Angel of Protocol

Lest we forget

On this date five years ago my father underwent his final round of kidney dialysis. It was no longer bearable. His option to withdraw from treatment had been much discussed over time so his decision, when it came, brought a mixture of relief and dread along with profound sadness. As anybody knows who has watched the suffering of a loved parent as they die, the time is spent in suspended animation and emotional conflict, desperate simultaneously for it to be over yet never wanting it to be over.

Dad was moved to a side ward where he and we were treated with the utmost gentle kindness by the staff for the few last days of his life. He died ten days before hospital visits were banned and the dying forced into solitude.

The kindness shown to us and then legislated against just a couple of weeks later had not always been evident during his periodic spells in hospital over the years. With the exception of the renal ward where Dad was of course a regular - he joked about visiting his club and the staff cried when he died - the hospital experience at times of medical emergency tended to be dehumanising. This simple poem is about that.

ANGEL OF PROTOCOL

Are you in any pain, Edward?

His name is displayed above his head
to be used with assumed familiarity,
without self-introduction,
the interrogation shrill;
our soothing conversation
abruptly interrupted
by the scheduled opportunity
to dispense another pill.

She consults the clipboard beside his bed,
taps at a digital screen,
checks the regularity of oxygen flow,
the IV drip, the bleeping machine.
Busy in her ministry
she ticks off her list
all the boxes prescribed for her role.
She misses entirely his mumbled reply:

Only a pain of the soul.

Peppy Scott