Circuses and hospitals

Now that I have taken children to a circus, I have changed my mind and decided that they are not as sad as I thought. The circus now inspires sheer amazement. As I was leaving the large tent I thought that circuses and hospitals have (or should have) much in common. Admittedly, hospitals already all too often look like circuses, in a pejorative sense. They are crowded, lack privacy, and require long waiting in a queue before admission. Hospitals are noisy, dirty, and smell of excreta of the most diverse sorts of animals, and there are plenty of clowns wearing white coats or green or blue pyjamas, with caps and face masks (instead of coloured baggy costumes and hats). Fanfare music, gaudy decoration, and burlesque architecture welcome you and besiege you throughout your stay. Acrobatic and spectacular procedures are performed, which are sometimes dangerous, sometimes useful, to the bewilderment of the gullible, who are insatiable, requiring more and more of such escalating encores.