As a result of internal bleeding I have just spent a few days in the Royal North Shore Hospital. It was an illuminating experience.
Having heard a great deal in the media about how bad the hospitals are I was, quite frankly, apprehensive. My anxiety did not last long though (thankfully).
On arrival by ambulance I was seen to immediately. The care and attention from doctors and nursing staff couldn’t be criticised. They kept me well informed of what was happening, what they were doing and why. During my 4 day visit I felt this standard was kept up all the time as I went from emergency to Intensive Care then to the general ward.
What I experienced was a group of dedicated and compassionate people working under pretty terrible conditions. The building itself was rundown and clearly needing maintenance. But that wasn’t the hard part of the job. Let’s just step back a bit and have a look at the situation.
Most (I would venture to say ‘all’) people in hospital are stressed, confused, apprehensive, fearful and generally anxious. No matter what circumstances brought them there, they are worried.
Imagine for a moment going to work every day where your clients are demanding, wanting things done immediately (usually fairly unpleasant things) and not understanding that there are others who need your attention. How long would you last in a job like that? In addition, you often hear on the news how the organisation you work for is in crisis. It’s hard not to feel that you have some part in that. And so you try to fight THE SYSTEM because the reason you’re working in it is because of your caring and compassionate nature. So you’re often portrayed as the enemy, wanting more pay and better conditions. Again, my question: how long would you stay there?
Yes – the hospital system is in crisis. But it’s not the staff who are the problem. So what is?
The purpose of a hospital is to heal the patients. Unfortunately, the current system seems to be more focussed on the accounting rather than the healing side. In a place where the purpose is to heal I found it odd that the food being served to patients was not what you would expect a healthy diet to look like, let alone a healing one. Healing methodologies are restricted. It would be great to have access to acupuncture, homoeopathy, energetic healing, massage and all the other forms of healing which are now readily available everywhere except in hospitals. I believe introducing these techniques would improve the effectiveness of the healing process. Also, they would be very cost effective as they don’t require expensive tools.
Imagine a hospital system based on compassion which gets back to its core function – healing. What would it look like?
There’d be a wide range of healing methodologies available suited to the condition of the patient. The food would be healthy and nutritious and the environment would be attractive and calming. Wouldn’t that be a better place to work and to go for healing than the current environment?
What do you think?