What really motivates us?
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
“Our Unusual Christmas Day”
From Yahoo features
http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/%E2%80%9Cour-unusual-christmas-day%E2%80%9D.html
By Natalie Blenford – Tue, Dec 13, 2011 18:23 GMT
Forget turkey and all the trimmings at three o’clock: four people tell us about their unusual plans for Christmas day.
The nurse
Chloë Gillen, 23, is a Staff Nurse in the Parrot Ward at Great Ormond Street hospital in London. She’ll be working from 7.30am to 8.30pm on Christmas day, and has worked on Christmas day for the past two years
“I’ll be looking after sick children at Great Ormond Street”
“I’ll get up at 6am on Christmas day and slip out of my house in South-East London before any of my family are awake. I’ll drive to Great Ormond Street, park the car and be on the Ward by 7.30am.
The children in my ward are being treated for neurological conditions such as brain tumours and some of them are terminally ill, but there’s always a festive atmosphere on Christmas day. Last year, the Fire Brigade came down with toys; a choir popped in to sing carols and the consultants brought their kids into the hospital too. Loads of relatives come down to celebrate with their children, so it will definitely be a full-house!
I help give Christmas stockings out at 8am – we make one for every child – and we help them unwrap their presents. We never do planned surgery on Christmas day, but last year there were a few emergency operations, and if this happens again, I’ll spend most of my shift giving antibiotics intravenously and monitoring post-operative patients. It can be busy and very intense.
I’ll grab a 45-minute lunch break anytime between one and six o’clock. The canteen lays on a Christmas buffet and we get a free voucher so we don’t have to pay, but it’s not as nice as a home-cooked dinner! The last hour of my shift will be spent writing reports, and then I’ll say goodbye to the kids at 8.30pm.
I’ll be home by 9pm, and usually my family is still sitting at the table eating Christmas dinner as they don’t start until 7.30pm. There are 15 people coming over to my parent’s house this year, including my boyfriend, so I’ll grab a plate of food, heat it up and join them.
My mum will start fussing over me, making sure I’ve got enough to eat, and then we’ll open presents. They wait all day to open theirs so we can all do it together, which is very sweet. I’m usually exhausted and will fall asleep on the sofa by 11pm. I’ll have worked 40 hours in three days by Christmas night, so I’m looking forward to Boxing Day which I have off!
My Christmas is definitely unusual, but it gives me a lot of perspective on my own life. I see other people’s reality, which makes me feel lucky. And my family are so proud of me for working in this job, which is really rewarding too.”
The non-Christian family
Esti and David Cook live in Hertfordshire with their three children, Elliot, 18, Shelley, 16 and Joel, 12. Because they’re Jewish, they don’t celebrate Christmas, although they borrow some of the more fun traditions…
“We’ll be lighting Chanukah candles before having Christmas lunch”
Esti says: “We’re a Jewish family and I’ve got my son’s Barmitzvah next year, so we don’t make a big deal out of Christmas, but we get together as a family and enjoy a festive meal.
My brother and his children come over to our house, we have an indulgent gathering with lots of wine, crackers and lovely food.
We like the romanticism of Christmas – the lights, the cards – but we don’t wake up on Christmas morning and say ‘happy Christmas everybody!’
The Jewish festival of Chanukah lasts for eight days and this year it coincides with Christmas, so we’ll light Chanukah candles before we sit down for dinner, once it gets dark. We’ll sing a special Chanukah song, and then maybe Shelley will get a present!
After dinner, we’ll take the dog for a walk and then watch Eastenders, Downton Abbey and all the other Christmas specials. Then we’ll all crawl up to bed about 11pm.
From a religious point of view, the day means nothing to us, but we live in England which is a Christian country, so of course we’re going to join in a little bit. As Shelley says, Christmas is everywhere so we just embrace it.”
Shelley says: “This year, I’ll wake up at 9am and run into my parent’s room to see if they’ve got me a present. I usually get my presents for Chanukah instead – but this year the two festivals coincide day so I’m hoping mum and dad will make an exception!
We’ll watch TV and have a big Christmas breakfast of eggs, sausages and muffins, then I’ll lay the table very nicely with Christmas crackers. I love crackers, and I’m sure that’s the one thing that that every single family has.
We’ll have dinner – maybe a kosher turkey, or salmon with roast potatoes, and then we’ll watch more TV.
I do feel envious of people who celebrate Christmas properly – it’s a nice thing to do, it’s cute. I like everything to do with Christmas. I love the decorations, lights and family time. I do Secret Santa with my Jewish girl friends and I really want a tree in my room!
Overall, I think Christmas has an effect on everyone, irrespective of whether you are religious. There’s always the Christmas spirit around.”
The volunteer
Charlotte Blyth, 37, a practise manager from Crystal Palace, will be volunteering for Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people, on Christmas day. She manages the Crisis at Christmas centre at Deptford Reach in South-East London and will welcome approximately 120 guests on Christmas day.
“I’ll be making Christmas Day special for 120 homeless people”
“I’ve volunteered with Crisis at Christmas for the past ten years and I always work on December 25th. I’m up at 5.30am and at the centre by 7am, and I manage a team of 35 volunteers. My day starts with a team briefing at 7am. A lot of the volunteers are first-timers, so I explain that we can have anything from 15 to 120 guests coming to the centre, and that it’s our job to give them a special Christmas experience.
After the briefing, we get to work. We cook breakfast, buy newspapers, open the IT suite, set up the arts and crafts areas and get the Bingo ready. The first guests arrive at 8am, and our visiting experts come shortly afterwards. We have doctors, masseuses, hairdressers, piano players and choirs – they all donate their time to make our guests feel special.
