Reconstructing lives by Vanja Kovačič

Author:Vanja Kovačič [Vanja Kovačič]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Manchester University Press

Relationships among patients

The network created among patients offered them immense support and benefits. Participants communicated a sense of closeness and emotional comfort arising from their relationship with other patients; they exchanged information about surgeons and treatment and gave practical help to carers or each other. All of these things were communicated to me with a great deal of fondness. The sense that they were able to provide practical support to those who were “worse off than them” was in many ways therapeutic, giving a feeling of purpose and solidarity. Shopping for others, washing dishes, doing the laundry, and helping those with mobility difficulties to move around the hospital were just some examples of the practical support patients provided to each other.

The bonds with follow patients developed over time. A young Iraqi participant described how he gradually became close with a Syrian patient:

You asked me about the other patients. I remember there was a guy with me in the same room; he was Syrian. He was young: I think he was born in 1995 or maybe 1998. He looked nice with long hair; his name was [mentions his name]. He was injured in his back and spine during the Syrian events, so he was paralysed. From the way he talked, I sensed that he didn’t like Iraqis because of all the bad things that he had heard about us. I was good to him. He had never seen the garden of the hospital, so I carried him and took him out there. He was impressed and said that nobody did that for him, and since then he started liking Iraqis. He wanted to visit Iraq with me; I was helping and supporting him a lot. Whenever he needed something, I was there for him. He said that he had a different image in his mind about Iraqi people: he never thought that they were this kind and gentle. When I checked out of the hospital he was crying about my departure. (RSP74, Iraqi, M)

Many burn victims also expressed a sense of connectedness and noted with relief that they were finally accepted and “among similar” [patients with similar deformities]. As one of them expressed: “It was important for me to meet other patients with burns. I wouldn’t feel different from them because they all have the same conditions as mine” (RSP48, Iraqi, M). Sharing a similar destiny was generally perceived as an important factor in bonding and “complimenting each other.” “Maybe our stories are similar. Maybe each of us has found what she needs and lacks in the other [her friend]. Probably. The three of us complemented each other; me, [mentions the name of her friend], and [mentions the name of her other friend]. We spent our time mostly together. And we’re still close” (RSP4, Syrian, F). Another participant used the shared experience of pain to explain the factors creating closeness with fellow patients: “I share with them [other patients] their pain and try to ease their pain though sharing that I have my own [pain]” (RSP61, Iraqi, M).

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