Hi Guys
I was wondering , My family member was recently in hospital and I noticed that they charge you $80 per week even to watch free to AIR TV on the monitors above
Has anyone found a trick how to connect your device to the monitors
I tried but the select HDMI button is blanked out
I am aware you can watch on IPAD, Laptops, Mobile phones etc, But I want to watch on the TV Monitors above in the rooms
TIL hospitals charge for TV use. There's some useful info in this thread from "pull out the box plugged into the back" to a more practical "just give them an iPad/smartphone to stream from".
https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/10ql51t/the_cost…
It is super perverse that you will be charged in a public hospital for parking and TV access. All the staff are against it, but of course they have no control. All private contracts.
"Meh! People who use public hospitals don't have cars."
- Joh Ockeey
Even the price of food is nearly extortion.
~ $5 for a bottle of water
Bottled water from Food Services to admitted patients is free.
@timthetoolman: Well that's true. Some hospitals have food stalls run by charity etc organisations, but I guess you still have to turn a profit :)
It is super perverse that you will be charged in a public hospital for parking and TV access.
Paying for things you use is perverse? Interesting theory…
All the staff are against it, but of course they have no control.
And why would they, they are staff. You are free to start your own hospital and run it at a loss if you so choose. Why aren't you doing that?
All private contracts.
Almost government contracts over a certain amount are open for tender and you are free to bid for them. But I think we know the drill. 'I want stuff but I want someone else to pay for it!'
Paying too much for something in a setting where ppl are generally stuck there, is perverse. As is making hospital visitors or patients pay $$$ to park. Disgusting practice, I don't care why it is the case, it's just shameful that even in a public hospital setting the gap between rich/poor means a difference in patient supports.
Paying too much for something
Who decides what 'too much' is? Stuff cost money, why do you think other people should pay for what you want?
I don't care why it is the case
Give me free stuff, I don't care about the details… typical Labor voter logic…
Paying for things you use is perverse? Interesting theory…
They are likely making a comment on the fact that people are in hospital due to severe illness and sometimes end of life experiences and you have to pay parking fees.
When I was in hospital for several weeks my family visited me every day. Even though they got a pass, it was still quite expensive for the parking.
We pay enough in taxes in this country, we should be supporting people when they are at their most vurnerable.
And why would they, they are staff. You are free to start your own hospital and run it at a loss if you so choose. Why aren't you doing that?
This sort of rhetoric is ridiculous. It's akin to "you can't complain about the food at a restaraunt if you're not a chef".
typical Labor voter logic…
found the trumper.
and you have to pay parking fees
Things cost money, why do you think someone else should pay for services you are using?
We pay enough in taxes in this country,
How much do you pay? And what do you consider the threshold of 'enough taxes to demand free stuff'?
So the logic here is I pay some amount of tax, therefore I should get to demand as much free stuff as I like?
Could you break this thought process down for us?
you can't complain about the food at a restaurant if you're not a chef
Logic error. OP is not just complaining about it, they are claiming that it is 'perverse' that the Chef charges money for cooking your food.
Food costs money, the person eating it should pay. What part of that doesn't make sense to you?
found the trumper.
'Anyone I disagree with is Hitler'. More Labor voter logic…
@1st-Amendment: We all decide what too much is and it's based on what is reasonable by the majority in the circumstance. People pay for what everybody else wants through our tax system, people pay for Medicare and public hospitals through a lifetime of tax. Hospitals are there to provide an environment to make people better and not worse. Having access to tv is something prisoners have, people bedridden in hospital deserve at least the same access. I'm assuming you've never been in hospital long, not had to worry about non essential spending for a long time or you've been lucky enough to not witness the mental decline that can occur over a long hospital stay, if you had, I don't think you'd be such an attack dog on reply.
I'm assuming you've never been in hospital long
And you'd be wrong. Again.
All I did was take in a laptop and the problem was solved. No blaming other people or demanding free stuff from others required…
For TV maybe but not for parking. Finding a carpark at a hospital is a challenge even at the prices they charge. If it was free the carparks would be permanently occupied by all the long term patients.
Most hospitals have good public transport access and drop off/pick up zones. Paid (and expensive) parking encourages people to use public transport or get dropped off, which helps with traffic management in the surrounding area.
Once upon a time there was a month-long parking inspector strike in the city I lived in.
Long story short, it was complete chaos. Paid parking is a very necessary evil.
Not everyone visiting hospitals can use public transport or walk long distances from outside or have others to drop them off either.
@cookie2: That's why they have parking spaces at the hospital.
People who legit can't take public transport, get dropped off/picked up by a friend/family or any of the NGO patient transport services - e.g St John's community transport - can drive themselves and they've got somewhere to park.
