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GUEST COLUMN |
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Love and Care
can Heal
Shobhaa De |
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Four years ago, our family
driver died a slow death. At the time we were intensely
shocked. But also, intensely ignorant. Till the last month
of his illness, we had no idea that he was HIV-positive.
We had watched him lose weight over a period of time and
even joked about it. Till the time he fell ill, he had
had an impressive paunch. My husband would chide him and
say a young man in his 40s had no business walking around
with a round belly. It was only when other signals conveyed
their ominous message that we realised his weight loss
had nothing to do with our daily nagging.
He was seriously ill and needed immediate hospitalization.
The problem was getting him a bed once his condition had
been diagnosed. Fortunately, he got himself admitted into
a special ward hospital. A clean and efficiently-run ward,
manned by sensitized doctors and nursing staff. His last
few weeks were spent in relative comfort and dignity with
a caring family |
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| and an attentive medical fraternity
monitoring every bodily crisis. When he finally passed away,
it was in peace, at his own neat home, surrounded by his loved
ones. The hospital had wisely discharged him once it was established
that nothing more could be done from the doctor's side. It was
a good decision. It is what our driver wished for himself. |
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| Four years later, I still wonder
how I missed the early warning signs? Why didn't I decode the
symptoms? Not that my vigilance would have saved his life. But
at least those two or three years of being treated for everything
but the real problem would have been better spent. It is possible
that he knew all along what was he suffering from. But he did
not share the information with either us or his immediate family.
That is what, in retrospect, I consider, was the real tragedy.
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| So much shame, so much condemnation,
so much revulsion. Any illness has to be borne with exceptional
fortitude. But this particular condition calls for much more.
And if society at large continues to treat the affected as untouchables,
more and more will suppress the knowledge of their own sad "verdicts"
and live their limited days in misery and pain. As I saw our
beloved driver wither away, his empty eyes told their own story.
I know he died a lonely and miserable man because he thought
he was being "judged" by all of us. It was not true,
of course, but such is the deep-rooted perception and prejudice
regarding a person living with HIV/AIDS. |
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| We must not pass value judgements on another's
life. We are there to assure the affected that they matter to
us. And that we love them. Surely that's not too much to ask?
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| (All the views expressed in this column are entirely
that of the author) |
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| About
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