After reading the Dec. 17 front-page article “Hospitals being fined for avoidable infections,” I decided, after many years of wanting to write about the subject, that it was time to do so.

With my husband having been in and out of the hospital many times over a five-year period, ending in December 2012, I have firsthand experience observing hospital comings and goings. People in various attire, the overcrowding of patients’ rooms, children in strollers, babies crying.

There was a time when you knew who the doctors and nurses were by their clothing.

Also, there were visiting hours, and when these were over, a buzzer rang and you were told: “Visiting hours are over,” and you had to leave. No children were allowed, and there was a limit to the number of visitors to a room, usually family members only.

Maybe if these customs were restored, there would be a lot fewer germs floating around causing infections.

Judy Sturgeon

Cumberland Foreside

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