THE PATIENT AS A PERSON

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31097, 28 June 1966, Page 2

THE PATIENT AS A PERSON

Acceptance of a patient as a person was the Nurse Maude District \ Nursing Association’s greatest asset in these days of sterile efficiency, Mgr. T. E. Liddy told the association’s annual meeting yesterday.

“Without its loving Christian spirit the work of the association would languish. A patient needed to be loved, not just healed,” he said. “This love is necessary if nurses are not to become technicians or bureaucrats. “It is not good enough to help others just because they deserve help—some do, some don’t—or because they are grateful—many are not—or because we like them, or because helping gives us a feeling of goodness—feelings are unreliable. “Usefulness in the community is something like a spirit of charity, but, to be real charity, there must be acceptance of others—good, bad or indifferent Whether we like those in need they must be accepted because they are accepted by God." Recalling his Impressions when he was hospital chaplain, Mgr. Liddy said: “Many patients came from homes that were not too clean or hygienic and there they would be, all scrubbed clean and shining in spotless beds and looking so unhappy. "They wanted to go home, to get back to an atmosphere where they were real persons and were loved. “St. Vincent de Paul, in the days before his death, told the youngest of a group of

nursing sisters, that charity ’ was a far heavier load to 1 carry than bread and soup, i “He told her to always be gentle and smiling. The rich < could give food. She must 1 also give love. Her patients 1

were the masters who could be exacting, ugly, unjust and uncivilised. “Only if she gave love could they forgive her the bread she brought. Even now, in a welfare state, un-

less help Is given with love and understanding, it is resented,” he said. Christian charity was the great strength of the association and it must be treasured lest it be lost