At 12.30, we start cooking lunch. Crisis goes through 4,000 loaves of bread over the Christmas period – there is a lot of cooking to do! My shift finishes at 3pm, and I spend the next hour handing over to the night manager and doing a de-brief.
If I’m not too tired, I’ll drive out to Hertfordshire to see my dad and my sisters for the evening, but often I just go home to Crystal Palace and collapse. Volunteers are too busy to think about giving each other presents on Christmas day, but we do have a big get-together after Christmas where we celebrate properly.
I work at Crisis every day from 22nd to 30th December – I take annual leave from my job to be able to do this. But I don’t see it as a sacrifice at all.
I’m not the sort of person who can sit down and eat a box of chocolates and watch Eastenders – that’s not me. Christmas is about giving and the best thing you can give is your time. Honestly, this is the most rewarding job in the world and I’d miss it so much if I didn’t do it every year.”
http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/%E2%80%9Cour-unusual-christmas-day%E2%80%9D.html
By Natalie Blenford – Tue, Dec 13, 2011 18:23 GMT
Forget turkey and all the trimmings at three o’clock: four people tell us about their unusual plans for Christmas day.
The nurse
Chloë Gillen, 23, is a Staff Nurse in the Parrot Ward at Great Ormond Street hospital in London. She’ll be working from 7.30am to 8.30pm on Christmas day, and has worked on Christmas day for the past two years
“I’ll be looking after sick children at Great Ormond Street”
“I’ll get up at 6am on Christmas day and slip out of my house in South-East London before any of my family are awake. I’ll drive to Great Ormond Street, park the car and be on the Ward by 7.30am.
The children in my ward are being treated for neurological conditions such as brain tumours and some of them are terminally ill, but there’s always a festive atmosphere on Christmas day. Last year, the Fire Brigade came down with toys; a choir popped in to sing carols and the consultants brought their kids into the hospital too. Loads of relatives come down to celebrate with their children, so it will definitely be a full-house!
I help give Christmas stockings out at 8am – we make one for every child – and we help them unwrap their presents. We never do planned surgery on Christmas day, but last year there were a few emergency operations, and if this happens again, I’ll spend most of my shift giving antibiotics intravenously and monitoring post-operative patients. It can be busy and very intense.
I’ll grab a 45-minute lunch break anytime between one and six o’clock. The canteen lays on a Christmas buffet and we get a free voucher so we don’t have to pay, but it’s not as nice as a home-cooked dinner! The last hour of my shift will be spent writing reports, and then I’ll say goodbye to the kids at 8.30pm.
I’ll be home by 9pm, and usually my family is still sitting at the table eating Christmas dinner as they don’t start until 7.30pm. There are 15 people coming over to my parent’s house this year, including my boyfriend, so I’ll grab a plate of food, heat it up and join them.
My mum will start fussing over me, making sure I’ve got enough to eat, and then we’ll open presents. They wait all day to open theirs so we can all do it together, which is very sweet. I’m usually exhausted and will fall asleep on the sofa by 11pm. I’ll have worked 40 hours in three days by Christmas night, so I’m looking forward to Boxing Day which I have off!
My Christmas is definitely unusual, but it gives me a lot of perspective on my own life. I see other people’s reality, which makes me feel lucky. And my family are so proud of me for working in this job, which is really rewarding too.”
The non-Christian family
Esti and David Cook live in Hertfordshire with their three children, Elliot, 18, Shelley, 16 and Joel, 12. Because they’re Jewish, they don’t celebrate Christmas, although they borrow some of the more fun traditions…
“We’ll be lighting Chanukah candles before having Christmas lunch”
Esti says: “We’re a Jewish family and I’ve got my son’s Barmitzvah next year, so we don’t make a big deal out of Christmas, but we get together as a family and enjoy a festive meal.
My brother and his children come over to our house, we have an indulgent gathering with lots of wine, crackers and lovely food.
We like the romanticism of Christmas – the lights, the cards – but we don’t wake up on Christmas morning and say ‘happy Christmas everybody!’
The Jewish festival of Chanukah lasts for eight days and this year it coincides with Christmas, so we’ll light Chanukah candles before we sit down for dinner, once it gets dark. We’ll sing a special Chanukah song, and then maybe Shelley will get a present!
After dinner, we’ll take the dog for a walk and then watch Eastenders, Downton Abbey and all the other Christmas specials. Then we’ll all crawl up to bed about 11pm.
From a religious point of view, the day means nothing to us, but we live in England which is a Christian country, so of course we’re going to join in a little bit. As Shelley says, Christmas is everywhere so we just embrace it.”
Shelley says: “This year, I’ll wake up at 9am and run into my parent’s room to see if they’ve got me a present. I usually get my presents for Chanukah instead – but this year the two festivals coincide day so I’m hoping mum and dad will make an exception!
We’ll watch TV and have a big Christmas breakfast of eggs, sausages and muffins, then I’ll lay the table very nicely with Christmas crackers. I love crackers, and I’m sure that’s the one thing that that every single family has.
We’ll have dinner – maybe a kosher turkey, or salmon with roast potatoes, and then we’ll watch more TV.
I do feel envious of people who celebrate Christmas properly – it’s a nice thing to do, it’s cute. I like everything to do with Christmas. I love the decorations, lights and family time. I do Secret Santa with my Jewish girl friends and I really want a tree in my room!
Overall, I think Christmas has an effect on everyone, irrespective of whether you are religious. There’s always the Christmas spirit around.”
