I decided to publish these diary pages of a dear friend of mine who lost her husband some time ago to send a heartfelt message to politics and hospital administrations on the dehumanization of care that is recorded in some departments of the various hospital facilities, a general phenomenon which is not given due attention and which is not a secondary cause of medical emigration. Unacceptable behaviour, barracks-like tones, lack of tact, and absolute absence of solidarity. For years we have been inviting health departments to address this problem, perhaps just by opening a complaints desk to use them, if they are founded, as elements for evaluating the management result. Instead, nothing, everyone shrugs. These pages reached the medical association of the province of Potenza and the general management of the institution on which the hospital in question depends, from which not even a single sign of acceptance of the protest was received. We omit in this publication which, in retrospect, may be devoid of evidence and therefore legally attackable, the names and places of this ugly affair.
I want to tell the story of a serious loss. The loss of the person dearest to me. But I also mean
make known the profound confusion that I experienced, in the context of a painful moment, for having
noted the lack of a minimum of humanity on the part of those who, due to the institutional function performed (if not due to human sensitivity), would have had the duty to demonstrate respect and become the protagonist of very different behaviour.
Below I will tell you, as the facts unfolded, the dramatic story I experienced (more precisely:
I underwent) at the hospital in………. in conjunction with the hospitalization and, unfortunately, with the following one death of my husband, Carlo.
I have no elements to affirm anything about the effectiveness and the choice regarding the treatments that were given to my husband. What I know, however, is that – in the face of suffering and pain (of patients and their loved ones) – a minimum of humanity, empathy and respect is needed on the part of doctors and healthcare workers. All things that, based on my direct experience, were missing at the hospital in………….
When, faced with Carlo’s suffering, I cried or despaired, I was accused of “putting on a show”. When I tried to ask for explanations about his condition, they threw me in the face – without any
delicacy and compassion – the impossibility of curing such a serious pathology. Blaming myself, in added, for not having turned to this “paradise” of healing first.
Yet it seemed to me that, in the hospital of ……….., they forgot that any patient, even before being a patient, is a human being who deserves dignity and respect.
The patient is already in the ………… department of the ……… hospital at the time of admission
with diaper and catheter, even if he is lucid and perfectly capable of asking for help with his needs. It’s a way to immediately plunge him into a depressing condition of absolute lack of
autonomy. Following this, I did not find any sensitivity regarding privacy. No attention to the reasons that may lead to awe and shame. No understanding for the natural fear of those who find themselves forced to face the disease.
And, if there is a loved one willing to help and stay close to the sick person (for material needs or even just
for emotional support), the hospital in question does its utmost to prevent this
possibilities, devising every way to keep her away from her loved one.
I just want to report what I consider to be the most serious episode. This is what happened on January 11th ………..
Carlo was very ill. He was breathing hard, but was completely lucid. They are those moments in which you wish
be able to do something, but understand that nothing depends on you. So I stood next to him and shook his hands. He me
he looked with those wide blue eyes of his. A look that expressed love and also fear.
I couldn’t do anything but be there. Stay close to him. I wanted him to at least not feel alone in those
which could have been his last moments of life.
But the iron rule of the hospital in …………- department of ………… – does not seem to provide
exceptions: one could not stay for more than half an hour.
Even in the face of death, is a bureaucratic regulation worth more than a human gesture of compassion?
The head doctor, let’s call him GUY, came and hastily kicked me out of the room. In front of mine
prayer to stay close to Carlo a little longer, he threw I don’t know what regulation in my face
regional (without taking into account the civil code – art. 143/146 – relating to moral assistance between
spouses). But, without getting to the codes, in that terrible moment, just a modicum of humanity would have been enough
comprehension.
Instead, the doctor in question turned rudely towards me, telling me verbatim: “What do you think you’re doing here? She can’t do anything anymore.”
I told him that I just wanted to hold my husband Carlo’s hand, because he was comforted by it.
The doctor, in a mocking manner, then wished me not to see him die, because it could be a trauma.
But I’m 74 years old and I wanted to stay close to my husband until the end.
Unfortunately, however, there was nothing that could be done. The doctor …DUDE…….. literally kicked me out of the room.
I was forced to leave Carlo’s hand with a broken heart and I asked if it was possible
talk to another specialist, also to get another opinion (since, up to that point,
I had only been able to speak to the head doctor. I was told that there were two doctors. But I had to
wait.
When, at the end of the wait, I was called to the doctors’ office, I found myself faced with
new to the doctor ..DUDE….., to the head nurse and to a doctor who, up until that moment, I had never seen.
At that point, the doctor…GUY…, in an arrogant tone, asked me: “Which doctor do you want to talk to,
Lady?”.
“With anyone,” I replied.
Then the doctor got up from his chair and shouted at me:
“No one has ever called me anything! I am the doctor, head of this
hospital. And, if anyone wants to talk to a doctor, they need to talk to me and only me. And if she doesn’t trust
of me, take your husband and bring him. It’s just a pleasure for me.”
Faced with that delusional tone, I feared that he would not take adequate care of Carlo. At that time
I left the room and called our GP, begging him to urgently send an ambulance to take away my husband, a patient who was evidently not liked by that doctor.
Unfortunately, however, there was no time.
Carlo has worsened irreversibly.
At around 9 am the next morning, they called me from the hospital. I had to go urgently and
get me an ambulance. I lived in the village and I didn’t know how to get an ambulance other than going to the hospital. And right at the hospital I arrived running and crying I headed to Carlo’s room. I found him alone in his bed, already gasping.
The doctor TIZIO entered immediately after me and, shouting as he had already done the day before, told me:
“How dare you enter without my permission?”.
I told him that I had been called by the hospital itself. Meanwhile I continued to cry, while two
kind nurses tried to console me. I wonder: is it normal to cry while the person you love, and with whom you have shared forty years of life, is he dying? I think it’s human and understandable. But not for the doctor DUDE the who, after looking at me with a derisive laugh, turned to the nurses, saying:
“The lady has come to do a little show!”. And then, continuing to shout (as if he wasn’t in that room
was a person who was dying), said: “But didn’t the lady know that her husband was serious?”. I asked him to lower his voice when my husband was gasping. I asked him to be a little more considerate. But my request remained unsuccessful. And when I suddenly felt dizzy and, in order not to fall, I was forced to lean on the table, he repeated that I was doing “a little theater”. At that point I replied that he had no respect. Neither for me, nor for my husband. One of his patient who was dying. I told him he didn’t understand anything. It was at that moment that the doctor TIZIO, after the screams, took action. He gave me one push that made me lose my balance. Luckily I fell on a chair and not on the floor. I was devastated by the pain and horrified by the behavior that I found in a public hospital
incomprehensible and intolerable. Even more so from a doctor. After being pushed, I told the doctor DUDE was acting crazy. He then headed towards me waving his arms, with evidently aggressive intentions. At that point the two nurses present intervened: they took him and accompanied him out of the room. As he was leaving he continued to shout at me: “And clear the room immediately because I have to do so many hospitalizations.” Only in that moment was I finally able to get closer, crying, close to my husband, hoping that he had not been able to hear, as he died, everything that had happened. I approached him, but by now Carlo was no longer gasping.
We repeat, to conclude: we have omitted the names and places. But those responsible, the Medical Association and the management of the hospital organisation, are the recipients of the report sent. Can we know what is intended to be done, or are events like these normal?? Rocco Rosa
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