Free Republic

Americans are being urged to stop using any of 285,000 adult portable bed rails after the deaths of at least three people who suffocated after becoming caught in one of 10 models of the product. The bed rails were manufactured and sold by Mobility Transfer Systems from 1992 to 2021 and by Metal Tubing USA in 2021 and 2022, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Thursday. Neither company has agreed to recall the beds or offer a remedy to consumers, according to the agency. At least three people died after becoming entrapped in the products, including a 78-year-old...

The infamous "anti-sex" cardboard beds Olympic athletes slept on in the Games village will find a new home. Osaka governor Hirofumi Yoshimura told media on Saturday (Sept11) that about 800 "high quality beds" built for Olympians will be reused at a temporary facility in the Japanese prefecture for Covid-19 patients. According to media reports in Japan, the beds were designed to support people up to 200 kilograms in weight. A Japanese company, Airweave, created the beds with cardboard material so as to be able to recycle them in the future. Prior to the Olympics, rumours were swirling on social media...

Only eight intensive care unit (ICU) beds were available in Arkansas on Monday, as COVID-19 cases increase in the state and nationwide due largely to the highly infectious delta variant. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) announced that 103 people were hospitalized in the state on Monday, marking the largest single-day increase in hospitalizations. The state reported 995 new cases on Monday and 21 additional deaths, according to Hutchinson.

ORLANDO—Nurse Darlene Andrews stood before a small crew responsible for stopping the latest pandemic surge from overrunning seven of AdventHealth’s Orlando-area hospitals. She quickly listed occupancy at each hospital. Six were beyond full capacity, with one at 123% for adults. Nearby wall-mounted screens streaming hospital data showed more than 90 patients—some with Covid-19, some seeking other care—needed beds. One had been waiting more than two days. A hospital in Altamonte Springs, Fla., and another east of downtown Orlando were the current hot spots, nurse Andrew Stakelum told the group, a team that oversees work that has become critical for U.S....

The Illinois Department of Public Health quietly removed thousands of available hospital beds from their data showing how much capacity Illinois’ medical centers have. The number of available hospital beds is closely tracked by the state as a barometer of how much stress the COVID-19 pandemic is placing on Illinois’ medical system. The state has more than 30,000 total general use hospital beds. The lower the number of free beds, the worse the COVID-19 pandemic is becoming. “We actually need to know how many beds are available that have staff that could actually work it,” Ezike said. “When you put...

I am in the market for a new mattress, our memory foam mattress has given out, and I've ended up sleeping in a 'trench' for the past few months and it's time to replace it with a new one. At 5'10" and about 185, I'm not a monster who has smashed the bed. I'm certainly open to another memory foam type, it was very good when it was newer, but I'd like to hear from others. What are you using, how satisfied are you with your choice, and how long have you had it? Thanks to everyone who takes time...

I haven't had a decent nights' rest in a long time, primarily because my mattress is old.

<p>Democrats have lost all rational thought when it comes to immigration and how to secure the U.S. border, but the immigration policy positions held by the extreme Left of the party, embodied by ‘Democratic Socialist’ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, can best be described as confusing, silly, and, frankly, stupid.</p>

Asserting that "it would be inhumane for us to force these innocent immigrant children to sleep on substandard beds," Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell has requested an appropriation of "$1,000 per migrant in order to fund minimally acceptable accommodations." "Many of these immigrant children have already suffered from improper sleeping arrangements for most of their lives," Burwell said. "In the countries they come from it is common for multiple children to be crammed into a single bed of straw, be slung on hammocks, or simply left to sleep on the ground." Burwell characterized the "military style cots and...

Dale Carlsen was about 24 years old and had been merely selling mattresses, but finally Dale got frustrated and went into the biz for himself. He was coming up on having to make a payment on the loan for his new, tiny mattress company. He didn't have much money, and this loan was at over 20% interest, ok? Worse was that Dale had chosen the location of his first mattress store in gritty South Sacramento, near Sac State, alongside some train tracks, next to a flea market. He'd thought the flea market foot traffic would bring customers, but in fact...

