ABSTRACT
Friends often ask me, especially since I gave birth to Daniel, if it wasn’t tough to work on a paediatric ward. All those poor children, the pain, the heart-breaking sorrow. Of course, I reply, it can be hard sometimes, emotional even, but it can also be wonderfully gratifying. Kids don’t realise that they are sick, they don’t pity themselves. Kids are pure. Adults are often a totally different story. I can still get worked up thinking about some of the adult patients I nursed during my training. The whining, the complaining, they oozed a feeling of being wronged by life. It seemed to me that men where the worst, they just cannot handle even the smallest of grievances. Often I had to restrain myself from pulling one of them out of their beds and dragging their sorry self to an oncology ward. “So you think you are sick? Really? Look at these patients, this is what really being sick is like!” It was bizarre how ‘grownups’ lose all sense of initiative once they find themselves in a hospital bed. Nurse, can I have a glass of water? Nurse, would you bring me a vase for these flowers? Nurse, would you blow my nose for me? Well educated, responsible adults would become, I don’t know, trapped in their own self-pity somehow. Like they had switched themselves off. Anyway, my grades were not
very high on these wards. “Irene, you lack empathy,” my supervisor would say. I nearly dropped out, until I started my first rounds on a paediatric ward. That was nearly 10 years ago but I can remember it as if it were yesterday. It was like sunshine after a rainy day. I immediately knew this was the place for me, this was where I would thrive. I was very lucky, because I found a job on a paediatric ward right after I qualified. I have worked there since, enjoying it every single day. Kids are great, they don’t make a scene out of feeling sick. They are either sick or well, there is nearly nothing in between. And if they don’t feel sick, they are happy. Even on a ventilator they can still smile at you. So much strength, so much endurance. I would do anything for my patients.
