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"For several months, our nurses have been baffled to find a dead
patient in the same bed every Friday morning" a spokeswoman for the
Pelonomi Hospital (Free State, South Africa) told reporters. "There was no
apparent cause for any of the deaths, and extensive checks on the air
conditioning system, and a search for possible bacterial infection, failed to
reveal any clues."
"However, further inquiries have now revealed the cause of these deaths. It
seems that every Friday morning a cleaner would enter the ward, remove the plug
that powered the patient's life support system, plug her floor polisher into the
vacant socket, then go about her business. When she had finished her chores, she
would plug the life support machine back in and leave, unaware that the patient
was now dead. She could not, after all, hear the screams and eventual death
rattle over the whirring of her polisher.
"We are sorry, and have sent a strong letter to the cleaner in question.
Further, the Free State Health and Welfare Department is arranging for an
electrician to fit an extra socket, so there should be no repetition of this
incident. The enquiry is now closed."
Cape Times, 13 June 1996