My cousin is being told he should get a hospital bed for his father. Right now he's in an old double bed that isn't raised (standard height bed from around 1990). So far it hasn't been an issue. Cousin is going to try to pull it away from the wall about 12" so we can access all four sides.
There is a potential safety issue in that uncle keeps leaning to the left and works his way to the edge of the bed. We put some wooden chairs with their backs along the bed with pillows between the back of the chair and uncle. Then we put 57 lbs. of weight on the chairs with the one at the head pinned in with a large comfy chair. There's no way that wood chair is moving. Cousin checks in every so often to make sure everything is still safe.
The reason he doesn't want a hospital bed is because he doesn't know where he would put the double bed. Basically, it's a lot of hassle for a short time. Uncle has been given about 7-14 days to live, depending on his food/beverage intake.
Just wondering how many have chosen not to use a hospital bed and why.
Getting her into and out of her regular bed was hard on all of us. She weighed almost 200 pounds. Plus, with her tiny bedroom there was no room for the commode, so she would have to make her way to the bathroom.
To be able to lift the hospital bed in order for us to help her, lower it to get her out of bed, and to lift the head and the knees made her incredibly comfortable. And with the commode right there was so much better. The bed had rails so it was easy to keep her safe.
Moving your uncle's full bed out can be a minor thing (depending on his home/apartment size, of course), but you and he may find you wished you'd done this long ago.
If not, consider setting up some berm-type bumpers around him that'll keep him in place. Roll up towels and stuff them around his body to keep him in place. The most important thing, though, is to get some kind of egg-crate mattress pad that'll keep him from getting bedsores. They're excruciatingly painful, and not what you'd want him to deal with so close to the end.