By - Dr. Asangba Tzudir
In a world of celebrated materialism, where 'love', 'care' and 'concern' for the other finds within the means equation, once again Hospitals continue to serve as a place where people encounter love. A visit to a hospital gives different heart touching experiences. From blaring sirens to beeping monitors, hurried footsteps and mass prayers, doctors and nurses doing their ‘round the clock’ duty and the long queues at the pharmacy eagerly and impatiently waiting for their turn. All these and more with 'rush hour' scenes make a hospital quite an unlikely place for love to bloom.
However, the various experiences are the very ground on which the deepest human connections are formed. Beyond the building as a place for treating patients, it is an emotional arena where life and death collide every now and then. People arrive at their most vulnerable state – scared and uncertain, in pain yet hopeful. In such a state, the masked faces of everyday life fall away where there are no pretences, and what remains is the raw, unfiltered self. This, perhaps, also makes hospitals a place to develop genuine connection for love in its truest form to emerge.
For patients especially in the general ward, love grows through the shared experience of suffering and also recovery and where once strangers soon find commonness and solace in each other's stories, fears, and resilience while drawing hope. It is not the grand gestures but it is in those little gestures like in a moment of sharing a genuine smile or holding a trembling hand which open doors to deeper companionship and which becomes a profound act in the larger compass of humanity.
The medical profession is demanding, exhausting, and often thankless where a little negligence or carelessness can be costly. Yet, in such an intense environment, bonds form among doctors, nurses, and staff that are forged through shared struggle and mutual support during the long hours of work and shared responsibility, and also the collective joy derived out of a patient’s recovery or from a successful operation. They too have a family and a life to live but they choose to live a life in emergency. When we broaden the lens of our perspectives, we can also truly feel their sacrifices.
Caregivers, family and relatives are brought together bringing with them resources and help of various kinds. Someone has to cook while another has to deliver; someone has to spend sleepless nights taking care of the patient minuting every detail to ensure speedy recovery. All these exemplify a kind of love that is powerful, selfless, and unwavering, for new relationships are born when empathy is shared and also enables one to understand pain and suffering.
Yes, emergencies of various kinds happen in the hospital. One such emergency is when the patient requires blood transfusion. It is all out of love that someone just after seeing a post in social media platforms about blood requirement comes forward to donate and save a live. Sometimes a hospital experience/patient experience is vital to understanding others needs, pain and suffering. These are acts that helps build a resilient community.
Perhaps, most poignantly, hospitals with all the different life experiences it gives to anyone, makes one feel the presence of love in the experiences. Life is fragile and precious, and in this understanding love in its myriad forms appear to heal mentally, physically and spiritually in the face of pain and suffering.
So it is not unusual to encounter Love in a place as a hospital where life itself hangs by a thread.
(Dr. Asangba Tzudir writes a weekly guest editorial for the Morung Express. Comments can be emailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
