Death Archives — Insaniyya

Part of the standard doctrine we are taught, in parallel with doing no harm, is that the service of providing care to another is and must remain entirely apolitical. I have always thought this to be wrong.

There is nothing apolitical or politically neutral in providing care to the ill, the injured, the scared, or the underserved;

in establishing a free clinic for the uninsured;

in watching a patient die but having to sanitize your hands and immediately visit another patient without letting them see the cracks in your shield;

in reviewing radiographs to weigh your suspicion of elderly abuse;

in demanding the prison guard leave the room to provide the county inmate even a modicum of privacy;

in risking your license by subverting elected officials who wish to outlaw or restrict maternal health services;

in referring a drug-dependent patient to a methadone clinic or two;

in rapidly transfusing blood into a pregnant woman hit by an intoxicated driver who, by the way, happens to be recovering rapidly in the adjacent trauma bay; Continue reading “Politics in the workplace” →

His kidneys failed, I’m told. The both of them. Tubes crisscross over and under his bed in a room crowded with empty seats, fuzzy television screens, useless nightstands, and a whiteboard that reads: “Goal: Increase activity”.

The lights are turned off and it’s 7 pm. Flash back to the days when we were young and restless.

With muddied hands (mama told us to stay away from the puddles but we never listened) we run to the kitchen sink without making eye contact. Because once we make eye contact, mama gives us that look that means we’d better be in bed in less than five. She asks whether we’re tired. “No,” we say, but we are. We are just too young and too proud to admit it. And at 7 pm, the lights go off.

Flash forward to the days when we outgrow ourselves.

I don’t know what to say. Five of us are in the room now—four standing, none sitting. I’m the last to shake his hand, to give him that squeeze that, when I was a teen, all the married Arab men would advise me about. Continue reading “On family and all that is left at 7 pm” →