Accents
The winter of our content
Shakespearean metaphor gone to naught in the title of this column. For once I had my friend Bill S. turned upside down. Many have used “winter of our discontent” to describe the most awful chapter in their lives. The expression is derived from
Shakespeare’s play, King Richard the Third, where the tragic king spews forth hate and venom as he decries the ugliness of his deformed appearance. In wretched discontent, the warped character is determined to be a villain and depicts himself as “subtle, false and treacherous.” Much like the sneaky heart attack. Long intro how discontent morphed into content?
Flashback: Dead of winter in the U.S. of A. particularly in Oakland, California, where my husband Rudy and I are temporarily on vacation at our daughter Rose’s family. This time of the year, winter chill gets into the bones, one of the coldest winters I’ve experienced and, oh, spring is still very far behind. It happened night of Feb. 1 when Rudy felt a “subtle, false and treacherous” tightness in his heart. Stroke? We rushed him to the nearest hospital, the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. All the while Rudy was in pain and had difficult breathing.
Immediately, Rudy was wheeled to the ER (the well-known shortcut for Emergency Room). A medical team of six, three on each bedside, were on their toes trying to intercept the claws of death to be hyperbolic about it. Dr. Benjamin Lerman, ER director, told Rose and me if we would prefer to be out of the room if we didn’t want to see how Rudy would react to the apparatus about to be applied. No, we said, come what may, we would like to be there. It was just a matter of seconds when Rudy’s heavyweight of a body jerked inches upwards from the bed. I didn’t bother to know what medical jargon it was called. Enough for me that it was some kind of shock treatment that blew Rudy’s pain away. More check-ups, more high-tech applications followed. When Dr. Lerman had left along with Ron, John, Louie, and another whose name escaped me, there was Su-Ellen Mortland, RN, who was on her toes checking here and there. Guys, you were great! Thank you all!
As I write this, Rudy is very much alive and well. Thanks to the ER medical team that attended to him. And to the doctors and the subsequent nurses on duty that took care of him in the hours and days thereafter: Drs. Hill, Sterling, Schultz, Webb, and RNs Grace, Ramon, Joanne, Glenn, Thelma, Bette, Lisa, Millie, Denise, Jay, Shalene, Brenda, Yan, Conrad, Rico, Ana May, Ruth, et al. — a racial mix of many nations. It is patience, consideration and understanding like theirs that make for a gentler, kinder, saner world. To you all, thank you so much.
With Rudy already on restful sleep, it was relaxing leafing through the Alta Bates info magazine and brochures all bearing the hospital’s motto: With You. For Life. In the magazine’s inside cover is a Welcome and thank you letter from Warren J. Kirk, President and CEO, which states, among others, that “Alta Bates Summit Medical Center is nationally recognized for quality health care. While you are here, you can be assured that you are being cared for by a topnotch, dedicated healthcare team. You are our valued guest and it is our privilege to care for you.” Our Alta Bates experience proved the CEO so right.
Among the enumerations of patient’s rights, I picked this for its universal, humanitarian aspect: “You have the right to: Exercise these rights without regard to sex, economic status, educational background, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, or marital status or the source of payment for care.” The foregoing reflects the all-encompassing proviso in its Code of Ethical Conduct: “The medical center shall provide care without regard to race, color, sex, religion, ancestry, national origin, age, medical condition, physical disability, mental handicap, veteran status, or sexual orientation.”
Not having been to another hospital here in the States (heaven forbid another ER rush), we cannot make a comparison except with those in the homeland. True, most hospitals in our country are inadequate in high-tech equipment, but Filipino doctors are topnotch, too, and our nurses are known for their tlc—tender loving care—in alien land where many of them are well employed. The grumpy ones left in Bayan Ko are hard put to drop the grumpiness saddled as they are by heavy work and utterly low pay — they lose the human touch we long for when we are hurting and crying in pain.
Not to forget a word of appreciation to the architect of the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center that stands on a knoll in Berkeley. It was so designed that one walks from end to end on the sixth floor passing a long glass window pane that gives a magnificent view of California’s land mark, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the prison-turned-museum Alcatraz Island.
Lastly, this quote printed in bold in the hospital magazine: “We enhance the health and well being of people in the communities we serve through compassion and excellence.”
Compassionate and excellent care snatched my husband from the jaws of death. What could have been the direst winter in our life turned to a winter full of contentment. Thank you, Alta Bates!
(Email: lagoc@hargray.com)
