No Barriers

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Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

We are nurses; essentially our main role is to "care" for the sick. Working in an institution which caters to patients belonging to different nationalities and cultural backgrounds, I sometimes come up short with the means of communicating with them. Not everyone speaks English and while I can fluently speak the main language of the region, there are other patients who come to us equipped only with the language of their own countries.

We have language bank, yes, but the translators can only give us so much of their time. So we are left with hand signals and gestures to help us through our shifts. Personally, I like talking to my patients. I use this as a means of gathering more information about them and using what I learned in planning my care for them. I also would like to think that when I spend time listening to my patients, I somehow help them get through the stress of being admitted in the hospital.

Care should know no barriers. Like love, it should transcend all boundaries. As a nurse, it is an essential part of my work to give my patients the care due to them regardless of their race, culture and spiritual background. Even in the busiest of shifts, one must find the time to make a patient feel that he is a person and not a "case of".

One recent experience taught me how important my job is. It reminded me why I became a nurse. I had a patient who has been in a coma for 6 months and his family has been flown from his country to look after him. The family doesn't speak English and only had to rely on their pocket dictionary and hand gestures to tell the nurses what they want.

The patient was newly transferred to our ward and while I was on my way to check on my patient who is on the other bed, I said hello to the patient's mother. I spoke to her in English and while doing so, she handed me a photo of her son on his wedding day. Then she began crying. I could only hold her and comfort her with my arms around her. My heart broke for her.

Here was a grieving mother, whose son's prognosis remains unclear, and stuck in a country where no one understands her. I could only hold her while she cried on my shoulder. I was frustrated that I had no words of comfort to offer her, but then I realized that I didn't need words. In that moment when I hugged her to me, I realized that I have given her the comfort she so desperately sought.

Just seeing us, nurses, take good care of her son assured her that he is in good hands. Little did I know that while I was doing my job, I have done something great for a patient's family. And I think this is the very thing that we nurses tend to forget.

We get so lost with all the things that we need to do, that we forget to pause for a while and talk to the patient. Although the patient came to us for medical treatment, we should take into consideration that he came to us to be cared for. The patient will not remember how he was cured, but he will remember how was taken cared of. Yes, we might encounter barriers that prevent us from communicating well with the patient but medical care when provided with utter sincerity wouldn't need words. The action will speak for itself.

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Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. - Leo F. Buscaglia