months ago i mentioned the unique patient transport system utilized by the anastasis...the operating suite is on B-deck and the ward is on C-deck (one level below, with no elevators). so once a patient has had surgery and is ready to be returned to the ward, the recovery room staff calls up to the ship's reception desk. the receptionist on duty gets on the all-ship overhead intercom and calls the transport team..."transport team to the operating theatre." the transport team is made up of three or four guys, all of whom work other jobs on the ship (deck hand, chaplain, whatever) but who also volunteered to work as part of the transport team. so when paged, these guys leave whatever they're doing and come down to the recovery room, where they put the patient on a very MASH-like stretcher. they carry the patient/stretcher down the hall to the stairway, where they hook up the four corners of the stretcher to a rope-pulley system (see pic below).
after all four corners have been hooked up, one guy stabilizes the "upstairs" end of the stretcher, while another stabilizes the "downstairs" end. a third guy, in this case glen in the picture below (black arrow...glen is the galley manager), slowly lowers the patient using the rope/pulley system
finally, once the patient reaches the bottom, the transport team unhooks the stretcher from the ropes and carries the patient to his/her bed. voila!
# posted by Jenn @ 9:00 PM