It’s the day after Easter Monday in the age of Covid 19. Life is different now, we don’t visit our friends and family. We stay home – we stay safe at home. That has been the message for the last four weeks and mostly the restrictions our governments, both State and Federal, have put in place are becoming understood and accepted. I have to admit that I initially was addicted to every single news bulletin, swapping TV and radio stations, jumping from website to website, and utterly in a state of shock that the world had changed so dramatically so quickly. The 9pm address to the nation by our PM, kept me tuning in, night after night. It was almost like starring in a movie, and asking the director to tell you his vision for the next scene. I’ve never acted, but the drama that hung in the air during the last few weeks of March, and now into the first few weeks of April was being scripted daily. I also began watching the Premier’s briefings for each state – it didn’t matter that I lived on the border of Victoria and New South Wales – I needed to know about Queensland and South Australia and all ‘the others’. I scrutinised the messages in these nation and state-wide briefings. I earnestly looked for evidence of leadership. I am a Gen Xer – no real political affiliation, just a woman possessing general impatience for fast-talking schmucks who attack their opposition, whilst offering little or no solution to the highlighted issues. When I am asked which party I stand with, or what issues I stand for, I can only say that my ‘thing’ is substance. The only politician that has remotely shown me that it is possible to swim in the big Canberra pool with the sharks, and simultaneously advocate for their electorate – at every point – is Cathy McGowan. Independent candidate and no bullshit attitude. I witnessed this from up close, she was my member – the Member for Indi. Now Cathy has passed the baton, to Helen Haines, and I am hopeful that she can stay true to Cathy’s legacy and fight for her community to be heard, without the deals and the grandstanding. So, when the daily briefings started to convince me the country’s future was in safe hands, when I felt a sense of dismay but hope as each economic stimulus and counter-measure was announced, as I felt subdued in my anxiety for the future, I discarded my previous theory that almost all politicians were entitled dicks. I began to believe. I believed ScoMo that social distancing would make a difference to Covid 19 spread, I believed Frydenberg, that even though everyone I knew in hospitality, retail, health, beauty or sport was suddenly without an income, that they would pull through with help from Jobseeker and Jobkeeper. I believed Dr Brendan Murphy that the each level of restrictions would further protect and prepare not only the country, but my regional city from unstoppable spread and the associated local health crisis for hospitals and medical services. I applauded Dan Tehan’s message that the Childcare industry and parents with children in childcare, were going to receive government support. I also listened intently as all of these people, along with State and Territory Premiers agreed to tackle the impending mental health crisis head-on. 100 million said Frydenberg, not small-fry…big fish. I was lulled into thinking the world might feel weird at the moment but my people, my government were getting it right. I absolutely believed them with their words and promises. That was until my 79 year old father called an ambulance in the early hours of Good Friday. What happened next will leave you questioning where and how things that are presented as government policy, promises in a time of unparalleled need, how these things our leaders say can either be ignored at the base level, or whether there has been any understanding of the structural requirements that need to be in place, if the bigger plan is to even come anywhere near working. One of the statements that stuck with me was when ScoMo said: “It’s not a matter of cutting and pasting ideas from other places, we need to have solutions that will work in Australia. And so, our approach has been to apply the discipline to the design of measures, that deal with unprecedented levels of demand…” If I hadn’t felt proud to be Australian before this moment, I bloody-well felt my patriotic blood flowing that day I heard ScoMo announce further support for the Australian people. We were in the best country in the world, and whatever came at us – as a nation, or as an individual – we were going to meet it head-on and beat it. That was what I thought…right up until my 79 year old father called that ambulance on Good Friday morning, unable to suffer the pain across his abdomen and chest any longer. That was when reality smashed me right between the eyes and woke me up to the plight that every single one of us need to know is a possibility in this fractious world. We are all at the mercy of this thing and the government can not control what happens on the ground, in the moment, when the cameras are not focused on them and their unsolicited words. When the cameras are off, you need to fight for your life.