The volunteer
Charlotte Blyth, 37, a practise manager from Crystal Palace, will be volunteering for Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people, on Christmas day. She manages the Crisis at Christmas centre at Deptford Reach in South-East London and will welcome approximately 120 guests on Christmas day.
“I’ll be making Christmas Day special for 120 homeless people”
“I’ve volunteered with Crisis at Christmas for the past ten years and I always work on December 25th. I’m up at 5.30am and at the centre by 7am, and I manage a team of 35 volunteers. My day starts with a team briefing at 7am. A lot of the volunteers are first-timers, so I explain that we can have anything from 15 to 120 guests coming to the centre, and that it’s our job to give them a special Christmas experience.
After the briefing, we get to work. We cook breakfast, buy newspapers, open the IT suite, set up the arts and crafts areas and get the Bingo ready. The first guests arrive at 8am, and our visiting experts come shortly afterwards. We have doctors, masseuses, hairdressers, piano players and choirs – they all donate their time to make our guests feel special.
At 12.30, we start cooking lunch. Crisis goes through 4,000 loaves of bread over the Christmas period – there is a lot of cooking to do! My shift finishes at 3pm, and I spend the next hour handing over to the night manager and doing a de-brief.
If I’m not too tired, I’ll drive out to Hertfordshire to see my dad and my sisters for the evening, but often I just go home to Crystal Palace and collapse. Volunteers are too busy to think about giving each other presents on Christmas day, but we do have a big get-together after Christmas where we celebrate properly.
I work at Crisis every day from 22nd to 30th December – I take annual leave from my job to be able to do this. But I don’t see it as a sacrifice at all.
I’m not the sort of person who can sit down and eat a box of chocolates and watch Eastenders – that’s not me. Christmas is about giving and the best thing you can give is your time. Honestly, this is the most rewarding job in the world and I’d miss it so much if I didn’t do it every year.”
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Kids react: Bullying
A YouTube series that shows a group of children viral videos, and records their reaction. This episode was of more serious nature than their usual programs. I am struck by the maturity of the children.
If any child is getting bullied, and happens to read this:
As cliched as it sounds - do not suffer alone. You are not the first, and unfortunately, nor will you be the last to be bullied. Tell someone. Someone you trust. Different people will deal with bullying in different ways. For a few years in school I was bullied. It was awful. I felt like it would never end. I told teachers, which meant it stopped for a while, then would restart. I wish I went to different teachers. It only ended when I answered back (thanking them for their taunts - that they didn't expect). Now these are memories from a previous time. You will get over it.
More importantly, if you are witness to bullying, do not stay silent. Your silence contributes to the bullying. You are in a position of power. Your silence gives the bullies power to continue what they are doing to whoever they wish. But your voice will take away this power. Speak up. Tell a teacher in private. They won't say who told, and you maintain your anonimity, and thus prevent this from occuring.
If you are the bully. Take a long hard look at yourself. You may be hurting. Or hurting others may temporalily make you feel better about your self. But I'll warn, life has a funny way - what goes around, comes around. There is nothing brave, big or remotely popular about being mean. Others will dislike you for it, and will forever remember you in a bad way. You do not need to be like that. Being nice doesn't mean being weak. It just means being nice. You will feel good about yourself when you are caring and polite towards others. It's hard work to get that point from where you are now. You will need to rebuild trust with others. But in the long run, is well worth it.
And if a teacher is reading this - take bullying seriously. Those 'little' disagreements are part of a bigger picture, having a long term impact on the children in front of you. They will carry through those memories and experieces into adulthood. You are in a position of great responsibility helping to raise society's next generation of young adults. Some of my best teachers instilled a sense of social responsibility in myself and my peers. Some of my worst teachers took no interest in even the teaching itself.
If any child is getting bullied, and happens to read this:
As cliched as it sounds - do not suffer alone. You are not the first, and unfortunately, nor will you be the last to be bullied. Tell someone. Someone you trust. Different people will deal with bullying in different ways. For a few years in school I was bullied. It was awful. I felt like it would never end. I told teachers, which meant it stopped for a while, then would restart. I wish I went to different teachers. It only ended when I answered back (thanking them for their taunts - that they didn't expect). Now these are memories from a previous time. You will get over it.
More importantly, if you are witness to bullying, do not stay silent. Your silence contributes to the bullying. You are in a position of power. Your silence gives the bullies power to continue what they are doing to whoever they wish. But your voice will take away this power. Speak up. Tell a teacher in private. They won't say who told, and you maintain your anonimity, and thus prevent this from occuring.
If you are the bully. Take a long hard look at yourself. You may be hurting. Or hurting others may temporalily make you feel better about your self. But I'll warn, life has a funny way - what goes around, comes around. There is nothing brave, big or remotely popular about being mean. Others will dislike you for it, and will forever remember you in a bad way. You do not need to be like that. Being nice doesn't mean being weak. It just means being nice. You will feel good about yourself when you are caring and polite towards others. It's hard work to get that point from where you are now. You will need to rebuild trust with others. But in the long run, is well worth it.
And if a teacher is reading this - take bullying seriously. Those 'little' disagreements are part of a bigger picture, having a long term impact on the children in front of you. They will carry through those memories and experieces into adulthood. You are in a position of great responsibility helping to raise society's next generation of young adults. Some of my best teachers instilled a sense of social responsibility in myself and my peers. Some of my worst teachers took no interest in even the teaching itself.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Sunday, December 04, 2011
UK govt plans to release patient healthcare records to private companies
Dear UK govt,
An essential part of healthcare provision is the guarantee of confidentiality. This principle stems centuries. Patient data is not a 'product'. It is not available wholesale to be sold to the highest bidder. It is confidential personal information. It does not belong to anyone other than the individual in question. This information is given to a health care provider in confidence, and with the understanding that this personal information is used to help the individual patient. That personal information is not to be utilised for any other purpose.
