Written by PETA
Have you ever had a breathing tube inserted during a hospital stay only to have a painful sore throat for days afterward? Imagine having that same breathing tube shoved down your throat 10 times in a row—by untrained hands—every few months for up to three years! That was the fate of dozens of cats used in archaic intubation training exercises at the Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD) and Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
After NMCSD heard from PETA and Nationwide heard from PETA and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, both hospitals have agreed to scrap the cruel exercises on cats and instead use only advanced human-patient simulators that replicate human anatomy and better prepare trainees to accurately perform the procedure on human patients.
Unfortunately, cats are still suffering bleeding, swelling, pain, and scarring from intubation training exercises at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Please e-mail hospital officials and urge them follow the lead of NMCSD, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Texas Tech, Heartland Regional Medical Center, Primary Children’s Medical Center, and hundreds of other facilities and replace animals with superior and humane non-animal training methods.
Written by Michelle Sherrow
After a healthy amount of prodding from PETA, Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph, Missouri, has announced that it is planning to stop jamming hard plastic tubes down cats' windpipes for intubation training in its Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) course. They are making the switch to state-of-the-art manikins by the end of this month.
Back in June, PETA contacted hospital administrators and urged them to replace the cruel use of cats for intubation training. We wanted them to start using the more effective, humane humanlike simulators that are endorsed by the PALS course's sponsor organization and that are used at nearly every PALS facility in the country. Heartland resisted. But after two months, a USDA complaint from PETA, a letter, a phone call from one of the original developers of the PALS course, and thousands of e-mails from caring PETA supporters, Heartland administrators have had a change of heart.
Switching to manikins is purrfect—cats are spared, and nurses, EMTs, and other emergency caregivers get more accurate and effective training.
What's the holdup, St. Louis Children's Hospital?
Written by Alisa Mullins
Follow PETA on Twitter!
If you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail Info@peta.org. If you need to report cruelty to an animal, please click here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.