Back on C-11, when I sat doors with Fred, I wondered why such a normal-seeming man was hospitalized. Later, I checked his card and realized he was the patient who attempted to kill his wife during home visits. I remembered meeting her – brash, bold, overbearing, and felt a strong empathy for him. Every patient had a story, and none of them were simple. The hospitalized member of the family often seemed to be the healthiest.
I returned to C-11 after more than a week away. On my second day back, there was a gurney in the middle of the ward, with an elderly gentleman on it. His name was Jimmy, and he had died. Staff tied a tag on his toe and wheeled him away. No one reacted. Most didn’t shift in their chairs in front of the television. I was stunned by the lack of response. Life and death existed side by side here, and the men had learned not to flinch.
One morning, a male Aide named Steve was on duty. He called me in the office, and asked me several personal questions – college, family, dating – that felt oddly intrusive. My mother, who was the assistant to the personnel director of the hospital, checked Steve’s personnel file and discovered he was a former patient, admitted for sexual issues, later released, and eventually hired as an Aide. The hiring of former patients as Aides was not uncommon, she said. I was relieved when I didn’t have to work with Steve again. The boundaries in this place were sometimes unclear.
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