“Can I have the sides down on the crib then?”, I asked, “Sleeping in a baby crib is bad enough, but having the sides raised so I can’t get out of bed to go to the bathroom makes me feel so…….immature!”

The doctor looked uncomfortable and said, “I’m sorry, but hospital regulations don’t permit patients to sleep in beds without the sides of the beds being raised to keep them from falling out of bed. It’s for your own protection. The drop to the floor from the mattress is your full body height. I’m not sure that you could get out of the bed unassisted without hurting yourself. I know its inconvenient, but you would have to call the nurse to lower the sides in any case. I’ll have the nurse put a call button in your bed so that you can call for help when you need it. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s no bathroom in this room. It looks like there might be enough room in here to put a potty chair.”

He turned to the nurse and said pointedly, “What do you think?”

The nurse looked decidedly unhappy at having to shoot down another one of the doctor’s plans and said hesitantly, “Well……It would be a squeeze, but I think we could do it. But, doctor…..Have you considered his body size? He’s really too small to put on an adult potty. The opening on the seat is too big for his bottom, he’d fall in. He wouldn’t be able to hold onto the handrails because they’d be too high for him. If he sat on the chair the safety rails would be at shoulder height.”

The doctor looked irritated and said, “Then put a children’s potty in here! Do I have to think of everything?”

The nurse dropped her head and said in a quiet voice, “We don’t have one, doctor. That’s why there’s the rule about diapers for children under the age of four. Once they’re bigger than that, we can use a regular potty chair.”

“I see,” said the doctor, “You and I can discuss this later. I think we’re going to need some changes in policy around here.”

“It’s a matter of the budget, doctor. The board has said repeatedly that we don’t need a Pediatric Unit and has kept our budget as small as they can. We simply don’t have the money to buy anything but the most necessary equipment. You remember how they acted when I asked for a pediatric cardiac monitor. They told us to use the pediatric defibrillator we bought last year. It will work, but if I have more than one patient with cardiac problems…….”

“I know, I know!,” the doctor said tiredly, “I’ll take it up at the next meeting of the board, I promise.”