"Public Relations"

When dealing with questions about hauntings, or remaining spirits, one can’t help wondering, what about places like hospitals and nursing home?

Surely, if spirits remained, there should be a lot of them in such facilities, where death is a common occurrence!

It is reasonable to expect that is true. It is also reasonable to expect that, because of the nature of the facilities, people would be reluctant to tell about such matters.

It isn’t the greatest public relations, at least yet, to advertise that a place is "haunted." A person ‘s job could conceivably be on the line for discussing such matters.

Also, it seems that most places are quiet the majority of the time, so probably only a few people on the staff of these places would be likely to have anything unusual happen, anyway.

Even so, evidence of spirit activity abounds.

One example is that of a nursing home in northwest Michigan, which for obvious reasons must remain unidentified. It’s a modern, one-story facility located in an attractive setting.

It is well-known for giving quality care and meeting inspection requirements. Like most places of its kind, it has quite a turnover in hired help, who leave for various reasons.

Could these experiences be some of them?

In Room 219 it is not uncommon at night to hear banging on walls and have the lights in the room go on and off, even though the resident of the room may be sleeping, or too incapacitated to move.

In one wing of the building, the sound of someone walking in the hall happens so often that a number of the nurses and aides have noticed. There’s no one in the hall, just the sound of footsteps. It bothered one employee so much one night, that after the footsteps had passed just a few feet from where she stood, that she turned a radio on to drown out the sound while she worked.

"Help me"

It’s not uncommon to hear an elderly person in a nursing home call out for help. Still, it is unusual to hear a voice call out for help when there is no person connected to the voice. Staff in that particular building would often hear a disembodied voice calling for help during the late hours of the night.

Also late at night, metal carts would crash into each other in one of the halls. There was no one in the hall.

One night two workers observed a pile of clean linen thrown onto the floor. The paralyzed patient literally couldn’t move, let alone throw anything. Then there was the sound of a metal cart crashing as it turned over. There was nobody in sight.

Another aide noticed an old lady in a hospital gown standing at the nurse’s station. Then she realized there was something funny about her. She could see right through the elderly woman! She figured she must be seeing things and approached the woman. She got within touching distance when the old woman just disappeared!

Still another employee has several times noticed a faint image of another old lady walking the hall at night.

The night shift head nurse had doors close on her, but there was no one there to close them.

Some of the most incapacitated residents would have their covers removed at night and the workers couldn’t find anyone responsible, yet the patients were incapable of moving on their own.

In another room, "something" frightened an aide so much she left.

A worker was caring for an elderly gentleman when the TV turned itself on and began rotating channels. Spooked, the aide went to get help. As the two women began to tuck the man in, the TV turned itself on again ( it had turned off) and began flipping channels once more.

This time, they went to get the head nurse!

The man was moved to another room.

The next person in the room brought her own television. The problem stopped.

Still another aide complained to fellow workers of someone invisible walking in the halls, of having doors open and close with no one doing it, and that she had seen a "foggy figure" in one of the rooms.

A nurse in charge saw a resident standing out in the hall one night.

"Lena, what are you doing out here?" She asked as she walked up to her. "Lena" promptly disappeared.

Such facilities as hospitals obviously do have encounters with ghosts or spirits. It makes sense that one would find them there if there are such things.

The problem is getting anyone to admit it publicly.