Every year I teach a leadership programme at a hospital, and I recently finished our eighth run.
I start it with us sharing our stories as patients and caregivers.
I share about my elderly dad who was hospitalised and rang the call-bell for long as he needed to go to the restroom and was not attended to. He tried shouting for help too. Nobody came. My dad is a multiply chronically ill, “fall-risk” patient who should not walk unattended, and was on drips. But he really needed to go to the restroom. He got out of his bed, dragged the drip stand and hobbled over to the door to open it and ask for help.
He was traumatised by this – left without help when he felt helpless at an institution we trust to be there when we need them the most.
We asked the nurse the next day what had happened. And discovered that the call bell was not working. That itself was a shock. That’s dangerous. But these things happen.
What exacerbated things was when she said: “If he really needs to go to the toilet and nobody attends to him, he can urinate on the bed”.
While I can see the value of what she said, it was delivered in a way that did not land gently our hearts.
A few days later, my dad pressed the call-bell again at night to go to the restroom and again was not attended to for a long time. This time the bell was working but another reason was cited.
Both these times, if my dad had needed urgent medical attention, he would not have received it.
I don’t tell my programme participants what we felt. I ask them to tell me – what would I and my family have felt? What needs of ours were not met? And what is fundamental in a hospital?
This is just one incident. My family, friends and I have experienced countless such incidents over decades.
“Your brother is wiping out the blood from the blood bank! And the nurses are being overworked!” A doctor told that to my mum as her brother lay in Intensive Care Unit. My uncle died and till today, my mum remembers how it felt to hear those comments when she was so distressed.
We have written so many feedback letters. When we or loved ones are unwell, we are extra vulnerable so service without sensitivity and compassion can especially hurt and also endanger lives. (We have also experienced caring service and have written many positive feedback letters to encourage the staff involved.)
Some staff go through great challenges too. I have listened to their side of the story.
One emergency room nurse shared with me how she would need go to the restroom to break down and cry because she felt unsupported. Her managers asked to “control” her emotions. Others have to control their bladder as they don’t have time to do to the toilet or even drink sufficient water at times. All this is “normal”. And yet we need them to be attentive and compassionate to vulnerable patients. We need to understand the links between wellbeing and compassion.
“Empathy and compassion for others tend to be highest when the body is in a physiological state of balance….Self-neglect over time blunts the ability to perceive or respond to the needs of other people because it diminishes the resources we have available for an empathic response….When your own needs are attended to, you are less likely to be distracted.” – Dr Helen Riess, author of “The Empathy Effect: Seven Neuroscience-Based Keys for Transforming the Way We Live, Love, Work, and Connect Across Differences”
I start this course connecting to these managers not as their roles as leaders but as humans first; with their hearts. And the stories just flow easily.
One of the threads that is pulled through the programme is psychological safety, which has life and death consequences in a hospital. Here’s a three-minute video on Dr Amy Edmondson, author of “The Fearless Organization”, speaking on this.
And I end the whole programme with this piece I wrote:
As leaders, may we remember
that our emotions, words, thoughts, actions and inactions will ripple out and
touch the patient
The patient who is someone’s loved one.
One day, this patient will be you and me and our loved ones
And on that day, we will want healing hands and hearts around us
We will want them to know when there’s need for urgency and when they need to slow down
We will want them to be in harmony with each other
We will want them to have courageous and difficult conversations and go through discomfort to put something right
We will want them to feel loved, happy and well so we feel safe in their precious hands.
As leaders, may we remember.
—
If you happen to be a leader in healthcare reading this.
How do you learn about unfiltered ground-truths that are experienced by patients and your staff?
If you have strayed far from your hospital’s mission to touch vulnerable lives with compassion, how can you re/connect to this deeply?
I shall leave you with this four-minute video by the Cleveland Clinic on empathy. Allow your heart to take it in quietly.
Thank you for your challenging work to save lives. May your heart be well to serve with love and compassion the countless lives entrusted in your care.
Vadivu Govind