Mood music that hits the wrong note in hospital

If you think listening to Carly Rae Jepsen in a hospital waiting room is bad (Sweating with fear, I waited to hear the doctor’s verdict. Then the radio started playing Call Me Maybe …, 13 March), try being wheeled in for an abortion to the sound of – I kid you not – Barry White. A moment so surreal that I often think I must have imagined it. But I know it happened because it was before they gave me the drugs. Everything went smoothly, as you can imagine.
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• Eight years ago in Fairbanks, Alaska, I was about to go under to have a cataract removed. I was asked what music I’d like. The Buena Vista Social Club, I replied. Less than 60 seconds later, I drifted off to those warm notes before I had time to be surprised that first, the specialist knew of it, and second, that they had it to hand. I like to think my improved eyesight owes a little to that relaxing music.
Flora Grabowska
Crovie, Aberdeenshire

• My husband had a similar experience while waiting to pick up a prescription at a hospital about five years ago. The canned music was playing I Wanna Be Sedated by the Ramones.
Katie McKenna
Sacramento, California, US

• My husband once attended an appointment where the waiting room radio was playing The Drugs Don’t Work.
Margaret Coupe
Longnor, Staffordshire

• My vasectomy was performed during a run-up to Christmas to the strains of Ding Dong Merrily on High, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and Hallelujah Chorus.
John Gray
York

• I agree: the default position for patients should be silence. Indeed, our surgery plays local radio stations, complete with advertising and DJ drivel. But not as bad as a pub we visited where the background was also local radio: a phone-in about sexually transmitted disease.
Roger Davis
Dilton Marsh, Wiltshire

• When our surgery began to play a pop music station I was told it was to ensure privacy – it doesn’t. For this patient at least, loud music is neither soothing nor reassuring.
Marie Paterson
Nuneaton, Warwickshire

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