Needed: Humane Medical Equipment

The X-Ray machine stood in the middle of the room about 20 feet by 10 feet. About four or five feet away from the X-Ray machine was a contraption that I hadn't paid attention to when little N and I were escorted into the room. I was looking for a chair on which I would sit and hold little N in my arms while her tiny chest was X-Rayed. I expected the medical technician to give me the radiation-proof vest to wear. The technician did hand me the vest, but little N would not be in my arms.

Instead, she would sit, but herself, in that contraption. I looked at it closely now. It had a wooden plank and a hole about two and a half feet in diameter in the middle through which a green tricycle seat was visible. Her legs and hips would go through the hole until she sat on the tricycle seat. Around her torso rising up from the wooden plank was a plastic enclosure, almost like a vest, which would go around her chest and be snapped shut. Her head peeped just above the plastic enclosure. Every part of her body was where it was supposed to be, but what about her arms?

I was supposed to hold them - tight together above her head. I gently pulled her arms up and held them while the technician tried to close the plastic vest around her chest. By this time little N had started whimpering. She did not like her hospital gown, she was uncomfortable in the seat, her arms must have been hurting quite a bit at the armpits from being pulled up above her head. The vest would not snap shut and little N started pulling her arms down and wanted to be picked up. At one point her arms got wedged in the vest and we had to unhook the clasp and start all over again. This went on for about five minutes by which time little N was angry. She wanted to get out and now.

Two more minutes of struggling with the contraption and the technician was ready to run the X-ray machine that was behind little N. Then he realized it was the wrong film plate in the slot in front of little N. He ran to the supply closet to pick up another one and slide it in its place. Now, finally he was ready. One X-ray front to back and another sideways and we were done, but it took a while before little N calmed down.

There's got to be a better way of doing this. How can one expect small children to sit for any length of time in a contraption such as that without feeling uncomfortable and therefore refusing to cooperate with the process? Or is this the lot of the little children? Children have no voice, other than crying to express their discomfort, so whoever designs these things must not feel the need to take into consideration their needs. No one gets X-rays for the pleasure of it. We go in there because of a medical necessity and, in most instances, in worrisome situations. The least the manufacturers can do is to spare a thought for the comfort of the little people for whom these machines are desinged.