May
2006
Push the button and let me know
Yesterday I had to test the hospital’s liftiere (”elevator operator ladies”), all five of them. If you aren’t a doc, a nurse or a patient you’re not alowed to travel by elevator. Hospital policy, undisclosed reason. If you’re one of those, you get traveling rights, but only if one of the elevator ladies pushes the buttons for you. They sit on their small stools for eight hours, monotonely pushing the six buttons , surrounded by infernal cable shrieks (What, you think the hospital money is spent on modernising or rutinely repairing THOSE? Heh. Good one.) They work nightshift and weekends. They are yelled at by angry civilians that don’t understand why they have to climb five sets of stairs with their kid in their arms to go to the Pediatric ward and don’t have a reasonable explanation for their refusal. They are paid around 150 $ / month. Yeah, just your average dreamjob.
I had to see if they were still fit to work on heights and assume responsabilities involving human lives. It was fascinating. Five lifestories unfolded before me, each with its own, very personal misery .
First was the lady who’s son worked five years in Germany, came back driving a car bought for a friend who sent him the money for it by Moneygram. He drove three days without stopping to sleep for more than three-four hours, because the friend had a wedding to attend and was anxious to show the new car. Not long after crossing the Romanian border he fell asleep and got out of the road, hit a tree and stopped in a ditch, turned upside down. The airbags saved him, but the car was unrepairable, so all five years’money went to pay back the friend who bought the car. The mom was deemed fit to work.
Next came the one who’s second daughter was born premature at six months, with cerebral palsy and half blind. The parents sold most of what they had in the house, went to the best docs in Transylvania and now, after four years, the girl stands up and says around ten words. The mom was deemed fit to work.
After that entered a lady with an alcoholic husband that beats her and a troublemaker teenager that hates the mom for staying with dad. The mom cries a lot and was found with deep depression, suicidal thoughts on the side. She forgot to close the elevator door one night two months ago and blocked the cabin two levels under the open door. A tired nurse almost fell though the open door in the dark. The woman says she can’t leave her husband. I deemed her unfit, gently tried to pesuade her to start treatment and get the fuck out of her relationship.
I don’t remember much about the forth woman, except that money was scarce in the family and the husband lost his job not long ago. She was deemed fit.
The fifth was in the middle of the biggest mess from all five, recently catching her husband cheating on her after fifteen years of marriage. The husband also works in the hospital and I remember testing him - a quiet, introvert guy with a pleasant smile and a lovely sanity. He says he still loves her and it was a one-time mistake. She says she doesn’t recognize him anymore. Their 11-year old cries herself to sleep each night even if neither of them is telling her what’s going on. Neither spouse can move out, even for a short time, because there isn’t any place to go. She was deemed fit.
Speaking of deemed fit to work, Andrea–how can you hear tales of woe and heartbreak like this everyday and still carry on? I’d never be able to do it.
You detach - otherwise you get suicidal or befriend the bottle. Just ask an ambulance nurse or somebody from the ER.