RUDD should invest in a voucher scheme instead of taking over hospitals. IT'S a quarter of a century since Medicare was established, but no one is celebrating. No wonder, considering the critical condition of the public hospital system throughout Australia. Instead we have a 300-page reform blueprint from the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission. At least the report has identified the main problem. The reality is that Australia's dangerously overcrowded public hospitals don't have enough beds to provide a safe and timely standard of care even for emergency patients. Unfortunately, the commission has strongly supported a range of non-solutions....

A good night's sleep may be just what your arteries need. So finds a new five-year study in which middle-aged people who had an extra hour of sleep each night were less likely to have artery-stiffening calcium deposits. Lauderdale and her colleagues have been following a group of young adults for years, studying their heart arteries from a number of angles. The latest report linked the sleeping habits of 495 participants, ages 35 to 47, with the incidence of artery calcification, measured by CT scans. Calcium deposits can make the coronary arteries less flexible and ultimately lead to heart disease....

Corrections officials said Friday that they have reached agreement with a private prison company to transfer another 3,600 inmates to an out-of-state facility. The contract with Correctional Corp. of America will bring the total number of prisoners sent out of state to the nearly 8,000 allowed under a state law approved this year to ease prison crowding. Correctional Corp. of America will add space for the 3,060 inmates at its new La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona under the contract with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The new contract will cost California taxpayers $48 million this fiscal...

Running out of places to care for patients, London's busiest hospital emergency room shut its doors to all but the most severe injuries from outside the city for the first time in its history last week. Two trauma patients had to be diverted during the shutdown, with one patient sent to a hospital in Toronto and the other to Hamilton. The situation hit amid recent reports some London patients have had to wait as long as three days for a hospital bed to become available. "We were in a crisis situation," said Dr. Gary Joubert, chief of emergency medicine for...

Failing to make your bed in the morning may actually help keep you healthy, scientists believe. Research suggests that while an unmade bed may look scruffy it is also unappealing to house dust mites thought to cause asthma and other allergies. A Kingston University study discovered the bugs cannot survive in the warm, dry conditions found in an unmade bed. The average bed could be home to up to 1.5 million house dust mites. The bugs, which are less than a millimetre long, feed on scales of human skin and produce allergens which are easily inhaled during sleep. The warm,...

FALLS CHURCH, Va. - A woman who swapped beds with another patient in their hospital room so she could be nearer the window died after receiving the wrong type of blood during surgery. In preparation for the surgery last month, a technician at Inova Fairfax Hospital mistakenly took a blood sample from the woman's roommate, hospital officials said. Hospital spokeswoman Beth Visioli said Friday that the woman had switched beds, but said the death was the result of human error by a hospital employee. The technician did not follow the hospital's established procedures for identifying patients, which requires examining each...

Military beds for French heat victims Hospitals are overwhelmed with heat victims French military hospitals are to be used to help care for the heatwave casualties who are swamping the health system. More than 150 people are estimated to have died across France, most of them in Paris where temperatures have reached more than 40C (104F). The French Red Cross is also preparing to help caring for the victims as wards fill to overflowing. Refrigerated tents are being prepared as overflow mortuaries, Le Figaro newspaper reported, as existing facilities are stretched to breaking point. "We are in an extremely difficult...

POLK COUNTY, Fla. -- A 35-year-old Polk County woman admits she chained her sons to their beds at night to keep them out of trouble, according to a Local 6 News report. Karen Abe, 35, said her sons would break into and steal cars while she was at work so she tethered her 13- and 15-year-old sons to their beds with heavy chains and padlocks. Even though her ex-husband was reportedly inside the home at night, the boys were chained from 9:30 p.m. until 6 a.m. "When I left, I just put them on the chain," Karen Abe said. "They...