Hospital Care

By: Jonathan Seidel

Hospitals as a haven for preserving life 

Death comes for us all. An inevitable part of humanity. For some quicker than others. The lucky few are preserved in hospitals. Places to receive care and bounce back from dire troubles. A compensated metric for the destitute. Hospitals are sanctuary for the ill and doctors their healers. The science of god bestowed upon mortals to carry out divine power. The ability to save the pained from certain end. These havens are a passageway to the end or back into society. Funnelling patients through like cows at a slaughterhouse. The doctor’s goal is to save the patient, the hospital’s goal is to house them. To present the doctors with the environment to do their work. Yet this environment is limited in its mortal capacity. Patients die in doctor’s arms. There is only so much that can be done. Patients slip away from the hospital’s protection.

Unsaved patients fall into two groups: the dead and the treated. The treated in slim margins can be cured. The cancerous can overcome this but only in the low stages. Promised hope and doctoral diligence extends to prolong life. Doctors wish for their patients to live. They believe that is patients ultimate goal. They cure those whose wounds are operable. Mildly recognising the desire to be back with one’s family. The healed are spit back out after a few days. They are temporary residents. They are on a step by step plan to discharge. Not all patients fall into this category. The treated have a sliver possibility of emerging. They may respond well to the medication. It is a gamble but a reassured one. The hospital is a place of peace and healing. It can be done inside. Treated with hope of salvation. 

Chemo is a dangerous drug but a traditional response to cancer. The side effects of the poison streaming into the body destabilise. The hospital dedicates a wing for these folk who are tethered to their beds. Their condition has prompted the hospital to react decisively with poison to save them. The hospital houses the ill to provide round the clock care. To ensure that the patient receives the care on time every day. A detrimental process with a hopeful result. The treatment is risky but necessary to push back the cancerous cells. To overcome the odds is to take the seemingly inverted poison. A treatment measured by its efficacy to save but also its potential failure. Not everyone responds well to the chemo. It is more than a few pills a day but a progression of demented testing. Hospitalisation is the key to maintaining rhythm and consistency.

Other treatments are guesswork. Incurable diseases possess the worst kind of future. The hospital continues to work to provide the care to keep the patient alive. Doctors work tirelessly for the patient’s perpetuity. Sitting in the hospital with the end in sight. Whether or not it is a few weeks or a few years, it is inevitable. The unfortunate condition is destabilising enough to warrant bed rest. Fighting to potentially reverse the crime of a shortened life. The hospital is a place to keep trying. A place of non-concession. The chemo patient believes in the process. If he sticks to the regimen he will survive. The hospital is a place of hope, of possibility. An institution to continuously avoid death. A place where patient life is preserved beyond all else. Where anything is tried to conserve their immorality. 

Justifiably so, life support victims stay alert in hospitals. Family members keep the patient alive through a machine. It is the only place they can be alive. Doctors cannot pull the plug. They cannot assist in killing a patient no matter how much they beg. The Hippocratic oath holds true. Dogmatically tying them to their word. The oath reflects the hospital’s commitment to preserving life. Patients do die in hospitals incidentally and accidentally but the intentionality is voided. Hospitals are sued for improper care. Keeping alive is the fundamental goal and necessity of its foundation. Life support is but the most ironic and realistic implementations of the base value. The hope that one day the patient will wake up. Not ready to give up, afraid of death. That is the hospital a life-filled motto.

Dead patients die under hospital care. Including those who have not died yet will die under hospital care. Terminal patients may stay in the hospital out of hope or comfort. Yet many will decide to go home. Spending their last moments with family. There is nothing anyone can do. The hospital has failed them. Not out of malice but reality. There is much more to medicine that is still unknown. Terminal patients accept their fate and return home. The hospital cannot preserve their life. They are lifeless yet life-filled. Destiny has intervened and doctors accept defeat. Ending bypass terminates life. The familial decision is not light but it is the final step before taking the loved one to be mourned and buried. His life preserved until the very end. Life is preserved inside the halls of the hospital. Stepping outside opens a world of danger and acceptance. Exiting the hospital cured or terminal is moving into the world of the death. The final coffin realised in the unmovable unknown. 

