A Vision of a Hospitable Hospital
While visiting my mother-in-law in a hospital yesterday, I had a vision of sorts, while walking down the hallway of the cancer ward. I saw the holistic hospital.
I saw a place where massages and energetic healing are administered daily to people with all types of illnesses. Aromatherapy wafts from various rooms: lemon balm from an Alzheimer's sufferer's room, lilac from a room with a woman with diabetes.
Each bed-ridden person would wait eagerly for the next treatment, whether it was a neck massage, meditation, storytelling or foot reflexology session. The value of restful sleep is paramount in the staff's minds. They take great care to make sure there are not loud noises disturbing the sleep of people in their care. No machines are beeping, very few people have tubes sticking out of the gut.
And, interesting, the people are referred to as guests, not patients. Like a hotel. The price of healthcare is dramatically lower, the approach is much lower tech, but higher touch. Every attendant sitting at bedside touches the patient in a caring way as they are talking to them.
Drugs are used and surgery is done, but only as a last resort, so frankly they are hardly ever used. One surgeon is on hand on each shift, which is often more than enough. Many of the large drug companies have gone bankrupt long ago. The knowledgeable scientists and salespeople from those companies have tranferred to homeopathic and herbal companies.
Just a passing thought, though, until a wave of nauseating antiseptic hit me and brought me back to my senses. I was in a hospital again, not in a place hospitable.
5:05:13 PM 
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