Infantilization

During my most recent hospital stay, I was considered at risk for falling. The nurse who brought me to my room cautioned me to never get out of bed without a nurse or nurse technician at my side. To put teeth into her warning, she inserted a device into the bed which would set off an alarm - absurdly it played "The Farmer in the Dell" - should I get out of bed alone. At first I obeyed the nurse’s injunction, even though I believed it unnecessary. I’d ring for help, a nurse or nurse technician would arrive, disable the alarm, and accompany me to the bathroom. But after awhile, I became fed up with the restriction, since I would often have to wait ten minutes or more for someone to come to me, so I would get up by myself, the alarm would sound, and as soon as I could, I’d disable it.

Such restrictions may be necessary – I don’t believe this one was in my case – but necessary or not, they lead to the infantilization of the patient. But that is only one of the devices that lead to a state of childish dependence. The sponge bath, administered by a nurse or nurse technician, was another. I had to remove my gown, sit down on a toilet seat, and allow my female bather to pour water over me (the water would fall into the toilet’s basin), soap me up all over (and I mean all over), and then pour water over me again to rinse me off. I felt as if I was four years old.

But in my recent 15-day hospital stay, I only received two of these ministrations. I guess I wasn’t sick enough to merit more. By the tenth day, I felt grungier than I did at the conclusion of my third-class passage on the Trans-Siberian Rail Road from Beijing to Moscow, when the only parts of me that I could wash were my hands and face. So in a rebellion against the rules, I took myself, with my catheter following, into the shower, where I luxuriated in hot water and soap, emerging clean once more. Part of the pleasure in that shower was the independence it represented. It was an absurdly small act, but it meant such a lot to me.

I was prodded and poked at intervals determined by the institution. From six in the morning until nine at night, I could look forward to periodic monitoring of my blood pressure and blood oxygen level, to giving a blood sample, and to the insertion or removal of an IV infusion. These assaults were necessary of course but I had no say in when or how often they were administered, another infantilizing feature of a hospital stay.

Hospitals need bureaucratic controls and regulations if they are to function effectively and efficiently. Even so, the reduction of the patient to a state of childish dependence is one of the most demoralizing features of a hospital stay. How much worse in that respect must be those nursing homes that are warehouses for the old, in which the patients have no hope of leaving except feet first. I suppose that such residents can still find pleasure in their existence, but to do so must require a strength of character that I’m not sure I could muster if by misfortune I had to enter one of those institutions. I thought about that a lot while I was in the hospital and that made me feel better. After all, I could look forward to being released from the hospital, even if not for good behavior.