If the patient is informed about a specific research, and they actively choose to be a part of this specific research, and they give informed consent specifically for this purpose, then it is ethical for their personal information to be used for that specific research, and solely for that research. This system already exists.
I stress, healthcare is not a business. It is a service. Hence, National Health Service - not National Health Business. The 'Facebook' approach to personal information is not an ethical approach. I hope those in government have enough common sense to realise this. If they do not have the sense to realise this, I hope those in the legal and justice profession would be kind enough to explain this to the politicians.
Kind regards,
A Doctor
The article below
NHS Records Access For Life Science Firm
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/nhs-records-access-life-science-firms-034859906.htmlNHS patient records would be shared with private health care companies including firms which test on animals under new government plans.
David Cameron will promise closer links between the health service and the life science sector in a speech tomorrow.
The Prime Minister is expected to say that the controversial industry could become a powerhouse of the British economy if regulation can be eased.
It currently has an annual turnover of £50bn and already employs 160,000 people across 4,500 companies.
It is thought the proposals would also give private firms more freedom to run clinical trials inside NHS hospitals.
However patients' groups are unlikely to support the move amid concerns about confidentiality and the security of people's details.
A government spokesman said all efforts would be made to protect the privacy of patients:
"The life sciences industry is of vital importance to the UK economy and we are committed to greater collaboration with the NHS to ensure that patients can get faster access to valuable treatments.
"All necessary safeguards would be in place to ensure protection of patients' details - the data will be anonymised and the process will be carefully and robustly regulated.
"Healthcare charities, researchers and clinicians are calling for this action in order to improve research, innovation and the development of medicines in the UK."
The decision is also likely to be unpopular with animal rights groups who would be unhappy with firms who test on animals being granted access to NHS information.
Mr Cameron's speech is also expected to outline plans to grant cancer sufferers and other seriously ill patients early access to new drugs before they are fully licensed.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Mixed Brittania...
The links...
A fantastic set of programmes - available on BBC iPlayer. This is history that is not officially taught, and often just whitewashed out of memory. Mr Alagiah, and the team behind these programmes - thank you for such an intelligent, well researched and brilliantly presented series.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
'Gucci workers 'tortured' during shifts'
The Telegraph
Allegations of the demeaning treatment at a Gucci outlet in Shenzhen have led to two managers being replaced.
'Employees of luxury goods manufacturer Gucci were subject to "torture", being made to stand for 14 hours a day, pay for goods stolen by customers and being forced to ask for toilet breaks.
6:01PM BST 14 Oct 2011
In an open letter, workers at the Gucci outlet said the cruel behaviour extended to pregnant employees not being allowed food or water during their shifts.
"It was a kind of torture for us to stand for more than 14 hours a day," the letter detailed. "No short rest, water or food was allowed even for a pregnant employee."
The abuse was so severe it was claimed some workers suffered miscarriages as a result.
Gucci, owned by giant French group Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, said it had engaged external experts to conduct a review of what had happened. The Chinese city of Shenzhen is also understood to be investigating what had occurred.
The allegations against Gucci included staff having overtime pay withheld. The five signatories of the letter, all of whom have left the company, claimed they were owed thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. They said their managers, both of whom have left the company, refused to pay overtime despite keeping them in the store until 2am some nights to undertake stock controls.
When items were stolen from the store the staff had to pay out for their replacements despite the thefts being covered by insurance, the letter claimed.
A spokesman for Gucci said: "Gucci has proactively engaged external consultants to conduct a comprehensive review to support ongoing actions that can enhance our organisational structure, the welfare and training of our people, talent recruitment and retention and other business practices in China."
The allegations against Gucci come against a backdrop of workplace abuse and poor working conditions. Foxconn, the technology group that makes components for Apple's iPhone, suffered a string of suicides among workers thought to be related to working conditions.'
Friday, October 14, 2011
Highly recommended film...
Skin - currently on BBC iplayer - so watch it online while you can.
Based on the true story of Sandra Laing. Born to white Africaans parents, but her appearance was mixed race - all during apartheid era South Africa.
Makes one angry to think what humans do to each other.
Monday, October 03, 2011
BBC programme 'Mixed Britannia'
This could be interesting and informative.
'Nearly 100 years ago, Chinese seaman Stanley Ah Foo arrived in Liverpool to start a new life. He soon fell in love - but laws at the time meant that his English bride, Emily, was only able to marry if she gave up her British nationality and became a so-called alien herself.
In Mixed Britannia - a new three-part series for BBC 2 - George Alagiah explores the often untold stories of Britain's mixed-race communities. He met Stanley and Emily Ah Foo's daughters, Doreen and Lynne, who told the remarkable story of how their parents met, and the restrictions placed upon them'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14990721
'Nearly 100 years ago, Chinese seaman Stanley Ah Foo arrived in Liverpool to start a new life. He soon fell in love - but laws at the time meant that his English bride, Emily, was only able to marry if she gave up her British nationality and became a so-called alien herself.
In Mixed Britannia - a new three-part series for BBC 2 - George Alagiah explores the often untold stories of Britain's mixed-race communities. He met Stanley and Emily Ah Foo's daughters, Doreen and Lynne, who told the remarkable story of how their parents met, and the restrictions placed upon them'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14990721
Sunday, October 02, 2011
'Bahrain Protest Doctors Tell Of Torture'
'Two doctors who are facing jail for treating anti-government protesters in Bahrain have told Sky News how they were tortured by the authorities.
