ST PAUL’S AND HOLY CROSS
Hardly a week seems to go by without the National Health Service being in the news, and sadly, more often than not, it is critical rather than positive comment. To my mind, that is sad: the NHS isn’t perfect, but we are so much better served than the vast majority of the human race. So, thank you, all who provide health care for us.Our elder daughter is a Registrar, working in the Cambridge Deanery of Hospitals: her hours are long: often she works well over the statutory time, out of care for her patients. She sees them as people to be loved, rather than cases to be solved, and spends time talking with her patients and their relatives, to keep them informed, and as relaxed as possible. The feedback she gets is very positive. Patients feel special, valued, and that is a healing thing.
I find it interesting that the words ‘hospital’ and ‘hospitality’ are somehow linked. Good hospital practice works towards a person’s wholeness, not just to treat an illness. Hospitality is about seeing other people as special: in all sorts of ways each of us needs love: someone, some group, to value us, and respect and treat us as individuals, the unique and wonderful person each of us actually is. That way we grow as whole people.
Our hospitals are overstretched, some would say under-resourced, even on occasion, badly managed. Perhaps that may in part be because our practice of hospitality is too limited, even neglected, and given more attention would certainly bring to others a greater sense of self worth, more inner peace and be a real positive in the face of dis-ease in it many forms.
More hospitality…less in hospital…I wonder…
With my greetings,  Jim Stevens