Chief relates that Nurse Ratched runs the ward like a machine, and “gets real put out” if the machine isn’t running smoothly. He believes that she also spends some of her time making adjustments to the machinery of the world outside the hospital as well. Through time, she has hired a staff that she uses as tools to regulate the Combine’s machinery. Staff members that don’t “fit” are discarded and replaced. The staff that remains, Chief tells the reader, is comprised of individuals who are on Nurse Ratched’s “frequency.”
Chief describes the hospital as an automotive mechanic’s garage, where the employees require an alcoholic bracer before applying their trade. He imagines a staff member confessing, “It’s getting I can’t install the simplest frigging component but what I need a bracer. Well, what the hell, it’s better’n garage work….” Later, Chief recounts that the hospital is nothing more than a garage for fixing the mistakes made by such societal elements as school and church. He believes that the hospital installs Delayed Reaction Elements in the patients who are cured, who, in turn, leave the hospital to install the same in their family members.
When the residents make their rounds of the ward, Chief says the machinery behind the walls of the hospital quiets until they leave again. During their visit, however, Chief relates that Nurse Ratched is suspicious of the young men with crew cuts. By 10:40 a.m. the machinery hums like a cotton mill.