Surgeon Dr Ghassan Dhaif and his wife Dr Zarhra Al Sammak, an anaesthetist, have received prison terms of 15 and five years respectively.
They were among a group of 20 medical staff sentenced by a military court after being accused of stealing medicine, stockpiling weapons and occupying a hospital.
Dr Dhaif told Sky: "These charges are not realistic, they were brought in without any evidence.
"The only evidence that they have was from the person in charge of the interrogation and he himself has been accused of torturing all the medics and also the other people whom he interrogated.
"The whole process was completely illegal."
Dr Dhaif described the torture they were subjected to following their arrests: "These interrogations were completely carried out under severe torture.
"All of us were subjected to massive torture and this torture going on from kicks, using sticks, using a plastic hose, using plastic bottles, using shoes."
The couple are expecting to be summoned by the court, before beginning their prison sentences, at any time.
Their lawyers are appealing against the jail terms but Dr Al Sammak said she is "not very optimistic".
She said: "They blindfolded us and forced us to sign confessions, we don't know what was written on those and they are taking those confessions as the main evidence against us."
The charges followed an uprising in the Gulf state in February and March which was violently halted with the help of troops from Saudi Arabia.
Protests against the Sunni rulers came amid accusations by a Shia Muslim majority of discrimination in access to state jobs, healthcare and homes.
Human rights groups condemned the sentences with Amnesty International accusing authorities of putting the doctors on trial because some had criticised the violent crackdown on protesters.'
Via
Surgeon Dr Ghassan Dhaif and his wife Dr Zarhra Al Sammak, an anaesthetist, have received prison terms of 15 and five years respectively.
They were among a group of 20 medical staff sentenced by a military court after being accused of stealing medicine, stockpiling weapons and occupying a hospital.
Dr Dhaif told Sky: "These charges are not realistic, they were brought in without any evidence.
"The only evidence that they have was from the person in charge of the interrogation and he himself has been accused of torturing all the medics and also the other people whom he interrogated.
"The whole process was completely illegal."
Dr Dhaif described the torture they were subjected to following their arrests: "These interrogations were completely carried out under severe torture.
"All of us were subjected to massive torture and this torture going on from kicks, using sticks, using a plastic hose, using plastic bottles, using shoes."
The couple are expecting to be summoned by the court, before beginning their prison sentences, at any time.
Their lawyers are appealing against the jail terms but Dr Al Sammak said she is "not very optimistic".
She said: "They blindfolded us and forced us to sign confessions, we don't know what was written on those and they are taking those confessions as the main evidence against us."
The charges followed an uprising in the Gulf state in February and March which was violently halted with the help of troops from Saudi Arabia.
Protests against the Sunni rulers came amid accusations by a Shia Muslim majority of discrimination in access to state jobs, healthcare and homes.
Human rights groups condemned the sentences with Amnesty International accusing authorities of putting the doctors on trial because some had criticised the violent crackdown on protesters.'
Via
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Tea!
I'm a big fan of good tea. I'm also a big fan of beautiful animation. This Twining's advert has combined both.
I can also confirm that Twining's does produce rather good tea. I recommend the loose leaf variety properly brewed. But then, I do also like Whittard's, Punjana, Swan... I could go on...
But the advert is lovely!
I can also confirm that Twining's does produce rather good tea. I recommend the loose leaf variety properly brewed. But then, I do also like Whittard's, Punjana, Swan... I could go on...
But the advert is lovely!
All those young folk on their bicycles...
Wow! Their skills are incredible! I can't begin to imagine the amount to time and effort spent on gaining and developing those skills.
via howithappened.com
via howithappened.com
Thoughtful statistics: Selection Bias
Taken from the blog of John Cook. The thinking behind the decision making is important, and something that is often forgotton. When looking at the population sample, it is important to consider the sizeable portion of the population that do not feature in the sample.
Obviously - no approval for killing machines.
From : http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/01/21/selection-bias-and-bombers
via: howithappened.com
Obviously - no approval for killing machines.
'Selection bias and bombers
During WWII, statistician Abraham Wald was asked to help the British decide where to add armor to their bombers. After analyzing the records, he recommended adding more armor to the places where there was no damage!
This seems backward at first, but Wald realized his data came from bombers that survived. That is, the British were only able to analyze the bombers that returned to England; those that were shot down over enemy territory were not part of their sample. These bombers’ wounds showed where they could afford to be hit. Said another way, the undamaged areas on the survivors showed where the lost planes must have been hit because the planes hit in those areas did not return from their missions.
Wald assumed that the bullets were fired randomly, that no one could accurately aim for a particular part of the bomber. Instead they aimed in the general direction of the plane and sometimes got lucky. So, for example, if Wald saw that more bombers in his sample had bullet holes in the middle of the wings, he did not conclude that Nazis liked to aim for the middle of wings. He assumed that there must have been about as many bombers with bullet holes in every other part of the plane but that those with holes elsewhere were not part of his sample because they had been shot down.'
This seems backward at first, but Wald realized his data came from bombers that survived. That is, the British were only able to analyze the bombers that returned to England; those that were shot down over enemy territory were not part of their sample. These bombers’ wounds showed where they could afford to be hit. Said another way, the undamaged areas on the survivors showed where the lost planes must have been hit because the planes hit in those areas did not return from their missions.
Wald assumed that the bullets were fired randomly, that no one could accurately aim for a particular part of the bomber. Instead they aimed in the general direction of the plane and sometimes got lucky. So, for example, if Wald saw that more bombers in his sample had bullet holes in the middle of the wings, he did not conclude that Nazis liked to aim for the middle of wings. He assumed that there must have been about as many bombers with bullet holes in every other part of the plane but that those with holes elsewhere were not part of his sample because they had been shot down.'
