News Stories...

Here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8480656.stm) it says that NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in the UK, is recommending that all adults entering hospital should be checked for their risk of acquiring deep vein thrombosis during their stay. Well, er congratulations! When I was in hospital in Germany last year, twice, those anti DVT stockings were thrown on as soon as I went into the operating theatre, and I was not allowed to take them off till I left (the second time I did take them off a day or two earlier, but I was walking around a lot by that time). Also I got a daily injection to prvent DVT, as did certainly everyone who had an operation. Don't know about medical patients - I was not on that kind of ward - but it seems rather an easy way of dealing with this. The stockings may be expensive to buy, but they do last a long time (and can be washed and kept in the hospital for the next patient).

The other story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8482068.stm) says that the President of Haiti is planning to move into a tent on his lawn, since his house was destroyed in the earthquake. One asks oneself a) where did he stay until now, and b) how bulletproof is a tent?