Heartbroken
on When I'm 64 (Sri Lanka), 06/May/2011 09:53, 34 days ago
   Well a few days ago I said in my blog that I was ambivalent about leaving, now, a few days later, I am not. I am ready to go. In the last 3 days, literally, the nurses have had constructed, essentially, a prison for the women patients and they had a patient who was due to go home tied to the bed because she was wandering (wanting to go home). It feels like my work here was a waste if the basic lesson of kindness and empathy for patients has not penetrated. I have failed in the one way I thought I was successful, and it couldn't be more blatant.  The new Master is a tyrant, half the staff is talking about leaving, our wonderful doctor S. is hoping to transfer to be able to do more community work, our new Community Psychiatric Nurse who was especially selected (basically by me) is not being able to do her work and has asked to leave; she is up at night, not eating, worrying, feels unsupported by the other nurses, she needs to leave. Even our Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr. P, was describing the childish behavior of the other consultants, really like squabbling children and of course that leaves patients without care as passively fight over who is responsible for seeing them. Little discussion happens between anybody to try to come to a more neutral place, people don't talk about things here, they just act out. Maybe it is this way everywhere and I am very naive, it is possible I suppose. I thought I was a realist but maybe I am a hidden idealist so I get so disappointed or maybe I don't understand the culture still, enough, or resistance to change or....   I can learn new things however. I have always watched people brushing their teeth and been amazed that they can walk around and not get wet, foamy toothpaste all over the place. I finally figured out what I do wrong; when I put the toothpaste on the brush, I run it under the water before moving it to my mouth..it's so automatic that now I have to be very conscious not to do it. I am now much neater at brushing and almost as a reward I get fewer ants in my sink if I forget to clean up the toothpaste because there is less of it!   One of the staff, a guy who politically I am the most connected to, asked me if I wanted a party to celebrate Osama Bin Laden's death. I was horrified. In my mind his death can lead to more death as a reaction to his death, I can't celebrate that. I have recently read this wonderful article about Paul Chappell in my favorite magazine, THE SUN. He wages peace. When I get home, I am going to study more about this. This doesn't mean I am against killing when necessary or being strategic to get the bad guys. It does seem that money, power and greed are behind most bad stuff, for the leaders I really doubt it is religious or political idealism underneath the underneath.   I finally understand the behavior of one person I work with that for all this time didn't quite make sense to me. I now understand that without really admitting it or even being conciously aware of it, this person, an Asian, is racist towards whites. I really am naive. My landlord this morning asked me about my camera and I was telling him about a shop in town that had cameras for sale, he said no, not there, you can't trust the moslems! It never ends (the isms).