From : http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/01/21/selection-bias-and-bombers
via: howithappened.com
Thursday, September 01, 2011
Reasons not to be on Facebook
Six Reasons Why I’m Not On Facebook, By Wired UK’s Editor
David Rowan
September 18, 2010
“David, you’re sounding like an old dude!” Matt Flannery, who runs social-lending website Kiva, couldn’t understand when I explained that, no, I wouldn’t be keeping in touch with him via Facebook. “What are you worried about?” he teased in a break at the PINC conference in Holland. “Only old guys get worked up about privacy.”
Well, Matt, I admit I’m the wrong side of 30, and that I still avoid using emoticons in formal correspondence. But let me explain why I’m not active on Facebook, nor sharing my credit-card purchases on Blippy, nor allowing Google Buzz to mine my contacts list, nor even publishing my DNA on 23andMe.com. My cautious use of the social networks has nothing to do with paranoia about privacy; and yes, I celebrate the unprecedented transparency and connectivity that these services can empower. But what’s increasingly bothering me is the wider social and political cost of our ever-greater enmeshment in these proprietary networks. Here are half a dozen reasons why.
1) Private companies aren’t motivated by your best interests
Facebook and Google exist to make money, by selling advertisers the means to target you with ever greater precision. That explains the endless series of “privacy” headlines, as these unregulated businesses push boundaries to make it easier for paying third parties to access your likes, interests, photos, social connections and purchasing intentions. That’s why Facebook has made it harder for users to understand exactly what they’re giving away — why, for instance, its privacy policy has grown from 1,004 words in 2005 to 5,830 words today (by comparison, as the New York Times has pointed out, the U.S. Constitution is 4,543). Founder Mark Zuckerberg once joked dismissively about the “dumb fucks” who “trust me”. I admire the business Zuckerberg’s built; but I don’t trust him.
2) They make it harder to reinvent yourself
“When you’re young, you make mistakes and you do some stupid stuff,” President Obama warned high-school students in Virginia last September. “Be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do will be pulled up later somewhere in your life.” He’s right: anything posted online might come to haunt you permanently, yet all of us need space to grow. As the writer Jaron Lanier said in a recent lecture, if Robert Zimmerman, of small-town Hibbing, Minnesota, had had a Facebook profile, could he really have re-created himself as the New York beatnik Bob Dylan
3) Information you supply for one purpose will invariably be used for another …
Phone up to buy a pizza, and the order-taker’s computer gives her access to your voting record, employment history, library loans — all “just wired into the system” for your convenience. She’ll suggest a tofu pizza as she knows about your 42-inch waist, she’ll add a delivery surcharge because a nearby robbery yesterday puts you in “an orange zone” — and she’ll be on her guard because you’ve checked out the library book Dealing With Depression. This is where the American Council for Civil Liberties sees consumerism going — watch its pizza video online — and it’s not to hard to believe. Already surveys suggest that 35 percent of firms are rejecting applicants because of information found on social networks. What makes you think you can control what happens to your personal data?
4) … and there’s a good chance it will be used against you
Mark Zuckerberg would like to suggest that, in an ever more transparent world, “you have one identity — the days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.” That suits his purpose — but in our multi-layered lives it’s just not true. A vindictive ex-partner, or a workplace rival, or a health insurer, or a political opponent, may selectively expose information to your detriment – powerfully re-framing your identity in a way you would consider dishonest.
5) People screw up, and give away more than they realise
To understand how much personal information Facebook users are inadvertently sharing, visit youropenbook.org and search for phrases such as “cheated on my wife” or “my new mobile number is” or “feeling horny“. I’ll bet that most of the people whose intimate details you’ll get to read are unaware that their updates are being shared quite so openly. Have they genuinely given Zuckerberg their informed consent?
6) And besides, why should we let businesses privatize our social discourse?
Some day you should take time to read those 5,830 words: it’s Facebook that owns the rights to do as it pleases with your data, and to sell access to it to whoever is willing to pay. Yes, it’s free to join — but with half a billion of us now using it to connect, it’s worth asking ourselves how far this “social utility” (its own term) is really acting in the best interests of society.
Don’t take my word, Matt — young internet users themselves are increasingly wary of the social networks’ use of their private data. A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project — a decent sample of some 2,253 Americans — found that 44 percent of Generation Y (aged 18 to 29) now limit their online personal information, compared with 33 percent of internet users between ages 30 to 49. And three-quarters of younger social-networkers have adjusted their privacy settings to limit what they share.
Call me uncool — but that’s a trend I’m happy to share with my friends. In person.
David Rowan is the editor of Wired UK magazine. He also writes The Digital Life, a monthly tech column in our sister Conde Nast magazine, GQ. This column originally appeared in CG’s September issue.
David Rowan
September 18, 2010
“David, you’re sounding like an old dude!” Matt Flannery, who runs social-lending website Kiva, couldn’t understand when I explained that, no, I wouldn’t be keeping in touch with him via Facebook. “What are you worried about?” he teased in a break at the PINC conference in Holland. “Only old guys get worked up about privacy.”
Well, Matt, I admit I’m the wrong side of 30, and that I still avoid using emoticons in formal correspondence. But let me explain why I’m not active on Facebook, nor sharing my credit-card purchases on Blippy, nor allowing Google Buzz to mine my contacts list, nor even publishing my DNA on 23andMe.com. My cautious use of the social networks has nothing to do with paranoia about privacy; and yes, I celebrate the unprecedented transparency and connectivity that these services can empower. But what’s increasingly bothering me is the wider social and political cost of our ever-greater enmeshment in these proprietary networks. Here are half a dozen reasons why.
