Find empathy for a new lease of life

I faced a crisis once when a differently-abled patient tested positive for swine flu and all other patients in the ward demanded that he be shunted out forthwith. We talk much of empathy, but this was a situation when I witnessed self-interest in its stark form.

Advertisement

Thirty years ago, a fatherless man with AIDS was admitted to my care. We tried to sensitise other patients that it was a disease that did not spread by touching or talking to patients. But the adjoining beds remained unoccupied and some even sought discharge.

His mother was his caregiver-in-chief. We told her to use gloves while cleansing him. But she would not relent. She confided in a nurse that she didn’t want any barrier to her caring and would not deny him the motherly touch. Such is the stuff mothers are made up of; nursing the child from the time when the first cries of life are made, sometimes staying awake all through the night. But one day, the nest is empty. Many do make short return visits, but instances abound where children abandon the parents.

I remembered these incidents on learning that in some instances, family members have not bothered to collect the ashes of their parents who succumbed to Covid.

In all religions, there are traditions and customs to remember the dead. The Hindus have a tradition of paying obeisance to the ancestors year after year as a bounden duty.

Human values are not very difficult to maintain in normal times. It is in situations of mental stress and physical distress like the current pandemic that the colours of character go in for a real test on the touchstone of life. We all love life! But do we understand the meaning of love of life?

Some stories of the current pandemic have shaken the very foundations of human and family values. I recently learnt of a son who asked the administration to provide an attendant when his Covid-infected elderly father was advised home isolation. The administration nursed his father back to health once the son abandoned him and left for some unknown destination along with his family. Another elderly man had to be kept in the hospital for a long time for the family hesitated to welcome him back into the household. Strange, but all those who have tried to shun or abandon the patients were the children and not the parents!

It is very disconcerting to comprehend a situation where the elderly are left to fend for themselves, not only in life, but even after death; waiting for some Good Samaritan or voluntary agency to perform the last rites. Shouldn’t we all ponder whether we are evolving into humans with better social and family values or any such belief is just a farce and self-deception.