Going to the hospital always stinks. I don’t think anyone enjoys it, especially me. Every hospital has it’s own security. Some just have a uniformed security guard that just hangs around, but others have full police departments. This is for good reason. A hospital is like a small city, and has the crime to go with it. They also have more drugs on hand then the area’s best dealer. The point is, even when you are at a hospital you should keep alert just like anywhere else.
Here’s a little trick to tell how much crime the hospital has by what type of security there is. If you see one guard that looks like he couldn’t secure himself, then the hospital probably has a low occurrence of crime. If there is a local police officer that is assigned to hospital then crime is rising at the hospital and the internal security force hasn’t caught up yet. If the hospital security looks like professional police officers, then there has been some serious crime there in the past. These are only general guidelines, but something you can use to get an idea of what is going on.
You need to use normal precautions even with the security around. Be alert to people that aren’t suppose to be there. Look around, what do you look like and what does the other people look like, doctors, nurses, security, other patients and their families. Once you can define normal, then you can spot people out of place. The people you really want to be aware of are people trying to score drugs. They are pretty desperate if they are trying to steal drugs from a hospital.
If you run into someone that is trying to get to the drugs, go the other way. Don’t challenge them or try to stop them. Get out of the area and then tell a nurse, doctor, or security guard about what you saw. Be diplomatic, if you accuse their favorite nurse of stealing they won’t be happy with you. Just tell the nearest person you saw something weird, or that someone was making a lot of noise going through the medicine cabinet.
Remember if you are at a hospital you are there for something else besides getting involved with stopping crime, so take care of yourself and the reason you are there.
Stay Safe,
Ben