Everything comes back!
Stigmas too, there are attitudes that are difficult to eliminate. Just over a year ago, a black man, a euphemism for black, arrived at an Emergency Department in the US with chest pain. He asked for special treatment, either privacy or protection, given that he was a celebrity as a member of the musical quartet Four Tops. Upon hearing these words, an auxiliary health officer ordered the man’s oxygen to be removed and a psychological evaluation to be performed. When he protested, a security guard belittled him because of his status as a person of color, black, and began to put a straitjacket on him, now they call it restraints, another euphemism. This person had a long history of heart problems and was already on oxygen when he arrived at the hospital. On discharge, it was found that he had suffered a heart attack and needed a heart transplant and had pneumonia. Although the man insisted that he was the singer of the quartet, it was thought that he had a psychiatric problem. The eternal relationship, not true, between agitation or violence and some mental illnesses. The only problem was that the man, Alexander Morris, was indeed a member of the Four Tops. Luckily, his wife arrived and, seeing what was happening, clarified the situation. However, the security guard continued to refuse medical treatment and maintain restraints until a nurse intervened and fixed it, after asking for hard evidence; he did it with a video. It can be seen that the presumption of mental health must be proven. Ah! The hospital has offered him a $25 voucher to use at a supermarket chain; a downward estimate of the value of dignity.
A related story
This story recalls a legend that occurred in a psychiatric hospital in Catalonia in the 1970s. A resident doctor from another service, who wanted to make guards at the psychiatric ward to add a glamor of progress in his environment, insisted until he got it. On his first day on duty, he showed up at 9 p.m., greeted the doorman, and got in without a hitch. What the doctor did not know was that the professionals of the institution were not satisfied with his presence and warned the porter that they were expecting a deluded person with delusions of being a doctor. They decided to keep him until the head of the acute care unit visited him the next day. At that time, the rights of the people admitted were completely trampled upon. The problem was when the doctor wanted to leave to go to another ward. The more he insisted to the porter and the more he shouted that he was a doctor, the clearer it became that he needed to enter. He suffered for half an hour until he managed to prove his identity with his ID, driver’s license and certificate of normalcy. An experience that led him to adopt a Zen attitude.
