Wednesday 27 July 2016

The power of kindness...a post script to my last blog




This is a short post script on my last blog. Yesterday thanks to the response of my local team to my blog, I was offered a cancellation at the respiratory clinic. No answers as yet which I'm not surprised by as this has been a complex situation but at least I'm in the system at last.
I'm writing this to say a warm thank you to the nurse who hugged me as I cried and spoke about how hard a year it's been. I want to say a thank you to the radiographers who were kindness itself when they did a CT scan. And I especially want to thank the consultant who pulled favours and went the extra mile to ensure I was ok. I felt his kindness and concern.
And so I return to the theme of the blog. My concern has rarely been about the people. I have seen small kindnesses ( to others and to me) in particular in the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, it's in the culture from porters to medics there I believe. BUT some of the systems are letting this good hearted team down. And of course they are letting down the very people who need them.
I'm hugely appreciative of getting seen yesterday but what about those who can't or won't do that. I wont be content till we get it right for them too.
In a week when we lost Kate Granger who did so much to raise awareness of compassion in care  lets be reminded that the little things matter as much as the big things and that kindness too is a therapeutic tool.

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