In a small northern city in the middle of the winter, it seems like the middle of the night when you arrive at the hospital. Everything is dark and cold, but the parking garage is alive with activity as couples and families pull one small bag from the trunk and lock up their cars. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were at the airport, watching people seeing off a traveler.
Inside, the hospital’s up and running. People cluster in the intake waiting area, still wearing coats and hats and boots. As you move deeper into the hospital and the process, the outer clothes come off and the tags go on.
Suddenly, everyone’s clothes seem out of place, removed from the ordinary circumstances of their lives. They might wear hunter’s camouflage, a sports team logo or a monogrammed dress shirt, but all seem suddenly useless signifiers of identity. Many hospital staff walk around in scrubs, as if they’ve gotten the message and shed their civilian identities. The staff have plastic tags with their names and photos and magnetic strips on the back.
As if to help with the confusion induced by this loss of the normal, hospitals issue everyone tags. The patients get bracelets. Periodically, through their stays, the staff will ask patients their name, then check the bracelet, just to make sure the patient remembers who she or he is.
The patients and their companions disappear into various departments. More waiting ensues, but ends with disconcerting suddenness. Staff members seem to swarm, taking away clothes, bringing out forms, questions, lists of things are read, signatures are needed on acknowledgements and consents, IVs are started, blood thinners and anti-biotics.
The companions emerge back into the outer hospital without the patient, carrying his or her clothes. There have been separations, the patients from clothes and patients from companions. Many companions now have tags too – although insubstantial paper and glue – more generic than the patients’ bracelets. These tags allow companions to go here or there, to see their patient at times defined by the staff in whatever department has absorbed the patient. Many have pagers to alert them to when they can see their patient or speak with a doctor.
The companions wander into the common waiting area. Some seem surprised to see the cold winter sun through the window. They arrived in darkness and now things are changing and in hospitals change can bring apprehension.
The companions sit in various chairs, attending to books and newspapers and puzzles. One woman reads a book on spirituality, half concealed in a magazine. All the companions seem so exposed, their worry too clearly written in their wide eyes and seamed foreheads.
In a large, regional hospital in a small town, the people passing seem at once familiar and strange. You seem to almost know everyone, but no names come to match the faces. The assignment of tags begins to make sense.
A patient in street clothes has sneaked out and sits among the companions, but he’s betrayed when his bracelet slips from his sleeve. He sits alone; perhaps he has no companion waiting for him.
A man walks by wearing an orange t-shirt with the words “Beat Cancer” in large script. He’s the only one whose street clothes don’t seem out of place, perhaps he’s been around a while and learned.
A pager shrieks. All the companions start and grab theirs. It’s hard to tell where the sound is coming from. Some shrieks bring relief, others grief, others more uncertainty.
Everything about a hospital is trying: physically, mentally, emotionally and we all have to go there sooner or later, as patient or companion. There are upsides. Hospitals have a way of putting our day-to-day life in perspective, by reminding us how the designs we wear on our clothes don’t truly represent who we are, how we allow them to draw meaningless lines between us.
Hospitals – and health care – should not divide us either and from the tone of conversations in hospital waiting areas, it doesn’t. People, the ones who get sick or accompany the ones who get sick, understand the need for universal health care.
Lost in the Hospital
In a small northern city in the middle of the winter, it seems like the middle of the night when you arrive at the hospital. Everything is dark and cold, but the parking garage is alive with activity as couples and families pull one small bag from the trunk and lock up their cars. If you didn’t know better, you’d think you were at the airport, watching people seeing off a traveler.
Inside, the hospital’s up and running. People cluster in the intake waiting area, still wearing coats and hats and boots. As you move deeper into the hospital and the process, the outer clothes come off and the tags go on.
Suddenly, everyone’s clothes seem out of place, removed from the ordinary circumstances of their lives. They might wear hunter’s camouflage, a sports team logo or a monogrammed dress shirt, but all seem suddenly useless signifiers of identity. Many hospital staff walk around in scrubs, as if they’ve gotten the message and shed their civilian identities. The staff have plastic tags with their names and photos and magnetic strips on the back.
As if to help with the confusion induced by this loss of the normal, hospitals issue everyone tags. The patients get bracelets. Periodically, through their stays, the staff will ask patients their name, then check the bracelet, just to make sure the patient remembers who she or he is.
The patients and their companions disappear into various departments. More waiting ensues, but ends with disconcerting suddenness. Staff members seem to swarm, taking away clothes, bringing out forms, questions, lists of things are read, signatures are needed on acknowledgements and consents, IVs are started, blood thinners and anti-biotics.
The companions emerge back into the outer hospital without the patient, carrying his or her clothes. There have been separations, the patients from clothes and patients from companions. Many companions now have tags too – although insubstantial paper and glue – more generic than the patients’ bracelets. These tags allow companions to go here or there, to see their patient at times defined by the staff in whatever department has absorbed the patient. Many have pagers to alert them to when they can see their patient or speak with a doctor.
The companions wander into the common waiting area. Some seem surprised to see the cold winter sun through the window. They arrived in darkness and now things are changing and in hospitals change can bring apprehension.
The companions sit in various chairs, attending to books and newspapers and puzzles. One woman reads a book on spirituality, half concealed in a magazine. All the companions seem so exposed, their worry too clearly written in their wide eyes and seamed foreheads.
In a large, regional hospital in a small town, the people passing seem at once familiar and strange. You seem to almost know everyone, but no names come to match the faces. The assignment of tags begins to make sense.
A patient in street clothes has sneaked out and sits among the companions, but he’s betrayed when his bracelet slips from his sleeve. He sits alone; perhaps he has no companion waiting for him.
A man walks by wearing an orange t-shirt with the words “Beat Cancer” in large script. He’s the only one whose street clothes don’t seem out of place, perhaps he’s been around a while and learned.
A pager shrieks. All the companions start and grab theirs. It’s hard to tell where the sound is coming from. Some shrieks bring relief, others grief, others more uncertainty.
Everything about a hospital is trying: physically, mentally, emotionally and we all have to go there sooner or later, as patient or companion. There are upsides. Hospitals have a way of putting our day-to-day life in perspective, by reminding us how the designs we wear on our clothes don’t truly represent who we are, how we allow them to draw meaningless lines between us.
Hospitals – and health care – should not divide us either and from the tone of conversations in hospital waiting areas, it doesn’t. People, the ones who get sick or accompany the ones who get sick, understand the need for universal health care.
So who’s stopping us?
© Mark Floegel, 2008