The gem I am talking about is our own Lion’s Head Hospital.
I experienced the workings and operations and the difficulties imposed under the restrictions due to the Coronavirus 19 but it remains a wonderful place of healing, compassion and dedication to serving the people of our community. My wife was ambulanced to this facility in the early morning due to the late stages of her cancer becoming unbearable. When I phoned early in the morning I was told that she was comfortable and I could come and visit her.
From that time until she passed away three days later I was allowed to stay with her and comfort her. All the nurses and staff were very caring and responsive to my wife’s needs as well as my emotional needs as her loving, caring husband. They recognized my need to be at her side as she had expressed many times. They made every effort for me to be by her side right up to the end.
They offered me the use of a lounge chair so that I could be with her at night.
They allowed me to help them in giving her the water she so desperately needed due to the pain killing drugs.
They recognized my need as her caregiver over her six year journey that I still wanted to feel I was helping.
They were to me her angels of mercy.
Her medical team, Dr. Elaine Blau and Tara Harpur closely monitored her progress and were always willing to change their schedules to ensure her end of life wishes were fulfilled.
When the end came I was allowed to hold her in my arms and tell her how much I loved her.
And after it was over they gave us the privacy of laying together for the last time over 39 years we had been together.
I write this because to me, the importance of having a community hospital like ours in Lion’s Head offers so much more. Besides not having people travel long distances to visit their loved ones, it offers the warmth, sympathy, and understanding that runs through our small community and is also expressed by all who work in our hospital. Medicine is not always about healing but is also about the care, compassion and willingness to assist at the end of life.
John Tozer (for my wife Myrna)
