When people associate patients and feelings, they will always think about the medical aspect thereof such as pain, sickly and high on painkillers, but has anyone thought about the mental and psychological wellbeing? Upon my recent visits to the hospital on my block experience, all the patients I have spoken to seemed sad, lonely, depressed and disappointed. Their faces resembled the outside of this house, grey. What I can only imagine of their feelings, they must feel like they are a house broken down and feeling like there will never be rebuilding. And so will their bodies. With them having recently been broken down, they will see no prospect of being built back up again and depression is the cause of this which may lead to them having secondary complications or delayed healing, almost like a personal barrier of the ICF. This house represents more than just their mental health, but also their physical health. This signifies their body being through so much pain and neglect, especially in the public hospital setting. This photo serves another metaphor as I took it in an area with fairly aesthetically pleasing surroundings, where this fragment of the view consists of a house, broken and lonely, it being the only of its kind with well-built houses in its surroundings.
This also symbolizes the South African Health System in a nutshell. It provides a look into the patient’s shoes. South Africa can be classified as both a developed and undeveloped country, especially in healthcare. (Young, 2016) The space of quality between private and public hospitals is huge, and so is this picture, where this house is between all the good houses and it seems as though this broken down house takes up the whole environment but it is surrounded by good, well built houses but at a greater cost. Another factor is the ratio of patients to staff members looking after them, in the public health setting such as clinics and day hospitals, the long waiting lists and days without seeing staff, the patients could feel neglected and not well looked after. They feel like their caregivers just leave them broken down and empty. This house signifies how patients in the South African health setting feel physically and emotionally, broken, neglected and empty are just a few words to describe them.
REFERENCES
Pretorious, L. (2017). Does SA’s private healthcare sector only serve 16% of the population?. Retrieved from https://africacheck.org/reports/does-sas-private-healthcare-sector-only-provide-care-for-16-of-the-population/
Young, M. (2016). Private vs. Public Healthcare in South Africa (Honours Thesis). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3752&context=honors_theses
One thought on “These 4 lonely walls. – Gerard May 3847094”
Hi Gerard. Thanks for your assignment and for the opportunity to give some feedback on your work. I thought you did a good job of presenting your thoughts on the parallels you see between the health system and a broken building. I thought that you could have spent a bit more time including more content that related specifically to examples that you may have read about. What is it about the system that is broken? What is it that you think makes patients feel depressed? I also thought that it would be useful if you have presented a stronger argument for why you think these things. What is it in your experience (or from what you’ve read) that makes you think that this is how the majority of patients feel? I’m not entirely convinced that all patients feel this way. Even if every patient you visited presented in this way, that’s hardly representative of everyone. Could you maybe say something about this aspect of your post? I think that you can also include a few more references in support of your argument. What else have you read about this topic? And finally, do you see any hope for the future of the system or is it so fundamentally broken that, like the house in your picture, it will always remain broken even while other buildings grow and develop around it? Thanks again for your piece and good luck with your revisions.