@BinaryPirate: These people that don't have the options you raised, are financially penalized and need to pay more just to access services at a hospital. The person that can't walk properly but needs to choose to park away on a side street or in the hospital parking, so they can access their chemo, go for their scans or pick up meds (as an example) they don't always have that $. Infact money can often be an additional burden when people are ill. I'm just saying it's not as easy to say, everyone can be dropped off or park on site. Or that everyone can make a choice to pay with the exact same considerations or situation.
The service and TVs (including the maintenance) are provided by private operator. Radio through the tv is for free though.
Parking i understand
Charging for Free to air tv in less than 720p is a joke
Charging for Free to air tv in less than 720p is a joke
BYO TV then. The ones in the hosipital are not owned by the hospital.
It is super perverse that you will be charged in a public hospital for parking and TV access
The TVs are not public property.
select HDMI button is blanked out
Ok but how else do you think you’re going to get around this then.. might as well just take a laptop or iPad in?
I am aware you can watch on IPAD, Laptops, Mobile phones etc, But I want to watch on the TV Monitors above in the rooms
Simple - if you want that, then you pay for that!
This guy is onto something.
yes bring an ipad or tablet and install 9now, 7plus, tenplay, sbs etc and just stream live tv.
when you think about it, it's not a bad deal. You're probably watching 16 hrs a day.
$80 ÷ ( 16 x 7 ) ≈ 71 cents per hour…
Where am I going to find the 1c coins to pay by the hour?
Hey OP, re:
'I am aware you can watch on IPAD, Laptops, Mobile phones etc,'
… by this do you mean using your own bandwidth/internet allowance? Or are you referring to using the hospital's 'free WiFi'?
If there is free hospital WiFi of sufficient capability, I can't see why you could not plug a 'FireStick' or a ChromeCast thingy into the HDMI port of the TV in the hospital room, and 'take control' from there using your own device ;P
Don't know about other states but the free wireless option in Qld hospitals is heavily throttled & VPNs are blocked. It's fine for browsing, social media, etc… but not much else.
For long, non-emergency stays I take my 4G modem with me. Unplanned stays I'm pretty much stuck with whatever the best eSim offer at the time is.
That sounds 'familiar' re reports from many patients/their families in Victoria also, actually. Personally I think that all public hospitals in Australia should provide all patients with unlimited internet access, at the tax-payer's expense. This suggestion will no doubt outrage many Australian tax-payers—until they themselves wind up in hospital (often through no fault of their own)—and realise that there is a major 'tech-void' (or profiteering) going on in this space.
There isn't either of those, the usual govt purchasing/contracts corruption notwithstanding.
Guest/Patient access is the lowest priority traffic on hospital networks. Usage is effectively unlimited but bandwidth is strictly limited and only certain protocols/programs are allowed & can be allowed to access the network.
It has to be that way. The majority of bandwidth needs to be dedicated to looking after patients and keeping the healthcare system running.
Someone lying on a surgical table in a remote area with a nervous, scalpel-wielding GP about to be guided through complex emergency surgery by a specialist in an office in Melbourne doesn't have time to wait for 200 patients' torrents to finish downloading and 700 people's streaming service to finish buffering.
@BinaryPirate: You missed my point entirely, B-Pirate.
It would be incredibly simple in this day and age to have two entirely separate internet platforms/servers running at any given hospital; one that was allocated however much bandwidth was required to ensure patient safety/medical operations/etc., and another dedicated solely to providing patients with decent and free internet access.
Surely you understand this?
@GnarlyKnuckles: At no point in your previous comments did you ever refer to running a parallel network to provide patients with unlimited free internet access.
I did not miss any of your points, the list of which does not include what you now claim was your point.
Surely you understand that if you want to make a point you first need to state that point out loud or write it down so people are made aware that you're making it?
On your most recent comment: no, it wouldn't be "… incredibly simple".
It would be "… incredibly complex & expensive" right from the time the idea was first floated all the way to completion of the first small-to-medium site in 3-5yrs time.
If you want the long answer I would be more than happy to answer your questions.
However, the short answer goes like this:
Such a project would be super heavy on duplication of hardware, software & staffing requirements.
All resources are finite. Whether it's funding the project or managing the network when it's up and running, there will be huge costs
All this is his is why I take my own 4G internet modem to hospital with me. Qld Health APs - & probably those in other states’ hospitals - have the capability to ensure the broadcasts to/from my MIMO router &/or phone don't interfere with the hospital's network.
@BinaryPirate: Re:
'It would be "… incredibly complex & expensive" right from the time the idea was first floated all the way to completion of the first small-to-medium site in 3-5yrs time.'
