Can we just treat people as human beings again?

Some regular readers may have wondered why I’ve been missing from Facebook and there have been no blog posts or sermons on line for the last few weeks. 

I left hospital in Harrogate on 28 September after 9 days following ulcers and internal bleeding caused by me being given medication my body couldn’t take for the costochondritis diagnosed earlier that month. That morning I woke up with a red and sore eye which they thought might have been caused by me hitting myself in my sleep in the night. 

I came home and took a funeral the next day. My eye was still red and even sorer than the day before. At the graveside, I realised I couldn’t read my service book clearly. It’s a good job I know the committal liturgy by heart! At the thanksgiving in the church as I preached, I had to move my i pad to the left of me as the sight out of my right eye was very blurry. I knew taking that funeral and being back amongst people would wear me out. But I wasn’t expecting what came next! 

The next day my eye wouldn’t open. I went to the GP and she referred me that afternoon to the eye clinic back at Harrogate hospital. They told me I had a corneal abrasion in my eye and told me not to read or write or watch television - hence why I haven’t been on social media. That weekend my eye hurt like crazy I was sent by 111 to the emergency eye doctor in York who cleaned it. Three appointments later in Harrogate, my eye has now healed, the cornea though has changed shape so I won’t see properly to read or drive safely until I get new glasses which will take time. 

The other problem I discovered the weekend after I left hospital was I was more weak than just being exhausted from leading a large funeral. Back to the GP we went to be told I was extremely anaemic and why did the hospital not put me on iron tablets? The doctor declared me unfit for work… my haemoglobin levels had dropped in hospital losing a lot of blood but not enough blood to be given any in there. 

The levels went back to where they should be and things were beginning to improve until on Sunday 23 October I was overwhelmed with pain in my abdomen and stabbing pain in my ribs. Reluctantly we called 111 and I ended up in another ambulance and back into hospital for another 12 long days… 

Over the last 12 days they’ve given me various drugs to try and get to the pain. We discovered the root of it was at the bottom of my right rib which when prodded really hurt. The pain spread from there. Every day the doctors came and asked me if their latest drug or gel had worked. The answer was always no. 

This morning, being woken at 6am, the nurse on duty told me it was discharge day. I told him whilst the stabbings round my body had gone, the pain I came in with was no better. The team swept in at 9 and despite me telling them the same, they told me they were sorry, it was “tricky” and to “put a water bottle on it.” A few minutes later, the sister came in and told me I was to go to the discharge centre now. A few minutes later I was put in a chair and dumped with others who had also been told to go home with speed! So here I sit, still in agony, glad to go home, but incredulous that I haven’t been heard and that I’ve spent 12 long, boring, unnecessary days to be told “put a hot water bottle on it!” (Readers - I put a hot water bottle on it last night and it did nothing…) 

I’ve only ever been in hospital overnight for minor 

things before so 21 days of this over two stays has been an education! I think I sit here watching wheelchair rugby league with a diverse mixture of dumped humanity reflecting on dignity… 

First dignity of those who care for others. I have nothing but respect for those who work as nurses and carers on wards like I’ve been on. They work extremely long hours and clearly despite many issues still see their work as a vocation. I sat this morning thinking how these people do this day after day, with some patients being nice but others being horrible. 

My ward this second time was short staffed, especially at the weekend. But I will remember lots of kindnesses: Grace, a student nurse from Leeds learning on the job; Louise, a care worker who took time every day to listen to me; Charlie, a newly qualified nurse who had just moved to Harrogate who treated us all as people with a story and took time to sort my medication out. It took five days for all my pills to be put on the system, and I was told I needed an ultrasound, which took someone four days to sort. The man opposite me kept badgering them “when’s my scan, when’s my scan?” and they mostly kept patient! Then I would mention Darren, the lead chaplain at the hospital who gave me communion last Sunday on a day I really struggled not being at work as my chapel at Kirkby Malzeard was closing. The chaplaincy team as in every hospital, do an amazing job. 

We need to remember at the moment all those working in the NHS. It’s easy to criticise. I might be critical of the doctor’s care I’ve received (“put a hot water bottle on it”) but not at all about those on the ground. We clapped the NHS during the pandemic at its beginning. Now we need to push our government to properly fund it. I fear in the coming recession there may be cuts to the health budget which would be criminal. 

Then I think I reflect on a lack of dignity and respect for people generally. I will get over being discharged without solution to my pain and the speed of getting out of here, but there are people today we fail to treat as humans. While I’ve been in hospital, we’ve seen the situation with migrants fleeing danger arriving on the south coast and despicable scenes of overcrowding in a detention centre at Manston in Kent and messages in a bottle thrown over a fence to alert the wider world what is happening. 

We’ve heard stories of people dumped in London on the streets, and I’ve just read of Ukrainians and homeless people being housed in a hotel in Northallerton being told they must go so migrants can be put up in it to ease the chaos in Kent. We have a Home Secretary who calls it an “invasion” despite a new Prime Minister who promised compassion in this administration.

 Mind you, there are those who agree with Ms Braverman. I found some clips on the right wing GB News of last night’s Nigel Farage programme which came from Stoke on Trent opposite a hotel like the one in Northallerton alleged to be housing migrants. Some of the views made me shudder! Even a government minister this morning said migrants have a cheek moaning about conditions in the detention centre. Sometimes I despair about this country. 

Then there’s America! The mid term elections are a real worry. If the far right bit of the Republican Party do well, it’s clear we will be heading for a second Trump go at the Presidency. 

Then there’s Russia. How do you stop a man like Putin? 

And then there’s Israel? The rise again of Benjamin Netanyahu and and a coalition with the religious Zionists is deeply worrying…

Why can’t we treat people as humans? Why don’t we listen to stories honestly told? Why can’t we show some care when that care is desperately needed? There are people today, like I am up a dead end medically, who feel helpless and lost and at the hands of others who make them feel even more helpless and lost, even if that wasn’t their intention. I’m sure the doctor this morning who said sorry to me is very nice, but I needed her to listen but she had run out of ideas. 

I think it was Tutu in South Africa who used the word “ubuntu” - a Zulu word meaning a common bond between humanity - literally, “I am because you are.” We need each other, one person’s actions affect everyone else. I’ve seen a huge turnaround in people in the beds around me over the last twelve days. Mostly we have formed community, chatted and laughed but you know one man’s snoring and grunting in the night makes every man not sleep! 

Likewise, government policy affects everyone for good or ill, and labelling people as invaders or unwanted or getting rid of them from our space makes us lesser as a community. How many people do we want to send to Rwanda if we are truthful? We aren’t good at genuine dignity and community that listens to everyone and gives them room to be as they were created to be. We are all made in the image of God. None of us are worth less than our neighbour. 

I’m feeling exhausted and cross as I leave this hospital because I’m still in pain. I need someone to hear me. I just feel at the moment people are okay with others not being heard or treated properly. Remember those words of Paul to the fractured church in Corinth: “when one part of the body suffers, we all suffer.” 

Embracing Father,

You grace each of us with equal measure in your love.
Let us learn to love our neighbours more deeply,
so that we can create peaceful and just communities.
Inspire us to use our creative energies to build the structures we need to overcome the obstacles
of intolerance and indifference.
May Jesus provide us the example needed
and send the Spirit to warm our hearts for the journey. Amen.

(Prayer from the Roman Catholic Church in the USA)