1) Private companies aren’t motivated by your best interests
Facebook and Google exist to make money, by selling advertisers the means to target you with ever greater precision. That explains the endless series of “privacy” headlines, as these unregulated businesses push boundaries to make it easier for paying third parties to access your likes, interests, photos, social connections and purchasing intentions. That’s why Facebook has made it harder for users to understand exactly what they’re giving away — why, for instance, its privacy policy has grown from 1,004 words in 2005 to 5,830 words today (by comparison, as the New York Times has pointed out, the U.S. Constitution is 4,543). Founder Mark Zuckerberg once joked dismissively about the “dumb fucks” who “trust me”. I admire the business Zuckerberg’s built; but I don’t trust him.
2) They make it harder to reinvent yourself
“When you’re young, you make mistakes and you do some stupid stuff,” President Obama warned high-school students in Virginia last September. “Be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do will be pulled up later somewhere in your life.” He’s right: anything posted online might come to haunt you permanently, yet all of us need space to grow. As the writer Jaron Lanier said in a recent lecture, if Robert Zimmerman, of small-town Hibbing, Minnesota, had had a Facebook profile, could he really have re-created himself as the New York beatnik Bob Dylan
3) Information you supply for one purpose will invariably be used for another …
Phone up to buy a pizza, and the order-taker’s computer gives her access to your voting record, employment history, library loans — all “just wired into the system” for your convenience. She’ll suggest a tofu pizza as she knows about your 42-inch waist, she’ll add a delivery surcharge because a nearby robbery yesterday puts you in “an orange zone” — and she’ll be on her guard because you’ve checked out the library book Dealing With Depression. This is where the American Council for Civil Liberties sees consumerism going — watch its pizza video online — and it’s not to hard to believe. Already surveys suggest that 35 percent of firms are rejecting applicants because of information found on social networks. What makes you think you can control what happens to your personal data?
4) … and there’s a good chance it will be used against you
Mark Zuckerberg would like to suggest that, in an ever more transparent world, “you have one identity — the days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.” That suits his purpose — but in our multi-layered lives it’s just not true. A vindictive ex-partner, or a workplace rival, or a health insurer, or a political opponent, may selectively expose information to your detriment – powerfully re-framing your identity in a way you would consider dishonest.
5) People screw up, and give away more than they realise
To understand how much personal information Facebook users are inadvertently sharing, visit youropenbook.org and search for phrases such as “cheated on my wife” or “my new mobile number is” or “feeling horny“. I’ll bet that most of the people whose intimate details you’ll get to read are unaware that their updates are being shared quite so openly. Have they genuinely given Zuckerberg their informed consent?
6) And besides, why should we let businesses privatize our social discourse?
Some day you should take time to read those 5,830 words: it’s Facebook that owns the rights to do as it pleases with your data, and to sell access to it to whoever is willing to pay. Yes, it’s free to join — but with half a billion of us now using it to connect, it’s worth asking ourselves how far this “social utility” (its own term) is really acting in the best interests of society.
Don’t take my word, Matt — young internet users themselves are increasingly wary of the social networks’ use of their private data. A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project — a decent sample of some 2,253 Americans — found that 44 percent of Generation Y (aged 18 to 29) now limit their online personal information, compared with 33 percent of internet users between ages 30 to 49. And three-quarters of younger social-networkers have adjusted their privacy settings to limit what they share.
Call me uncool — but that’s a trend I’m happy to share with my friends. In person.
David Rowan is the editor of Wired UK magazine. He also writes The Digital Life, a monthly tech column in our sister Conde Nast magazine, GQ. This column originally appeared in CG’s September issue.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
A take on the simple life...
From the Hufffington Post
4 Misconceptions About the Simple Life
Posted: 8/27/11 11:38 AM ET
Duane Elgin
It is important to recognize inaccurate stereotypes about the simple life because they make it seem impractical and ill suited for responding to increasingly critical breakdowns in world systems. Four misconceptions about the simple life are so common they deserve special attention. These are equating simplicity with: poverty, moving back to the land, living without beauty and economic stagnation.
1.Simplicity Means Poverty
Although some spiritual traditions have advocated a life of extreme renunciation, it is very misleading to equate simplicity with poverty. Poverty is involuntary and debilitating, whereas simplicity is voluntary and enabling. A life of conscious simplicity can have both a beauty and a functional integrity that elevates the human spirit.
Poverty fosters a sense of helplessness, passivity and despair, whereas purposeful simplicity fosters a sense of personal empowerment, creative engagement and opportunity. Historically, those choosing a simpler life have sought the golden mean -- a creative and aesthetic balance between poverty and excess. Instead of placing primary emphasis on material riches, they have sought to develop, with balance, the invisible wealth of experiential riches.
2.Simplicity Means Rural Living
In the popular imagination there is a tendency to equate the simple life with Thoreau's cabin in the woods by Walden Pond and to assume that people must live an isolated and rural existence. Interestingly, Thoreau was not a hermit during his stay at Walden Pond. His famous cabin was roughly a mile from the town of Concord, and every day or two he would walk into town. His cabin was so close to a nearby highway that he could smell the pipe smoke of passing travelers.