Dying Alone

By: Jonathan Seidel

Dying as a private affair: elongated life and hospital deaths

Hospitals care for patients. Giving them care until their death. At times patients are living on machines. Provided a haven to live as a vegetable. Patients may have family visits but their steep decline is their own battle. A privatised motif that is between the patient and doctor. The doctor cannot assist the patient’s death. Medicate until their last breath. Despite the doctoral relationship, the patient’s descent is subjective. Their death is their own with flowers resting on their gravesite.

A hospital is a place for preserving life. Doctors doing whatever they can to heal patients. Yet for many life isn’t preserved in the typical way. Dangerous procedures and terminal illnesses haunt the patient. Doctors insist on their expertise but they do not know the patient. They play their gymnastics and wilfully ignore the patient’s qualms. The doctor has a mission and it may be at odds with the patient. Coercing the patient to live for themselves or for other’s sakes. Professionals arguing that life is better than death. There is no other way to think about it. The slogan is a slam dunk. In their mind. They are hampered by a goal failing to accommodate the individualistic desire of dying.

By design the doctor cannot assist the patient in such a procedure. The hippocratic oath binds them to medical efficacy. A code of ethics that ensures they continue their important mission. They must keep the patient alive at all costs. Compel them to take the surgery. Guilting them into living despite the dangers. Even when there is only one way it is hounded upon by the medical professionals. Why wouldn’t anyone wish to live. If it is invasive surgery or imminent death then of course. The mental juggling of patient mental compliance override their own autonomy. The doctor has their best interest in mind. They make suggestions but these are construed as commandments. The power they wield is well-intentioned but is by nature a preserving life against all else. It is a habit more than malice. 

Sometimes doctors do have to make split second decision for an unconscious patient. Yet while an un-consenting patient stubbornly opposes procedures, doctors will overwhelm him with death warrants. It is not malicious but irritable. Selfishly deciding the best course for the patient is dually ironic in the patient’s condition. Doctors treat they do not feel. They provide a service not a social group. There are also doctors who don’t care and do not help. For those who do and take their job seriously put their opinions before the patient’s. The patient generally has limited knowledge of their condition but it is the state they’re in. It is their decision to decide their life path after listening to the details. Once informed of the possibilities they incur the best course of action. 

More than the doctor’s selfishness is the family attitude. The family guilts the patient into preserving their life through sheer will. Doctors will do their part but it is on the patient to will their way past the illness. They must fight for their lives. For their loved ones. Failing to fight is an insult to their concern. Caring is selflessly living for others. Even at the expense of own comfort. Desiring the patient to push forward. A ridicule of shame. Live for your family or be ignored. Fervent push to sustain their livelihoods. Familial visits result in sympathetic cornering. Coming to leverage the patient to recover. Hounding the patient with cries of inspirational malevolence. A unintentional malice melted on the twisting knife exasperating the painful experience. 

An emotional overhaul sadistically tortures the patient. Wanting to be left alone, their family does not allow such peace. Their autonomy stripped from their grasp. Disallowed from taking any extreme measures. The haunting teasing remarks breaking the spirit damage the intentioned end. The plan obstructed by constant nagging and tearful wailing. Guilt tripping to ensure the vitality of the patient. They cannot go or else their memory will be blemished. The patient has lost their own conscience and plays into their role. Their pain is nothing in relation to the family’s wishes. They are a tool to be weaponised in any which way. It is not their choice. Brainwashed to maintain their sanity in order to endure for their families. A mind-numbing obscurity that dismantles a troubling end to a liberated decision. 

Patient’s cannot achieve the peace they desire. Wishing to decide their fate is out of their control. Forced to choose between a deplorable memory and peaceful end. No one else is dying and their memory will fade in time. The family will suffer temporarily. The patient will be in peace. A blissful nothingness awaits them. A place away from pain. Yet their family wishes for them to endure. Hold onto the stoic hat for appeasement and picture taking museum sculptures. It is their presence that is necessary even at the cost of their own authenticity. It is their fate that is sealed. Why shouldn’t they live by it. Let them decide their fate. They have provided a service for a long time, it is time to allow them the gratitude of moving on. It is hard to let go. The patient struggles with leaving but it is for the best. No pain is worth the struggle to resent family.