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My project was based on wanting to hear what my homo-sapient brothers and sisters had to say about their hospitalizations, what effected their decisions, how they felt about their stay, and what could be improved about the quality of their stay. It is preposterous that our American people have the resources and knowledge on our land to provide exceptional care to many, but are ultimately held back by MONEY AND POWER. There are countries around the world that don’t even have a sufficient amount of water and food to fill their stomachs. “She noted a distinctive smell inside the crowded huts. “Not smelly socks stinky, but the close smell of people in poverty. Many hungry people breathing.”” I recently had the experience of having my uncle hospitalized for multiple kinds of cancer and aids, My close friend Lorelei stated “Garry was a sinking ship with more holes than there were people to help bail him out.” he died in the hospital determined to fight to the end. This was at his great fear of dying, and un-willingness to let go. His body was shutting down and his brain was the last to follow. He died in a white sterile room over powered by the energy of the ones he loved surrounding him. His experience was one of a kind, in the last 2 days his spirit was there but his body was to involved with shutting down so their were solely spurts of slight speech and eye contact slowly reducing as time went on. He heard phone calls on end of people telling him their goodbyes, and last expressions of love. These communications continued as he slowly drifted away from our reality into the unknown. This introduced me to the dominant social practice of dying in the hospital, and brought me to the questioning of what is a patients right in the hospital, and how does the provider of the care infringe it?


In America doctors are of high prestige, they have been through years of college and have the highest degree possible to attain. In their years of education they are pumped with the importance of analysis of data and body. They are enthralled with their scientific capability, and honor given by the people to save lives. The question is what do we qualify as life, and who answers this in a hospital? It seems, our definition of life is conciseness when we can interact with one another and be aware of the earth’s surroundings. I believe this is a false judgment because it is solely based upon what we can perceive and when we can no longer figure what the person is thinking or feeling we question their life. We have delved upon this impossible determination because of our customs with western medicine. In Garry’s case he had an oncologist who at the end kept pushing for curative treatment without being more honest about his prognosis and simply help him attain more quality of life. Again dependant on what the patient and doctor determine as quality of life, obliviously in Garry & his Oncologist’s opinion it was fighting for survival. In hospitals doctors are too concerned with the goal of saving lives that they’re oblivious to the desire of the patient. They do not provide them with the options available until them deem it of importance. This of course should be expected because in all the academia they receive they never get “bed side manners”. This in itself is a contradictory request to want respect of emotion from doctors because when it comes down to it what is more important a doctor that respects ones desires, or knows how to cure your maladies? I interviewed Lorelei who is a clinical oncology social worker, whose position is to help patients hear all the different options and give them their rights. In the interview Lorelei stated (please click link interview qoute) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM3INqgmN2A. Doctors are not good at throwing in the towel. According to a study conducted at Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City “overall cost savings generated by its complex care management program—as well as the extremely high rates of acceptance, patient satisfaction, likelihood to recommend the program to others and positive contributions to quality of life. All are at an 80 percent level or above.” Palliative care saves money (the big plus for the elite money guzzler) and extends the lives of patients, but doctors are not about it. In America doctors have a god-like sense to them they are worshipped in our society of advancement and knowledge, they are given high paying salaries they are head of their department, people rely on them with their lives, and they get special license plates.

When one is admitted to a hospital one is being placed in a bubble from the resources of communication and knowledge one can receive normally, it becomes fed to the patient from a singular source. I believe we separate the physical, the social and emotional in the process of illness and dying and this is strongly exemplified in the hospital setting, and western medicine. In hospital intuitions’ patients are provided with allopathic treatment, aid in being washed, breathing, defecating, urinating, cleaning surroundings, cooking and so forth. This is it. Hospitals do not provide patients with different forms of physical interactions, meditation, walks, yoga, socialization with other patients. “There are many studies conducted on the role of Yoga on the cancer patients, which show that Yoga not only helps to reduce psychological stress, anxiety, depression but it also improves mood of the patient, enhances the immunity, helps to heal the wound of the surgery faster and also to reduce the complications of chemo/radiotherapy.” There is no mental stimulation available, a library, a game room; there are only Televisions to let the patients lay in their beds as they struggle for survival let their brains become mush. All of these possibilities are obliviously within the limitations of the patients well being but when sick there are always moments of well being and chance of mobility and interactions. There is no place for patients to go outside and get in touch with nature, breath fresh air. There is no place for patients to be creative, make art, play an instrument, laugh (according to Lorelei her favorite medicine is laughter). According to the Society for Arts in Health Care “the arts create safer, more supportive, and more functional environments in healthcare facilities. From architectural design to art on the walls, from access to natural lighting to the inclusion of nature through landscaping and healing gardens, the physical environment has a significant impact on relieving patient and caregiver stress, improving health outcomes, enhancing patient safety and overall quality of care, and reducing costs. The physical environment also plays an important role in improving the health and safety of staff, reducing errors in providing care while increasing effectiveness and job satisfaction.” There is not even color or art in patient rooms. Most shockingly no healthy food is provided for patients. All that is given is frozen TV dinners consisting of the worst mass-produced food. How is ones body suppose to become healthy if the particles constantly being replaced throughout ones body are not of rich elements. Hospitals also makes it very hard for family to surround their loved ones and provide them with the support they need, there are not many facilities for the family, not even reclining chairs or simple things as such. Garry use to complain that the one communal room for the patients, with again only a television would be hogged up by family and STAFF members.
This is the amount of arts in hospitals:

