health bureaucrats cursed him as a “bed blocker,” which is ironic given Smith’s propensity to wander off up the corridor and out the front door.

Posted 11 May 04 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Reader comments:

why are some people ‘bed blockers?’ could it be because when they became ill, they were not consulted about their diagnosis, their prognosis and medication? In January of this year, the general practitioner was called in to see my mother who had become extremely ill in an ‘assisted living scheme’. The G.P., a very experienced man of some 50+ years of age, diagnosed a heart attack. Mother was taken to hospital where she was diagnosed as having a ‘chest infection and concurrent uti infection’. She was never told what was wrong with her (no diagnosis). She was never told what the outcome of her current ‘crisis’ would be. She was never asked if she would accept the medication prescribed. She was administered an antibiotic and steroid treatment and sent home. It is some 4 months later now and we are still suffering as a consequence from this initial hospitalisation and so is she. At 84 and in poor shape, this may well have been the ‘ideal’ time for her to have died - with dignity - instead of suffering the horrendous problems she has, since that time.

by annette hoy 15 May 07, 0857 GMT