ginnybirdbeakspeak

Meat.

That’s what I felt like today….not what I wanted for dinner but what I was made to feel like when I visited an eye specialist for a follow-up exam requested for me by my very own personable ophthalmologist. But from the moment I entered the office, I felt like “meat”. Not succulent, tender juicy meat but well aged, tough shoe-leather meat being processed as quickly and efficiently as possible to move me through the cattle chute from one technician to another for multiple tests and scans. Each procedure brought with it a different technician who pro-offered the required surface noises uttered to make me feel “valued” and cared for.

It didn’t work. I felt like meat. And I hated it. I was witnessing the streamlining of health care to produce the highest maximum income with the minimum amount of expended time and energy. So, a recap of this abysmal doctor appointment goes like this:

Appointment time 1:30PM. Upon entering the office there were two kiosk like check-in stations where patients are to “check in” which includes scanning your own ID and insurance card, a daunting task for the majority of the clientele who were mostly of the elderly variety.

40 minutes later I leave the waiting room and am taken to a small room for my first test. The technician who ushered me through this test was probably the best and most personable of all I encountered. He was instructive, encouraging, polite and actually treated me as a person.

My next three encounters were with autonomous robots programmed to act like humans by asking superfluous questions like “How are you doing?” or “How is your day going?” as they checked machines and computers, obviously not interested in my answers to any of those questions.

One of my technicians was to check the pressure in my eyes and then dilate them. Prior to checking pressure, deadening drops are placed in your eyes. I am not sure what went wrong but when she went to check the pressure I actually felt my eye being touched which resulted in pain. I yelled. She apologized and put in more deadening drops (were the wrong drops used initially?). And then I waited as my vision got progressively worse from the dilation.

At 3:10 PM the doctor walked in and by 3:15 he was walking out of the exam room. 2 hours and 45 minutes of being processed as meat. At the end I felt like beef jerky for I certainly had been jerked around.

I am a nurse. And for over 40 years I have cared for patients with caring hands and heart. I have laughed and I have cried with them. I have resisted the move away from bedside nursing to the less personal push toward filling in the boxes on a computer screen. I know computer technology is necessary but still believe that human beings want, and yes need, a human experience particularly in illness when they are most vulnerable.

And I don’t think I am the only patient that has experienced the disconnect from health care professionals as the computer, high-tech world has embraced and become deeply embedded in increasing profitability. Only today, when I ushered a patient into a teaching cubicle to begin her diabetes education, she commented “What, there is no computer in here” and I seized the moment to assure her that we believe in “Humancare” and my computer charting would be done after our visit.

A soft hand to a fevered brow, a kind word of reassurance, the very connection with another human is still an essential part of a full and meaningful existence. Computers, automated systems and robots will never be able to replace the very human emotion of caring.

On a recent trip to visit family in New York, we enjoyed a Broadway Play entitled Come From Away. The story is a true one about a small town named Gander in Newfoundland Canada. And this story occurred on a memorable day for all Americans… 9/11. A date, a time, a tragic memory that scarred thousands of families around the world when terrorists plotted and succeeded in bringing down the World Trade Center in New York. These wonderful Ganderites, opened their city, their homes, their hearts to the nearly 7000 passengers who were whisk from the skies and plopped down in a small airport when all flights were grounded across the United States. It was a magnificent play that made me laugh and sob as I sat riveted in my chair for 1 hour and 40 minutes. And in that short time frame I relived the tragic moments of that fateful day.

The title of the play “Come From Away” refers to how we all came from somewhere at some time to be in some place. I did just that when I stepped onto an airplane and traversed half way across America to visit granddaughters and daughters for a lovely “girls extended weekend”. Each of us does this many times in our lives and hopefully at the end of each journey we are welcomed with open arms by the people we love and befriended by the locals that we meet as we ask directions or seek advice.

From the JFK airport to my granddaughter’s apartment in Brooklyn, our Uber driver answered our questions and got us safely to our destination. He was a refugee from Albania and had lived in Italy for part of his life and spoke Italian, Albanian, English and a little Spanish. He arrived here seeking a better life, safety and hopefully he was befriended along his journey. He came from “Away”. My own granddaughters came from “Away” when they moved to Australia for ten years and moved again to live in New York pursuing careers and college educations. And hopefully they were welcomed at the end of their journey.

The refugee children being held in internment camps came from “Away” seeking refuge from gangs, abuse and terror but unfortunately for them, their end journey wasn’t as pleasant. What made the difference in their journey from all the others before? What makes them different from the Chinese immigrants that helped forge the railroads that traversed America and opened remote areas to easier settlement; or the Irish who helped build our cities into the manufacturing meccas of today; or the Hispanics who toil in our meat-packing plants or harvest the food that feeds us daily; or the Africans that were spirited away from their own homeland and made slaves. All of these “Aways” took the jobs most Americans spurn. And most have been met with derision by the white population, themselves “Aways” from English persecution two centuries ago. Why does the color of ones skin or our heritage define the hierarchy in our society? It shouldn’t, but for some it does.

The falling of the twin towers took the lives of many “Aways” from all countries across the world. People in large cities, rural country farms, distance places, all united on that fateful day because of adversity. The color of your skin didn’t matter when you were being rescued by the firefighter. The police and rescue squads who rushed headlong into the burning buildings didn’t stop to think about who they were rescuing. They were helping humans, just plain people who were living their lives uneventfully until that horrible moment in time when everything changed.

How different things might be in our world today if we all just accepted each other as “just humans”. If we could take away the labels, squash the perceived differences, and live more like the Ganderites on those fateful few days, then perhaps we could relieve the tensions that seem to be dividing our nation at this tenacious time in American history.

After all…we are all “Aways” somewhere.