Mask

Lunch with AC and others.

She asked, "How do you find that pink card on our patients' folder ?"

"You mean the one I met in the out-patient clinic ? It's plain enough another recent invention of our friends living outside the solar system." I could not help smiling.

"Yes," my friend continued, "The nurses put one on the folder of every patient who is about to be seen. It says Patient Privacy and Do Not Read Unless You Are Authorized To Do So and so forth, but all it does is slowly down the clinic. Jove, the case notes are sitting right next to me. Who else could get hold of it and read ? They told me they need to hide up the name and ID number of the cover of the case notes. But, for god's sake, I've tried it from the patient's seat; no one could see anything - it's miles away from the file !"

"That's part of the requirement of that accreditation exercise ..." someone at the table interjected.

"Very true, in fact they have not done enough. There's yet another important aspect of privacy that our extraterrestrial friends have not thought of - and I'm going to make a proposal of quality improvement." I said, with a wicked twist of my lips.

"Eh ...?" AC looked puzzled.

"Our patients' face !" I said, "Facial appearance is a personal information. Alas, you know how embarrassing it is to be seen coming to the clinic or the ward by the others - no matter someone you know or not. We should actually provide paper bags to cover up the face of all patients who are attending the clinic - so that they could not be recognized !"