All Visiting Suspended

Lying in my hospital bed, I would wait for the distinct sound of my Mom’s high heels as she walked down the passage to visit me. Later, when the ward had settled in for the evening, I would hear my friends telling the night matron that they should be allowed to visit me even if it was outside of visiting hours. She would smile and let them in. We would whisper and laugh in a dimly lit ward until she came to tell my friends their unofficial visiting time was finished.  

This was almost three decades ago, when my Mom still wore high heels and I was in hospital recovering from a back operation. I can vividly remember waiting for my visitors and how great I felt when they arrived and how I would hang in there until they arrived at the next visiting hour.

Visitors are a critical and crucial part of healing for a patient.

I have also been a visitor and although it is exhausting to go and see your loved one once, twice or even three times a day, it is hugely beneficial. You get to see the patient, interact with, maybe even pray over or only sit with in silence. You can see firsthand if they have a catheter, how wounds are healing, mindset, drips and other equipment. You can hear firsthand that chocolate would be welcome, or to please bring their brush or magazines or that the book is finished. When you see something that wasn’t there the day before, it is possible to ask what it is. You even have the option of reading the patient’s chart and assuming you can read the comments, it is possible to get even more insight. You can ask questions about food and whether they are eating, look around a ward and see who else is there, look out of a window, notice if there is a clock and TV. It is possible to chat with staff and get an idea of who is who and read body language and subconsciously to know the prognosis. The real benefit of visiting hours is the human connection with your loved one and the feedback you get from seeing them every day. You can know at a deep level whether they are getting better or have had a setback or maybe their earthly time is drawing to a close. It can be an important time to sort that which needs sorting and also to say goodbye.

Being able to visit is a critical and crucial part for visitors.

 Fast forward to Covid-19 and a global pandemic. Suddenly hospitals become no-go areas and we have

ALL Visiting Suspended.

Of course this made sense to me when I first heard it, but maybe because I have a healthcare background. It still makes sense to me and it is there to protect staff, patients and visitors. It only takes one C-19 positive person to wreak havoc on a hospital setting and compromise the health of every single person in that hospital as well as the health of all employees’ families.

A few weeks ago, I was forced to experience exactly how “ALL Visiting Suspended” feels and the impact it has on the family, patient and also the hospital staff. It was no longer just a sentence out there, but something that had and continues to have a very real impact on my family.

Recently, my Dad had a stroke and was taken to hospital by ambulance. Suddenly what was a stressful, emotionally charged event faced by thousands of families every year became so much more because of those three words – ALL Visiting Suspended.

No - my Mom was not allowed to go with in the ambulance. No - she was not allowed to pop in to see him the next day. She sat on a bench outside the main hospital doors signing papers. No - she was not allowed into Medical ICU where he spent more than a week. No - she was not allowed to visit him when he was moved to Medical Ward and No - she wasn’t allowed to see him when he was moved to Surgical Ward for his last night in hospital before he was discharged to go home.

So many people would comment “BUT surely your Mom is allowed? No surely not. If we had to make an exception and allow one person for every person in hospital, we may as well allow everyone. Here, I got to see how we all know that visiting is suspended, but it only hits home when it affects you directly. It stops being some rule out there and suddenly has devastating and personal meaning.

So many people asked my brother and me if we were or had gone to my Mom and seen my Dad?

No – my folks live in a retirement village, (in another province to me) and all visitors are not allowed. Yes – even the children of a very sick parent. Visiting banned by the hospital and by the retirement village meant that my brother and I had to stay exactly where we were and continue to be and make use of technology to support our Mom.

Now, all the info we would have gathered ourselves, we now had to source another way. The family decided that I would be the person to connect the hospital and medical staff with news of my Dad to them.

Therein started another stressful part of the journey. Finding a way to extract useful information from people who are not necessarily able or willing or capable of giving the details the family craved. It takes empathy and energy to give a daily update on a patient that includes more information than the patient is stable. Don’t get me wrong. I came across many healthcare workers who were able to empathise and understood how I was feeling on a much deeper level. Remember, it was only more than a week later that I was able to speak to my Dad. I also interacted with many healthcare workers who did not have the skill and understanding and maybe the time to say more than “Dad is sleeping. Dad is fine.”

I had an internal juggle of balancing Colleen as a Life Coach and Colleen as a daughter. Every day, I dug deep to tell myself that no amount of hopping up and down on my side would allow a person to acquire a skill they may not have. I also knew that I did not know what that person was experiencing or had gone through or how many stressors they may be faced with. It is true that every single person has their cracks from this pandemic. Some of those cracks are hairline and others are gaping fissures. Some days our cracks will not allow us to support others and their cracks. Care for the Carer most certainly took on even more meaning.

I know from listening to a surgeon friend that there is huge trauma in front line staff trying to work out how to support patients when they have no family with them. How do you give news of a terminal diagnosis when that person is alone? How do you support a dying patient who has no loved ones with them? How do you go home to your own family and not take the heaviness of the day or the virus with you?

From my Dad’s side. He is at home healing and will soon go away to an intense rehab programme. We are grateful for all the care my Dad received and delighted that he is recovering so well.

I have spent time on the phone with him (Yes - I am still not allowed in the retirement village) and have asked him about the stories he told me while he was in hospital. I will share more with you about his perspective in hospital in another article.

Join me in praying for all those who are impacted by “ALL Visiting Suspended” and that all our hairline cracks may be filled by love and care.

Should you be family, a patient or a healthcare worker, I am here for you as a Life Coach and you are welcome to contact me.

Colleen Qvist is a Daughter, Life Coach, Business Coach, Facilitator and Speaker. Colleen is a Master Credentialed Coach and her company is CQ Consulting.

Contact Colleen on [email protected]

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