This is the effect of art in hospitals:

Sandra L. has been a practicing nurse for the last 34 years and of the last 14 has been a visiting home nurse. According to Sandra L. Not all health insures cover for all health providers so when rushed to the hospital for an emergency one does not know if they will cover your insurance or not. When you are rushed into the emergency room they make you sign a document stating that you will be responsible for all bills you receive during your stay. This is a trap because anyone who comes in the emergency room is signing this contract out of distress. So when your in your room and your taken for diagnostic after diagnostic the doctors just assume that your insurance covers the test and does not inform you of the price and ask for your approval. Next thing you know all these bills are coming in. A right that is dismissed when one is in the hospital is ones PRIVACY, anyone can come up to your room to visit if they attain a pass, no one calls to confirm with the patient, doctors, nurses, house keeping, meal, transport, and blood draw rarely does anyone ever knock on the door or announce their arrival.


Irma is an 89-year-old woman who just survived a heart attack and was discharged from the hospital and placed in a nursing home until the paper works of providing her with a home aid are sorted out. Throughout the interview she just kept saying she wanted to go home, to go outside. No one in the nursing home would listen to her and help her out they all dismissed her. She was in the half of the room with no window she felt trapped; they would not even let her keep the door open. She just wants to go home. Anne a woman who was hospitalized for open-heart surgery just wanted fresh air. Diana was admitted to the hospital and was in critical care for 14 days she stated “really hard, really tough I felt like in jail, being stuck down their, feeling so isolated”

How are patients supposed to get better if they are emotionally distraught? I have not addressed the case of mental institutions in my project (which I wish would have been my focus) but those patients are basically incarcerated and are not free to leave, held their based on our social standards we cast them away and forget them. In the book Mountains Beyond Mountains Tracy Kidder is writing about a doctor, Farmer’s ideas “Of all the worlds errors, he seemed to feel, the most fundamental was the “erasing” of people, the “hidings away” of suffering. “My big struggle is how people cannot care, erase, and not remember.””

Another major issue for patients seems to be the lack of attention they are given, no one seems to listen to the help they need and they lie their helpless if they are not lucky to have family to advocate for them. After all they are paying their lives away. The following links are to media quote (excerpts from my interviews):

Sandy (nurse of 34 years) also recently hospitalized for heart problems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TRUcjMfdMo
Sam(I am) hospitalized for a hernia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHtU5HlWKa8
Anne hospitalized for cardiac arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKUtOjMCj0M
Bobby hospitalized for cancer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TURcNTLU2TA

"Arts in healthcare can benefit communities by engaging people in arts programs aimed at promoting prevention and wellness activities and communicating health information to improve knowledge. For students in medical and other healthcare fields, the arts can enhance skills and improve observational, diagnostic, and empathic abilities. Through art, medical professionals can understand patients in a different way-and connect with them on a more humanizing level.”


In Haiti they do not have the privilege of hospitals, thus many of the people rely on their religion to cure them. This leads them to distrust allopathic medicine’s capability of curing them. Leading them to having to overcome their doubts when given the opportunity to receive care. In the United States we see health as simply taking medicine and eradicating the problem within. We don’t seem to take the approach of changing ones diet, getting physiological help, improving physical activity, or changing our surroundings. Instead we go to a building and receive the care, which in our society is logical because it is the only resource that provides aid in emergencies. So whether one has disbelief in allopathic medicine, or one vows by it, what is the happy medium?

My project matters and I enjoyed it because I gave people the opportunity to express their thoughts in a manner that would be shared with others. It is continuing the process of speaking with our fellow people about our discontent and voicing it so that we can slowly strive for change. I feel pride from hearing people sharing their experiences and getting to analysis the depth of the problems going on everyday. Irma the poor 89 year old confined in a nursing home daunting the day she will breathe fresh air. Was once an advocate for the elderly and was part of an organization Single Point of Entry to help sow their rights, and now here she is helpless. At the end of the interview she was very concerned as to what I was doing with this information, where it would be going, was it going to make a change? So I just hope that this information is a cry of outrage for these people, especially Irma whom is still confined, and does her justice. Multiple voices are louder than one voice.



Bibliography
"State-of-the-Art in Palliative Care Management."Promoting Excellence. Promoting Excellence, n.d. Web. 17 Jan 2011..

Kidder, Tracy. Mountains Beyond Mountains.1st.United Sates of America: Random House Publishing Group,2004.Print

"Nature cure and yoga for cancer." Natural Health Cure.Natural Health Cure, Web. 17 Jan 2011. .

Arts in Healthcare." Society for the Arts in Health Care.Society for the Arts in Health Care, n.d. Web. 17 Jan 2011..