That's utterly ludicrous. This is 2023, not the 1990s. The whole thing could be implemented easily and at reasonable cost within 2 months. The hospital's 'infrastructure-linked' internet provision/servers/etc. could just stay exactly how it was; so no time/expense involved in changing that. A tender process could be run to get a different company to supply a patient-access internet service; perhaps as you mentioned that you do yourself, using 4G (or 5G if available). Or not—either way, any decent internet internet company could provide internet access to a hospital full of patients one way or another, within a couple of months. Why you think it would take '3-5 years' is simply baffling.
@GnarlyKnuckles: Why I know how long it would take & what would be required is due to my years of experience working in this exact space.
I get that it's baffling to you because you haven't worked in this field, so everything seems like it would be nice and simple.
Just do this, install that, configure those & Hey Presto, free unlimited internet for everyone.
Better yet, just get a private company to do it all for you. Easy as. Don't know why we didn't think of that years ago
We were probably too pre-occupied with managing all the different winning bidders for the tenders we sent out.
I have given you the short version and offered to answer any questions you might have.
Since you have no questions on account of you already having all the answers, I'll leave you to it.
@BinaryPirate: OK B-Pirate, I'll leave your opinions to you, but ponder this. It takes 3-5 years to actually build an entire large hospital, from the ground up. Are you seriously suggesting that to retro-fit that hospital with a patient-user internet system would take the same amount of time that it took to build the entire hospital? That's absolute rubbish.
@GnarlyKnuckles: 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thanks. I needed those lols.
Now please go away & leave me be. I don't need your toxic personality in my life.
I agree. The mental health of patients needs to have a drop of focus put towards it. Boredom and financial restrictions just work to make you feel worse in an environment that is already negative. If you're not going to put a painting up or nicer lighting etc, just give all ppl a free tv. It's very different to be in hospital for 1 or 2 days than for 2 weeks and I've seen how much mental deterioration can happen day after day of the same environment and no stimulation.
@cookie2: A few months ago my friend died as a result of the boredom he experienced in hospital. He was a chronic alcoholic on his way out already. His body had well and truly passed its Use-By Date.
When he checked himself out the day before he died - against medical advice on account of his inability to breath even cat-sized breaths - there was literally nothing anyone could say or do to make him tolerate the boredom of lying in a hospital bed even just long enough (~4-6hrs) to get his will and estate affairs in order.
That particular hospital, as well as another in which I had a more recent two week sojourn, both offered patients free TV as standard.
I didn't investigate whether cable TV was included or even an optional extra.
tbph if the hospital did have free Cable TV & it had coincidentally happened to be showing something like old game replays from the Brisbane Lions' glory years, Rex Hunt's Fishing Adventures or some such; that might just've been enough to get him to go back for the few extra hours of life his fiancee needed from him.
Patient mental health is no joke. Unfortunately the nurses are already stretched so thin & worked so hard they don't really have time for helping keep up people's spirits.
No trick except not paying. I got netflix on someone's tablet for them and it was $11 for a month. Just stream on a tablet device.
Honestly, who would want to watch on the tiny 24-inch type monitors hanging from the roof anyway? It would be tiny and cannot even see the Footy score!
Sounds like the family member was in a public hospital.
My wife was in the hospital recently due to some pregnancy concerns and she just streamed on her phone plus laptop which was a hell of a lot better quality and easier to control the sound too. Plus, she could watch what she wanted rather than what was on free to air. In a few rooms she was in, I saw no one using the TVs, everyone just used their portable devices.
If you are complaining about the cost of the TV, what was the cost of the parking at said hospital? It was $72 a week for where my wife was.
I was a volunteer in a hospital a while back.
The hospital had installed TVs, with special remotes keyed to each. The hospital volunteers then organised for TV for free for some patients with special needs, and charged others to provide them with the remote. It was the source of revenue for the volunteers, and provided an opportunity for the volunteers to make contact with the patients.
Then in came a private operator and set up a network and a terminal at each bed that the medicos could use to access patients info and the patient could rent to watch TV or movies, still organised by the volunteers, who got commission.
Now that computer network and the TVs on it are credit-card operated by the patients. And if a patient has a problem the medical staff are stuck with getting the private operator to come in and fix it. Watching it all work this week, its a complete mess. The nurses were writing things like blood pressure readings on note paper, then walking over and entering them into the computer so there was a computer record, then later copying them into paper records in case the computer went down. And what went into the computer, then the paper record, wasn't always what was on the right page of their note book for that patient. It was a medical disaster waiting to happen.
I tried but the select HDMI button is blanked out
There is a reason for this…..
Please don't play with the TVs and break them for the next person.
Pay the $12/day for the TV and let them enjoy their bed time.
Has anyone found a trick how to connect your device to the monitors
They are privately owned by another party, they are not owned by the hospital.
Contact he company and ask them.
For all those who suggest Phone or Laptop, Please don't forget a hospital patients arms is occupied with Drips and Monitors so they cannot sit or catch a phone continuously
Caps lock is cruise control for cool.