From wyrdolafr: The whole point of this story is that the nurse doesn't work in the spiritual welfare industry, she's employed as a medical practitioner.


I think that doctors and nurses *are* working in a spiritual welfare industry every single moment of their working lives. The problem is Political Correctness has made it a 'scientific' industry only now. What a bloody loss!

The mind is as important as the body, in some cases even more so, and I seem to recall this nurse saying something about taking the whole person into account, not just 'the medical problem'...and here it is.

"Mrs Petrie said: "I stopped handing out prayer cards after that but I found it more and more difficult [not to offer them]. My concern is for the person as a whole, not just their health."

Having someone show they care, even it's just in saying, "Would you like me to say a prayer with/for you?" or "Would you like me to leave ssome loving words for you?" is often a huge step in the patient sstarting to feel that they are not alone.

I recently told the story in another thread of our local GPs surgery. Many of the women in there, the receptionists, are cold and aloof, but *very* PC. Everything is done 'by the book'. Does it make the patients happy? No. Two of them, on the same day, spoke to me about it, saying how UNhappy it made them. One of those patients was a former nurse. When she DID come across a member of staff who was kind and compassionate, she burst into tears, because it was so unusual that it overwhelmed her.

As a former medical secretary/receptionist myself, I used to hug my patients. Sometimes they cried all over me, so I hugged them harder. Nowadays, I'd get sent before some crazy disciplinary something or other, where Cromwellian Folk would sit in judgement of me, label me a pervert and probably put me in prison, let alone take my job away.

The first time I lost one of my little 'souls' I wept in the arms of the chief radiologist, who held me tight, really tight, until there were no tears left. He was the most lovely man, and it was his caring attitude, more than anything, which set me back on the road to hope and health. He didn't act 'by the book' because in those days, there was NO *book* He simply acted on a very human level, to another of his species who was in deep distress. He went out of his way to help me, in a very sad and complicated situation. He visited me three times in hospital and made sure he was there on the day I was discharged, to go through everything with me again...and I gave him a big hug before I left.

His act of caring is still with me today, decades later.

Today, he'd have lost his job almost instantly. He'd have not offered me the beautiful words he did, of such deep wisdom, nor would he have been able to have set me off on the road to eventually having my son, having made me believe in myself, and given me the *spiritual* courage to go on and to survive.

What he gave me *was* purely spiritual, not medical, even though he knew the diagnosis, made it himself and knew the consequences would be long-term.

Nowadays, faced with the same situation, I'd have been told my baby was dead, then just given cold scientific facts, and left to get on with things myself.

I know, because this is what happened the next time round, when I lost another little soul. This time new 'rules' had come into being, and people were no longer allowed to hug one another without even thinking about it. I left that second hospital feeling lost. I felt cold inside...I felt I wanted to die, I felt that no-one cared, nor understood. In short, it was the most sterile situation I had ever been in, and I was surrounded by people who I found cold, miserable and dispassionate. Oh yes, they did everything 'by the book' but I was left almost without hope.

Luckily, I went home and thought back to Dr. Dubbins. His words were so emblazoned inside me, because he'd told me them about three times, and had got me to repeat them back to him, so that he was certain I knew the way forward, and they came floating back to me, as did his empathy and compassion and his will, his utter determination to see me through it all. So, although I was now living in a different place, far from him, I held his spiritual care deep inside me.

So please, don't give me medicine 'by the book'. Let me take the people who are not afraid to reach out and touch, to feel the pain of others and then do something tactile about it, because so very often, that is when the healing starts, long before the first 'drugs' have been administered.

A touch, or a kind thought, even an offer of prayer, means more to me than a thousand injections, or politically correct forms filled in by some cold, unfeeling 'superior officer' who wants to ensure that all is done in the 'correct manner'

They should b*gger off out of it and leave humans to return to the loving, laughing, caring species that we were once, where we were NOT afraid to reach out and touch each other, nor speak to one another freely and in a loving, caring manner.


In the letter, Mrs Petrie, who qualified as a nurse in 1985, was asked to attend an equality and diversity course and warned: "If there is any further similar incident it may be treated as potential misconduct and the formal disciplinary procedure could be instigated."

Bloody Little Hitlers!

Mrs Petrie said: "I stopped handing out prayer cards after that but I found it more and more difficult [not to offer them]. My concern is for the person as a whole, not just their health.

A caring human being and I bet she's a bloody good nurse too.

"I was told not to force my faith on anyone but I could respond if patients themselves brought up the subject [of religion]."

Thought Police!

It is the second incident – the offer to pray for a patient – that led to the disciplinary action. She was suspended from her part-time job, without pay, on December 17.

Absolutely outrageous!

She faced an internal disciplinary meeting last Wednesday and expects to learn the outcome this week.

See?   And had that nonsense been around when I needed to be held and looked after spiritually, then I may well not have lived to tell the tale, because of the terrible implications involved and which I *only* got through because of one man's compassionate caring of my Spirit.

At last week's hour-long meeting, Mrs Petrie says she was told the patient had said she was not offended by the prayer offer but the woman argued that someone else might have been.

Yes, well, I hope that ol' woman is sitting there feeling really smug!
Daft ol' biddy. I'm sorry but folk who go round stirring up trouble like that do not have my respect. There are far too many of them these days. Seems to me she had nothing better to do.