Major Differences between Hospitals Today and 100 Years Ago (Essay Sample)

MAJOR DIFFERENCES IN HOSPITALS TODAY AND 100 YEARS AGO.
NAME:
CLASS:
INSTITUTION OF AFFILIATION:
Medicine has a history extending across thousands of years and specialized establishments for treating patients have also been in existence for a long period. In spite of the fact that hospitals' functions have not changed much, there are great improvements in today's hospitals as contrasted to the condition of the hospitals in the past hundred years. The advancements have been intensified by the governments' support by provision of the needed financial assistance. These attempts have made the today's hospitals complexly institutionalized.
In the past hundred years, many patients died while being operated. The process was excessively painful to the patient, putting in mind that administering anesthetics was a risky process. Surgeons used a pad dipped in ether or chloroform prior to putting it in the patient's mouth. During the operation, many patients died due anesthetic overdose. Today, anesthetics are widely-used. Minor surgery is done with the compulsory application of these drugs. They have significantly become less hazardous, and effective control over their usage is applied. This can be credited to the discovery of the re-breathing system by Ralph Waters, which aided artificial airing during operations (Kingsdale&Kingsdale, 1989).
Giving birth a century ago was as difficult as today. However, the process was more perplexed by the nonexistence of modern technologies and painkillers. Many women underwent child delivery with trepidation because they were aware of a baby, or a mother who had died during childbirth. Back then, the situation of the fetus could only be monitored by the use of a devised fetal stethoscope. It was a hard process to divine how the fetus was developing, as well as preventing possible dangers for the child and the mother. Most women favored delivering at home or could not access hospitals. Despite the fact that cesarean sections were still in use a century ago, the rate of recurrence was very low (Spencer, 2000).
Now, a woman delivering can prudently assume that she will have a healthy process during her pregnancy and birth. The new and lenient ways of surveying and monitoring the status of a developing fetus and her mother have enhanced the whole child delivery process. For instance, with the help of electronics, today's hospitals can monitor the heartbeats of a baby using a device that positioned right on the fetus's head. It records the electrical pulse produced by the heartbeat (Kingsdale&Kingsdale, 1989). Today, the cesarean section rate is about 30% in the U.S, and some systems of birth that were widely used in the past one century have been reporte