How to ensure a hospital visit doesnÕt leave the patient feeling worse

Date Published: {J}

After a couple of visits to different Galway hospitals recently, I’m more convinced than ever that there should be a protocol to observe when visiting someone on their sick bed.

First off, if someone is sick, they rarely need to hear about other people who are also sick – and more importantly they never need to know of anyone who has recently died.

Equally, given that they’re in hospital one presumes they have an illness of their own to worry about. So they don’t need to hear about any of yours. If you have aches or pains – or even just a bad day at the office – tell it to someone who actually cares. Don’t bore the patient with your problems.

Talk to them about things that might actually take their mind off their illness for a few minutes – sport, music, politics (Presidential or office), gossip, the X-Factor, whatever.

You should also bear in mind that there is no consolation for patients in the realisation that things could be worse, and that down the corridor there are people who are sicker than they are. Deploying that sort of logic is like telling a child to eat broccoli because there are starving children in Africa.

And on the subject of food – unless you’re in a very private and posh hospital – there is every chance that the food is of the boarding school variety; so a big dirty burger or snack box could be as welcome as Sean Gallagher and his bag of tricks at a Fianna Fail fundraising dinner.

Equally, on the subject of drink, unless specifically requested, do not bring them Lucozade. A glucose drink is very refreshing when it’s newly opened and ice cold, but it tends to lose its lustre when it’s warm and flat and stickier than fly paper hanging from the kitchen light.

Ditto, skip on grapes and fruit – it shows a shocking lack of imagination when you could be bringing them a book or a newspaper (obviously we’d recommend the Tribune, but feel free to take your choice) or a magazine.

Under no circumstances is a helium balloon appropriate unless you’re visiting your eight year old niece; grown-ups wouldn’t want giant balloons if they were in the whole of their health so it beggars belief why anyone would think it might cheer them up with they’re sick. Settle for a get well card if you want to go down that route.

Most of all, do not outstay your welcome; ten minutes unless otherwise requested should do it. And if others come in while you’re there, then withdraw gracefully to allow others to chat a while.I know I’m extremely fortunate that the only times I’ve ever spent a night in hospital in my life have been for my own birth and as a parent, staying with my children when they were small.

But I do know that, if I was there, nothing would make me more ill than having to divulge the details of what caused me to be there in the first place, to every Tom, Dick and Harry who dropped in for a chat.Worst of all is when visitors come out in empathy, simulating chest pains or the Ebola virus as though this gives them a greater understanding of your condition. I don’t need to know about their aches and pains any more than I would want them to know about mine.

After all, one presumes that the purpose of the visit is to cheer a sick person up – not make them long for a spell in solitary confinement or isolation just so they can have a bit of peace and quiet away from the likes of you.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.