Notes from a small ward

As a nation we love our food and there’s nothing like a stay at Mater Dei Hospital to make you realise the extent of our obsession.

Perhaps the NHS should start offering surprise visits from celebrity chefs or get can-can dancers to do the ward rounds- Kristina Chetcuti

I am typing away this column as I lie on one of these delux hospital beds which make me want to constantly press the up and down buttons. I’m stuck onto a drip, and because of the nature of my ailment, am not allowed any food. And I have to say I’m having a hard time: my ward mates only stop eating to discuss food-related topics.

All the six (sick) people sharing my room have so far given each other a rundown on what they ate over Christmas; all the nosh they consumed on their last trip to Lourdes with Euro Tours; the best cookery slots on television (slight tense moment here due to competing edge between Net and One); swapped recipes of marrow soup, the best chicken casserole and the new salmon sticks selling for a very bargain price at Lidl.

In between all this, they barked down orders on their mobiles to relatives who planned to visit them: “Tell aunt Marienne to pack me a sandwich. Nothing fancy mind, tell her to grill some bacon, add cheese and tomatoes and some Branston Pickle”; “Get me some timpana leftovers and some biscuits, those diet ones!”; “Isma, bring with you a Thermos flask with some brodu.”

All this being an in-between snack to fill those moments of peckishness until the hospital menu is served. Dramatic pleas of “I’m going to faint if I don’t eat this very minute” abound generously.

The good thing about this food craving is that nothing is wasted. When by mistake a soup was left on my bed-table, my neighbour kept eyeing it until she finally said: “Sorry ta, are you eating that?”

However gourmet traits are not the only thing I notice here. Public hospital stay-overs can be a real observation treat:

– I notice that husbands visiting their wives never kiss them, and for a long time they just hover somewhere by the edge of the bed.

Wives visiting their husbands, however, immediately go over to the husband and put their hands on their foreheads to check their temperature. Is there an unwritten rule somewhere that no kissing on the lips is allowed in hospitals?

– Staff in the A&E (Accident and Emergency) is incredibly patient and efficient. One nurse spent the entire time dealing with a woman who kept insulting him as being a “posh toff with lots of ħara”. He remained unfailingly polite.

– Doctors in the A&E have that certain je ne sais quoi about them, which reminds me of, what’s the word I’m looking for, ah, yes, George Clooney in ER (if only I wasn’t the wrong shade of green).

– People misjudge the right time to come to A&E. While I was waiting, a patient came in with a minute scratch on the palm of his hand. The nurse took a deep breath and asked him why he hadn’t popped down to the health centre for, erm, treatment.

He replied with concern: “But this is serious. I can’t risk losing my ability to pinch, can I?” In the cubicle next to him lay a man whose wife dragged him to A&E after sheer bleeding all week long. The surgeon was telling him it was now a matter of life or death because he left it too late.

– Patients moan a lot and expect a five-star hotel service. They complain about the limited visiting hours, about not having tea available at all time, and already on their first day in a hospital bed they are phoning relatives telling them they’re bored. Perhaps the NHS should start offering surprise visits from celebrity chefs or get can-can dancers to do the ward rounds.

– People enjoy visiting relatives in hospital. As whole clans gathered round the beds of my neighbours, my sister remarked that Mater Dei is fast replacing the airport as the most favourite Maltese hang-out: “Have you noticed how people dress really smartly for these evening visits?” She added that it felt like she was surfing a wave of perfume as she made her way inside.

– Which brings me to the point that not everyone is the ideal person to accompany you to the A&E. The minute my sister spotted a tiny bit of blood back-flow into my drip, she went all pale, urged me not to panic and then proceeded to faint.

– Lastly, I note that there is a lot of farting and burping and snoring going on after lights-out in the ward. This admittedly is dulling my writing inspiration but at least it’s staving off those hunger pangs.

krischetcuti@gmail.com