My father endured two days of abdominal agony after first being discharged from hospital on Good Friday. He arrived by ambulance (that he called himself) at 6am and was out by 1pm. In that time, neither myself or my sister – who jointly held medical power of attorney – were given access to Dad, or his treating doctors. We were told absolutely no visitors. We tried unsuccessfully to impart critical information that Dad was terribly unwell mentally, as well as having a recent CT scan for cognitive impairment. The medical POA was photocopied and that’s where communication stopped. At 12:30pm my sister was called to say that X-rays had shown a lung infection and he was being released on a regime of antibiotics. There was to be absolutely no picking him up from inside the hospital – my sister was told to bring the car outside the emergency department and someone would bring him out. And they did. Barefoot and sedated, they walked him out and sent him away. For two days he endured the increasing pain. On Easter Sunday morning he succumbed and called my sister saying he couldn’t do it any longer, crying into the phone and saying he didn’t know what to do because ‘they don’t want me’. Of course he was referring to the hospital. They had tested him for Covid 19 – even though he had very few (if any) of the symptoms and had very quickly jumped on a lung infection diagnosis to remove the risk he posed as an elderly person possibly infected with Coronavirus. We assured Dad he would be well taken care of and called an ambulance. By the time I got to Dad’s the ambulance was outside and two personnel were fully geared up with gown, gloves and mask/shield. But something was weird – they were outside and Dad was inside. Their team leaders arrived in a separate car and the four of them proceeded to talk to us – standing in the doorway – who talked to Dad inside his house, asking questions about his complaint. They would not go into his house as he had been tested for Covid 19 – even with his level of distress and pain. They explained he could not go in the ambulance – it would render the vehicle out of action until it was sanitised. I kept asking them to check for the results of the test which was conducted over 48 hours earlier so they could commence avoiding him and start treating him. Instead we were asked to drive him to hospital. Once we arrived they communicated with staff that Dad needed care, BUT he was a potential Covid 19 threat… even though the only symptom continued to be acute abdominal pain. After 25 minutes they asked him to walk to the entrance doorway – no wheelchair was offered. We supported him as he feebly edged his way to the door. The fully PPE clad ambulance officer and nurse refused to touch him – instead they said to him he had to let go of his daughters and come inside without support. It broke my heart to see him clutching the wall, trying to get to a seat or a bed. He was crying and they both stood back. Now, this is where I divert from this story and ask the question to anyone reading this – is this possible? Can the most vulnerable be ‘thrown to the wolves’ as we struggle to cope with the impacts of Covid 19? Are our amazing front line workers paralysed with fear that the illogical becomes the norm? Well, unfortunately the answer to all of these questions is YES!!!
Two hours later we had still heard nothing. We were forbidden from going into the hospital and each time we called we were told the doctors were busy. I decided to go to the hospital after 5 hours and the security guard allowed me to enter ED after stating my father had been admitted. He went in and a nurse approached, telling me to put a mask on and to follow him, but only for 5 minutes. My heart broke a second time when I saw Dad on the bed, pain engulfing him and emotionally distressed. He was at the mercy of Covid 19 and as it turned out, he was negative. This is what I was told as I stood bedside assuaging his fears that he wasn’t dying. The doctor actually stated: “Now he is negative, we can treat him.” This statement still hurts. How can all reasonableness fly out the window? It may not have been Covid 19, but whatever it was had the potential to kill him. He looked so gravely ill, and now – after 60 hours from when he first presented – were we told they would start taking him seriously. I left him all alone, the privilege of 5 minutes visiting had expired.
Two hours later we were contacted and told that an ultrasound had found gall stones. Bloody gall stones – painful as crap, yet not on the radar due to rampant paranoia that Covid 19 was a possibility. We were relieved that he would be transported to the other campus for surgery the next morning. But the next chapter was about to unfold as the surgical team discovered his gall bladder was past extracting the stones – it was completely infected. The surgery would be delayed until antibiotics could treat the infection. Two days later and this advice was reversed – he was extremely sick and the gall bladder needed to come out. Six days after presenting, he finally received the procedure that would treat his affliction. But the damage was done…mentally. My father now believes he is ‘nothing’ and that he ‘may as well be a stray dog’. These are his words. He cries every day I visit – and due to Covid 19 restrictions that is one visit per day, for one visitor only. My sister cannot visit him – the rules are not flexible – not even for extreme mental health considerations. He cries when the doctors do their rounds, when the nurses check on him, when his meals arrive. He has suffered from Covid 19…and not in a manner that makes him directly fight for his life, but in a way that will take him a long time to recover. To mentally come to terms with the fact that he is wanted, he is important, he is loved and he is wanted on this Earth. He was predisposed to mental illness but unfortunately this predisposition was not of any concern to the initial treating doctors or nurses in the Emergency Department. His mental state was not taken into consideration and now we are trying to help him find his way back. He lost Mum 26 years ago when she was just 51 and that broke him. He then lost his second partner 18 months ago to kidney failure and the pain of losing a companion returned. We kept reminding him that he had a family that loved him and life would be ok. Now he has every reason to think the world discards you when you have nothing to offer. It might be under the guise of Covid 19, but this is more accurately a situation of Elder Abuse. And, I will finish with a message to the government – they might be throwing money at our health services and making statements of the hundreds of millions that will support Australians but here is the reality…the lack of clear direction; the misunderstanding of what is reasonable (and logical) to allow for person-centred care; the decision-making by paranoid medical staff that leads to further risk to patient health WHILST in medical centres…all of this indicates a lack of follow-through from what the government SAYS is happening, and what is ACTUALLY happening on the ground. The insanity of how my father was treated must not happen to anyone else. We have to work together, and to do that our front-line workers need clear direction that is patient-centred, compassionate and solution-focused.
My father will leave hospital tomorrow – 13 days after first presenting with abdominal pain. I have seen a strong, independent man change in that time. I can only hope that the damage is not permanent.
Last week I announced to my friends that I was trying something completely different this year.
The Philosophical Realist 