I was recently in the midst of conducting an inventory of the outdoor air cooled condenser units at my facility that needed to be added to the building maintenance management software at work.
These need to be in the system so that when I request quotes from some of our local HVAC contractors to send someone in to clean the condenser coils for the upcoming cooling season I can just print out a list and give each contractor the same list so that I can compare apples to apples.
Also, they need to be added to the maps that indicate where all of this equipment is located. It’s pretty easy to lose track of 87 air cooled condenser units that are located on 15 different roofs and various compounds around the entire facility.
I had just popped around to the new addition to the facility where I work. This addition is where those wishing to undergo M.A.i.D. can do so. The maintenance for this addition is supposed to be looked after by another health authority, but seeing as how my crew would be the “first responders” to deal with any type of HVAC failure I agreed to include the condenser unit for this facility to the building maintenance management system so that it would be cleaned at the same time that all of the other units are.
As I was leaving via the hearse driveway two of my shift engineers came up to me and asked me what this facility was for. I guess that they weren’t on shift when we had our tour of the facility prior to its opening.
So, I took them on a tour of the facility.
I could see that these two were generally uncomfortable with being in the facility.
And they had a lot of questions.
“Why are there so many chairs?”
Well, that’s for family members, loved ones, or anyone else that the person undergoing M.A.i.D. wishes to have present.
“People can watch this????”
Yes, they get a chance to say goodbye. And the person undergoing M.A.i.D. doesn’t die alone.
“Do they have to give the patient the shot?”
Who?
“The people watching?”
No. It’s either a doctor or a nurse practitioner.
“But what about when they execute prisoners and they say that the prisoner suffers why would anyone want to see this?”
Nope. This isn’t an execution. Four drugs. Midazolam, Propofol, Rocuronium, and Bupivacaine.
“What if they don’t want to undergo the procedure and they don’t want to die?”
Huh? You mean that they change their mind?
“No, let’s say that somebody wants them to die but they don’t want to die.”
No, that’s not how M.A.i.D. works. The patient has to request it. The patient has to undergo review and consultation. And the patient can stop the procedure at any point right up to when they lose consciousness.
Even with all of that explanation and all of the assurances I could see that these two were still ill at ease with the whole subject of M.A.i.D..
Death in and of itself is an unnerving topic as well.
I have engineers working under me that outright refuse to go into the morgue cooler to deal with refrigeration issues.
Even going into the autopsy suite elicits fears of being forced to watch an autopsy….
Autopsies are so rarely performed at this facility these days that the observation platform in the autopsy theatre has been used for file storage for ages.
“What if they start performing an autopsy while I’m in there”
Leave.
Come back later.
I’ve even had engineers get out of the elevators or refuse to get on an elevator if the morgue stretcher is in or boarding the elevator.
Beeshive 