I was recently hospitalised and spent some time in the wards of a local hospital. For most of the stay I was in a room with 3 other men with similar ailments. We all were subject to a routine where we were prodded, pricked, measured, weighed and subject to various other indignities and small degradations on a regularly scheduled basis, including late night wake ups and trips to the loo for urine samples wearing those bare-arsed hospital gowns. We were constantly asked our names and date of birth by rotating crews of nurses, technicians and orderlies and when given medications. Doctors came around episodically, sometimes trailing junior colleagues who asked us to explain why were there as if we were children. In return we barraged them with questions about when we would be released, questions that they could not answer until all protocols had cleared and been signed off on.
On seperate occasions two of my roommates, older Maori men, objected to the constant repetition of the procedures and processes. One appeared to be a senior member of his whanau (given his visitors) and the other claimed to have been abused while in State care. Both clearly believed in defending their mana. Neither liked being ordered around by the all female, all foreign nursing and technician staff. Although there was some language hurdles, I thought that the women were actually quite polite and patient in their interactions with us. But they were firm and insistent in any event.
The men most vigorously objected to the repeated checking of basic facts (name/DOB, with the man who spoke of his time in State care mentioning that his Maori name was changed against his will into a Pakeha name while he was in State custody and the other fellow mentioning that the staff should figure out who he was by then), having given the same answers each time. As the days passed they objected to the constant taking of blood samples, temperatures, blood oxygen levels and other body status indicators, as well as being moved around for scans in other parts of the hospital. So did I, but silently. At times they refused to comply with instructions, eventually requiring the doctors to intervene in order to chart their progress.
I was completely sympathetic to their complaints because quite frankly, the routine was a pain in the rear. Plus, we all detested the food (prepared by David Seymor’s cronies at Compass, the same outfit awarded the Ministry of Health school lunch contract) and the intrusions on our sleep given how little of it we could get. For those of us in that wardroom, the thrill (such as it was) was gone.
As I listened to their complaints I realized that these men were coming late to a women’s “party.” Underneath the specifics that bothered them lie a broader phenomenon that extended beyond their individual circumstances. In the end what they were complaining about, and which they were attempting to defend against, was their bodily autonomy and the intrusions upon it. This was not just a defense of mana although it deeply involves it. As women everywhere know all too well, this is a condition where one’s body is not one’s own, but instead is subject to the manipulations and demands of others. I wondered if these men made that connection–that their plight was akin to that of women everywhere at some point in their lives–and concluded that they probably did not because their concerns were immediate and unreflective about the broader syndrome. They were living their unhappy moment, not dwelling on the deeper context in which their human agency was being infringed.
My approach to hospitalisations, much like my approach to air travel, is to not rock the boat, try to get along, suffer indignities in quiet and avoid trouble with petty tyrants in the medical hierarchy and passenger control and security infrastructure. But I have an advantage in that I am a mediocre older white guy who does not have to defend my bodily autonomy or my mana on a regular basis. For those who do, the issue could well be existential rather than a mere inconvenience, and given that perspective born of life experience, a reason to protest against otherwise seemingly small slights.
Beyond that realisation about bodily autonomy, I used the involuntary holiday in the wards as a time for reflection on my own life and what is in store for my loved ones down the road. More immediately, I witnessed a hallway fight and a death in the first ward I was assigned to (which served as a type of triage unit). My care was actually quite good but it was clear that the staff were undermanned and overworked. Most of all, although being able to leave the hospital in a somewhat vertical position was a plus, I also realized yet again that it takes extraordinary people to handle with grace and aplomb the everyday grind of dealing with very unhappy and sometimes uncooperative patients in very unfortunate circumstances not always of their own making. In other words, it seems that when it comes to intrusions on one’s personal autonomy, hospital staff also have reasons to complain. Because foreign or not, they have mana, too.
To them, I tip my hat.
And to those old guys in our wardroom defending their mana, I say good on you because what are we if we do not have our dignity to defend? To them and decent old guys everywhere I say: Kia kaha.