"James White - SG 10 - The Final Diagnosis" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)

the other end of the room that was* suitable for the use of an Earth-human. Just
inside the entrance on his left there was a nurses' station and food-service facility
enclosed by transparent walls, but the litter moved past it too quickly for him to
see who or what was working there

The space taken up by. the combined station and kitchen allowed only eight bed
spaces on that side, while there were twelve along the opposite wall. A few of
them were enclosed by screens, and the quiet gobbling and barking of alien voices
was coming from one of them, but without a translator he could not tell whether it
was a medical consultation, friendly gossip, or the sound of an other-species
patient in pain. Before he could ask, the litter stopped and he was lifted smoothly
and deposited in a sitting position on the chair by his bedside

The nurse pointed in turn to the three doors in the end wall that paralleled his bed
and said, "The first one is the multispecies waste-elimination facility for mobile
patients, the second is the bathroom, also multispecies, and the other one is for
patients who require assistance to perform these operations. Your bedside cabinet
is similar to the one you used on Treevendar, and the few personal effects you
were allowed to bring with you will be moved to it later today. You have a call
button in case you need attention, and there is a ceiling-mounted sound and vision
pickup linked to monitors in the nurses' station in case you need urgent attention
but are unable to call for it yourself. Your reading light is directional so that you
will not inconvenience other patients during rest periods, and you have an audio
plug, an earpiece, and a small viewscreen tuned to the in-hospital entertainment
channels. The programs were recorded a long time ago, so you may not want to
view them unless you are trying to put yourself to sleep without sedative
medication


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"You are in bed eighteen," it continued. "As well as being the most convenient
position to the toilet facilities, it is farthest from the ward entrance and the nurses'
station. There is a generally held belief within the hospital, which has never been
officially denied, that the closer a patient is to the ward entrance, where the doctor
on call and the ward nurses can reach it with minimum delay, the more serious is
its clinical condition and prognosis. You may like to take some comfort from that
knowledge

"And now, Patient Hewlitt," it went on briskly, "please undress, put on the hospital
garment lying across your chair, and get into bed quickly before Charge Nurse
arrives. I will remain outside the screen. If you need help, call me.тАЭ

The nurse and its litter moved aside and the bed screens unrolled silently from
their recess in the ceiling

For what seemed like a long time Hewlitt held the hospital garment in his hands
without moving. It was smooth, white, shapeless, and, like all the others he had