Euphemisms

She's gone to her reward. You're purchasing a home. This car has been pre-enjoyed. You've all heard the terms. They are often used to disguise the truth, or to put things in a better light. They are semi-factual. That is, they bear a relation to the facts, as coloured by the seller.

I heard on the nooz the other day that they're closing down some hospital beds to save money. It's such a common expression I've head hospital staff say, "oh they're closing down a few beds".

No, they fuckin aren't!

Nobody is going to come by and remove a hospital bed, wheel it down the hall and put it away in a storage closet - and how would that save money if they did? Hospital beds are expensive pieces of equipment that cost as much as a used car. Sticking it somewhere where it's unavailable would be idiocy. When your granny needs a hip replacement, they tell you she can't have one and she'll have to go on the waiting list "until a bed becomes available". Huh? The wards are all still there. The floors are still all open. The beds, equipment and monitors are all still there. Sure, here and there you'll see a ward turned into office space, but mostly all the spaces, beds and equipment are still there, still waiting for granny. What's missing?

Ah, I see you there now. You've arrived at the obvious conclusion and are just waiting politely for me and my rhetoric to catch up. To close a bed is a euphemism for staff and service reduction. It means that instead of twenty-eight surgeons, there will only be twenty-seven. Instead of fifteen anesthetists, there will only be fourteen. Instead of sixteen lab technicians there will only be fifteen plus four hours of overtime. Instead of forty-two nurses, there will be forty. It means that instead of having enough staff and services to care for six hundred and ninety patients, they've reduced staff so that they can only take care of six hundred and eighty-eight patients. So, they've closed two beds. They have reduced staff and services to the point that two more people won't get cared for. When they call the floor and say, "hey, can you take another patient?", the nurse says no, not unless someone pays overtime. They don't have the staff. Granny can wait.

I suppose what I'd like the nooz geeks to do is once in a while, to spend a minute and explain the shorthand expressions such as "closing a bed". They should use the language to make the facts clear, not obfuscate them.