Hospital Protocols

I spent last week in hospital with an infected joint; I've had to find out about StickyKeys, and I'm using the mouse wrong-handed. I didn't feel ill, I just had to be around for regular surgery and IV penicillin, so there was a lot of time to kill with no desk, no computer, no Internet and one or two compromised hands (you can't read when your hands hurt and you haven't got a desk).

Better people than I am would have done something useful with all this time. I just wished it was finished. But I saw a lot of security protocols:

• When you are prepped for a local anaesthetic, it's the same as for general: eight hours starvation. For why? So you can be conveniently be put right under when it all goes tits.
• Every single person who planned to do anything substantial at all asked me whether I was allergic to anything. Every time. I was the second longest term resident on the ward at the end, and the nurse who'd infused the same prescription all week still asked the same question every time.
• Everybody asks your name and date of birth, and then checks the band on your wrist. Every time.

I got pretty sick of this and I was brewing up some smart answers. Until the porters turned up to collect the appendectomy next to me. He was starving and ready to go. They asked his name. Wrong guy. I love security protocols.