machado: when did we stop valuing life?
as individuals, we have the wonderful freedom of lending a hand, uttering an encouraging word and having patience with those falling behind whenever we choose to. yet we don't.
5 minute read
we have the wonderful freedom of lending a hand, uttering an encouraging word and having patience with those falling behind whenever we choose to — and yet we don't. getty
“he was lying on the sidewalk, but when he rolled over, he fell over the curb and into the road,” my friend said, her cheeks flushed from our rush to be on time for a dinner reservation.
we had been talking about the unbelievably frightening things that were happening on toronto’s transit system — death by stabbing, shooting, and assault were becoming a regular occurrence. so much so that 80 of our city’s finest had been deployed to trains, buses and bus stops, in uniform and plain clothes to protect uneasy riders. she mentioned that just that morning, a man in a soiled white sweatsuit leapfrogged up and down the subway car she was in, stopping to yell in the faces of people who were sleeping. and then when she stepped out of the station, she spotted a large, bearded man who appeared intoxicated, about six feet tall, maybe in his 50s, rolling off of the sidewalk into traffic.
“not one person stopped,” she said, exasperated, explaining that she asked six people to help her lift him back onto the sidewalk. “they either ignored me or just kept walking — not even an offer to call for help. none of the cars stopped either, they just swerved out of the way.”
the next day another friend was visiting her 80-ish father in the hospital. he has an untreatable rare cancer, but a bacterial infection is what landed him in emergency. fatigued and breathless, he was on the verge of sepsis.
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understaffed, with no room to call his own, the er doctor looked my friend in the eye and, visibly assessing her dad (elderly, tick; inoperable, tick; no beds, tick), told her that they’d only be treating the infection — no other tests and no monitoring, including the basics like oxygen and blood pressure. in other words, they weren’t trying.
when did we stop valuing life?
and in case you feel a sigh coming on, or perhaps a half-angry harrumph, about how covid has broken our health care system and how everything related to helping people — from food banks to mental health support — has been dangerously frayed by the pressures of staving off a life-threatening virus, stop.
this disconnect in care, abhorrent lack of empathy and every-man-for-himself mentality was happening long before the pandemic. in 2014, i walked into the emergency department of a downtown hospital to see my dad lying on a stretcher at the end of a long hallway, a blue sheet bunched up by his brown loafer-wearing feet. he had had a dementia-related seizure that left him with a deep gash on his forehead. he was unable to move or speak, and yet, i could hear the nurse who was leaning over the bed, her hands gripping the metal bed rails, yelling at him angrily to answer her questions.
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my walk became a run and when i got to them, she was sweaty, agitated and breathing heavy. my dad was lying very still on his side watching us carefully, in a pressed checkered shirt with the second button undone. i could see the collar of one of the white undershirts that he liked to wear. he looked at me hard, alert, blinking his eyes quickly. the dried blood that was caked over one eyelid kept that eye half-closed. he had been there in that hallway alone with the blood for two hours waiting for a ct scan. when i told the nurse he had dementia, was non-verbal and couldn’t move, she glanced down at the paper in her hands — his admissions document — and stormed off.
also existing long before covid is the mental health disaster playing out on our streets, although perhaps it’s appropriate to blame the pandemic and its resulting social isolation for how out-of-control it seems of late. and then there’s the prevalence of social media which has been linked to anxiety, depression and self-esteem issues. still, homelessness, mental illness and addiction, the impact on those affected, and a system that can’t keep up is not breaking news.
but what’s our excuse? the people who looked away when they saw a man, a human being, lying in traffic, and worse, refused to help someone help him; the doctor who told a worried daughter that keeping her dad comfortable wasn’t on the to-do list that day; and the nurse who yelled at a completely helpless patient who was in pain. what’s behind the cruelty, apathy and lack of compassion? after all, each of us individually is not incapacitated by broken systems, burdened by old and cranky behemoth policies or paralyzed by a lack of funding. rather, we have the wonderful freedom of lending a hand, uttering an encouraging word and having patience with those falling behind whenever we choose to. yet we don’t.
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and sure, health-care professionals have admittedly taken the brunt of the pressures of the pandemic, with doctors and nurses leaving their professions in droves — the ones left expected to do already-demanding jobs in increasingly hostile environments plagued with stress, strain and frustration. but is empathy and compassion — the things we carry in our hearts no matter the turmoil swirling in grey clouds all around us — the price that’s paid to just keep going?
no one is suggesting moving mountains, after all, that would be too much to ask. but a comforting word to a caregiver or a hand that gets someone to their feet — have we forgotten the little things that make a big difference? are we just too tired?
what if, as we throw dollars at advisory committees, working groups and policy brainstorming sessions, waiting for the gaps in the way we care for people to be filled some way, somehow, all we actually need to do is get back to the basics: caring, compassion and kindness? (oh, and a little oxygen wouldn’t hurt either.)
perhaps then, the other changes we need so badly would come easier. at the very least, we would have built somewhat of a safety net while we wait.
lisa machado is the executive producer of healthing. she can be reached on twitter @iamlisamachado
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