I mentioned a few days ago that I visited Bill Hatcher in the Emergency Room on Tuesday evening, 8:00 pm. I speculated that it would be 2:00 am before he got out of the emergency room. I was wrong. He did not get out of the emergency room until the next morning, after breakfast. He was then given a bed on an unoccupied floor, until he finally moved into a room late Wednesday morning or Thursday afternoon -- almost 24 hours after entering the hospital, he began receiving direct medical treatment for his legs. Once in the room, his care has been good, but it shows the difficulties of getting medical treatment while poor. Shoved to the end of the triage, with little resources or immediate trauma, there is no medical or financial incentive for the hospital to care for him. Given that this is a reoccuring problem, I knew pretty much what his treatment would be -- it isn't hard to diagnose. Yet there are so many "hurdles" to get through that it becomes difficult. I was also a bit concerned that they gave Bill morphine for the pain -- possibly not realizing the struggles with chemicals that Bill has had in the past.

To me it seems to show the need to develop church-based smaller "hospitals" that actually know the persons over time that can be more immediate responsive to the sick and provide good care that is not embroiled in the bureaucracy that the "for-profit" system requires. In other words, we need to think creatively as embracing medical care as a work of mercy rather than as a means of profit. I think of the old Catholic system that has slowly gotten absorbed into the contemporary techno-bureaucratic system -- though with places of resistance that distinguish them experientially from purely "secular" hospitals and how it would have been built by a poor group of minority immigrants. It seems that some retrieval of this history might be appropriate.

Similarly, we lost a friend, John Kang, to death this week. John was the "eldest elder" of the Nuer community from the Sudan in San Diego. I met him first six years ago in discussing the housing problems of the African community here in San Diego in light of eviction notices that were going out so that landlords could up their rents when the market conditions made housing more expensive here. He was always a great source of wisdom and grace. I teach his second eldest son now, and his kids have been enfolded in various degrees with us. He leaves a wife and nine children, with Mary, his wife, 6 1/2 months pregnant with their 10th child.

John died of liver cancer. In the past weeks, perhaps months, he had been to the hospital at least three times with symptoms, but had been released each time without any or at least a correct diagnosis. Could this have saved his life? Did his financial condition have anything to do with this? I don't know.

Yet miscommunications did take place that have brought additional pain and struggles to his family, though I can tell that the doctors attempted to communicate appropriately. Yet without someone who knows and understands the family, the cultural differences, the language struggles, such communication becomes difficult. The Nuer language does not possess verbal tenses like English. I am wondering if that led to the family expecting John to have died on Wednesday morning, only to find him still alive. It sounds like finally an appropriate conference took place with the family yesterday, when the life support systems where withdrawn from John, and he slipped away to be with his Lord. Yet this most likely came about because Mary, his wife, not totally understanding this system, had refused to take the life support away, even though John's body could not recover. Thus it then became economically viable to have the conference.

I guess I want to have us think and pray about a "Christian humanism" where the bodies of the sick are not subject to treatments that the market can provide, but are treasured and honored as ones whose sufferings unite us with the sufferings of Christ.

In closing it is interesting to reflect upon these experiences in light of the profoundly practical, profoundly Christian instructions on the sick found in the Rule of St. Benedict. Such wisdom, for the sick and their caretakers, gives us a basis to think from and with given our contemporary situation:

Chapter 37
Before all things and above all things,
care must be taken of the sick,
so that they willl be served as if they were Christ in person;
for He Himself said, "I was sick, and you visited Me" (Matt 25:36),
and, "What you did for one of these least ones, you did for Me" (Matt. 25:40).
But let the sick on their part consider
that they are being served for the honor of God,
and let them not annoy their sisters who are serving them
by their unnecessary demands.
Yet they should be patiently borne with,
because from such as these is gained a more abundant reward.
Therefore the Abbess shall take the greatest care
that they suffer no neglect.

For these sick let there be assigned a special room
and an attendant who is God-fearing, diligent and solicitous.
Let the use of baths be afforded the sick
as often as may be expedient;
but to the healthy, and especially to the young,
let them be granted more rarely.
Moreover,
let the use of meat be granted to the sick who are very weak,
for the restoration of their strength;
but when they are convalescent,
let all abstain from meat as usual.

The Abbess shall take the greatest care
that the sick be not neglected by the cellarers or the attendants;
for she also is responsible for what is done wrongly by her disciples.

Chapter 37: On the Old and Children
Although human nature itself is drawn to special kindness
towards these times of life,
that is towards the old and children,
still the authority of the Rule should also provide for them.

Let their weakness be always taken into account,
and let them by no means be held to the rigor of the Rule
with regard to food.
On the contrary,
let a kind consideration be shown to them,
and let them eat before the regular hours.

http://www.osb.org/rb/text/