This proposal concerns the 'phantoms in the waiting rooms of hospitals'.
Too often I've been one of the phantoms that await the visiting hours which permit us to be with a loved one, in the designated barren, no-man's land waiting room. I have been one of the multitudes of unseen and forgotten people, forgetting to eat, unable to focus on a magazine or TV, if they exist at all. Waiting out our time in a drab and almost forbidding environment.
Having experienced this myself, I have convinced others, one-by-one, to share some food with me. I've spoken with them and shared their fears. When they wouldn't accompany me to the cafeteria, I've brought food, or just coffee to them, in the barren waiting pen. When they appeared too anxious to talk, I held their hands, or put my arm around their shoulders if they permitted, and quietly shared. Sometimes what evolved was my visiting their loved ones, when they couldn't.
My heart's desire is to see a programme that provides a voluntary or funded service that helps these 'phantoms' know they exist - exist not as an adjunct to a sick loved one, who is hopefully getting their needs met, but as individuals in pain. Pain at feeling helpless, with no lives outside the waiting room, and then seeing their loved ones in continuing distress. Why can't these phantoms wait in sunshine-painted rooms, with soothing music as a background, and hung with paintings of light and hope? Why can't they experience volunteers with carts of sandwiches, coffee or snacks? Volunteers with caring hearts who can just be there with these waiting people, making the agonising wait a humanistic sharing?
Frances Ehrlich, 661 3rd Place, Garden City So., N. Y. 11530, USA.
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