In February of 2022, we released our first Open Call: How might we recreate public health as art, letters, stories, and poetry? The following is a poetry submission we received from this open call.
“My poems address the issue of medical negligence through the stories of the pain felt by the family and the person itself, but more so of how medical negligence has led to the death of a loved one and to the suffering of the family. I know a lot of relatives and friends who have lost loved ones due to medical negligence and it can be hard to convey into words the agony that particular loved on went through due to the doctors and nurses’ mistakes.”
Gaayatri Sivanantham
Never Again!
Beep. Beep… beep…
“Help me.”
…beep…
Flatline.
Her ragged breathing
stopped.
Her struggling heartbeat
stopped.
The world just
stopped.
Her daughters wept,
her sons-in-law grieved,
her grandchildren stood
huddled to the side,
numb and broken.
No tears cried could
compare to the river held
within. A dam waiting to
burst. Waiting, churning.
It flooded the meeting,
medical director silent, ‘
doctors unabashed,
nurses quiet. Just
silence. No words,
except the grieving daughters
asking for their mother back.
…
“How is she?”
“She’s fine, she’s alright.”
Next hour, frantic calls,
her conditioned worsened.
Denied entry due to the
pandemic, reduce chances of
infecting patients further.
But they did not lose their mother
to Covid-19, but to human error.
“How is she?”
“She’s alright, she’s improving.”
Next minute, cousin calls,
she’s in severe pain, she’s pale.
A successful emergency surgery
but brewing within her frail body
they failed to check, failed to see.
“How is she?”
“She’s better now, she really is!”
Joy and exhilaration,
relief replacing the tension.
She’s coming home!
Next second, nurse calls…
“You should call everyone.”
The world just stopped.
Halted dead.
…
Two teams, two differing
responses on her state,
Could they not see?
Her suffering, could they
have chosen ignorance instead?
Chosen to hide their mistakes?
Mismanagement. Simply that.
No legal suits, no court,
they had to settle.
The hurt daughter takes the pen,
Her weapon, her ally
to fight against powerful foes.
Her vow to her mother,
her promise to her child,
She pens her woes,
And many others who suffered
Similar losses, throes
Of death and grief.
“Never again… never again!”
For another death to be in vain,
For another family to be in pain,
For another powerful faculty to
walk away free under a sky blue.
They should be mindful.
All lives are meaningful.
Old, disabled, young, stranger,
All lives do matter.
White whale
Enclosed within white walls,
sanitized suffocating sobs
from far off. Icy fingers
slip from warm-blooded ones,
not thawed, too gone.
He who beached on sharded
sands, wounded.
His rumbling calls
reverberates from grain to stone,
resounding from metal to bone,
clean and fresh.
Pricks on his flesh
could no balm relieve.
In ocean blue, his family
await his return, pacing
the currents path, tails
restless and hearts racing.
They can’t touch the beach,
its white pristine floor,
a barrier for the outside.
They await in vain.
His ailment no cure,
but lies trickle in IV drops
with metal bars
and bleached bone.
Slippery hands let go the
warm body of his,
and his soul slipped from him.
Within the white walls,
splattered splotches of sobs
and dried blood,
the white whale slips
into ocean milk.
Cool, and long gone.
Follow Us On Social Media!
Instagram: @light4ph
Twitter: @light4ph
Facebook: @LIGHT – Leaders Igniting Generational Healing and Transformation
Youtube: @light4ph