Thoreau wrote that he had "more visitors while I lived in the woods than any other period of my life." The romanticized image of rural living does not fit the modern reality, as a majority of persons choosing a life of conscious simplicity do not live in the backwoods or rural settings; they live in cities and suburbs. While green living brings with it a reverence for nature, it does not require moving to a rural setting. Instead of a "back to the land" movement, it is much more accurate to describe this as a "make the most of wherever you are" movement. Increasingly that means adapting ourselves creatively to a rapidly changing world in the context of big cities and suburbs.
3.Simplicity Means Living Without Beauty
The simple life is sometimes viewed as an approach to living that advocates a barren plainness and denies the value of beauty and aesthetics. While the Puritans, for example, were suspicious of the arts, most advocates of simplicity have seen it as essential for revealing the natural beauty of things.
Many who adopt a simpler life would surely agree with Pablo Picasso, who said, "Art is the elimination of the unnecessary." Leonardo da Vinci wrote that, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Frederic Chopin wrote that, "Simplicity is the final achievement ... the crowning reward of art."
The influential architect Frank Lloyd Wright was an advocate of an "organic simplicity" that integrates function with beauty and eliminates the superfluous. In his architecture a building's interior and exterior blend into an organic whole, and the building, in turn, blends harmoniously with the natural environment. Rather than involving a denial of beauty, simplicity liberates the aesthetic sense by freeing things from artificial encumbrances. From a spiritual perspective, simplicity removes the obscuring clutter and discloses the life-energy that infuses all things.
4.Simplicity Means Economic Stagnation
Some worry that if a significant number of people simplify their lives it will reduce demand for consumer goods and, in turn, produce unemployment and economic stagnation. While it is true that the level and patterns of personal consumption would shift in a society that values green living, a robust economy can flourish that embraces sustainability.
Although the consumer sector and material goods would contract, the service and public sectors would expand dramatically. When we look at the world, we see a huge number of unmet needs: caring for elderly, restoring the environment, educating illiterate and unskilled youth, repairing decaying roads and infrastructure, providing health care, creating community markets and local enterprises, retrofitting the urban landscape for sustainability and many more. Because there are an enormous number of unmet needs, there are an equally large number of purposeful and satisfying jobs waiting to get done. There will be no shortage of employment opportunities in an Earth-friendly economy.
A central and exciting task for our times is consciously designing ourselves into a sustainable and meaningful future, from the personal level outwards. In envisioning what this future could look like, it is important to not be bound by old stereotypes and to instead see the realism and the beauty of simpler ways of living.
4 Misconceptions About the Simple Life
Posted: 8/27/11 11:38 AM ET
Duane Elgin
It is important to recognize inaccurate stereotypes about the simple life because they make it seem impractical and ill suited for responding to increasingly critical breakdowns in world systems. Four misconceptions about the simple life are so common they deserve special attention. These are equating simplicity with: poverty, moving back to the land, living without beauty and economic stagnation.
1.Simplicity Means Poverty
Although some spiritual traditions have advocated a life of extreme renunciation, it is very misleading to equate simplicity with poverty. Poverty is involuntary and debilitating, whereas simplicity is voluntary and enabling. A life of conscious simplicity can have both a beauty and a functional integrity that elevates the human spirit.
Poverty fosters a sense of helplessness, passivity and despair, whereas purposeful simplicity fosters a sense of personal empowerment, creative engagement and opportunity. Historically, those choosing a simpler life have sought the golden mean -- a creative and aesthetic balance between poverty and excess. Instead of placing primary emphasis on material riches, they have sought to develop, with balance, the invisible wealth of experiential riches.
2.Simplicity Means Rural Living
In the popular imagination there is a tendency to equate the simple life with Thoreau's cabin in the woods by Walden Pond and to assume that people must live an isolated and rural existence. Interestingly, Thoreau was not a hermit during his stay at Walden Pond. His famous cabin was roughly a mile from the town of Concord, and every day or two he would walk into town. His cabin was so close to a nearby highway that he could smell the pipe smoke of passing travelers.
Thoreau wrote that he had "more visitors while I lived in the woods than any other period of my life." The romanticized image of rural living does not fit the modern reality, as a majority of persons choosing a life of conscious simplicity do not live in the backwoods or rural settings; they live in cities and suburbs. While green living brings with it a reverence for nature, it does not require moving to a rural setting. Instead of a "back to the land" movement, it is much more accurate to describe this as a "make the most of wherever you are" movement. Increasingly that means adapting ourselves creatively to a rapidly changing world in the context of big cities and suburbs.
3.Simplicity Means Living Without Beauty
The simple life is sometimes viewed as an approach to living that advocates a barren plainness and denies the value of beauty and aesthetics. While the Puritans, for example, were suspicious of the arts, most advocates of simplicity have seen it as essential for revealing the natural beauty of things.
Many who adopt a simpler life would surely agree with Pablo Picasso, who said, "Art is the elimination of the unnecessary." Leonardo da Vinci wrote that, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Frederic Chopin wrote that, "Simplicity is the final achievement ... the crowning reward of art."
The influential architect Frank Lloyd Wright was an advocate of an "organic simplicity" that integrates function with beauty and eliminates the superfluous. In his architecture a building's interior and exterior blend into an organic whole, and the building, in turn, blends harmoniously with the natural environment. Rather than involving a denial of beauty, simplicity liberates the aesthetic sense by freeing things from artificial encumbrances. From a spiritual perspective, simplicity removes the obscuring clutter and discloses the life-energy that infuses all things.
4.Simplicity Means Economic Stagnation
Some worry that if a significant number of people simplify their lives it will reduce demand for consumer goods and, in turn, produce unemployment and economic stagnation. While it is true that the level and patterns of personal consumption would shift in a society that values green living, a robust economy can flourish that embraces sustainability.
Although the consumer sector and material goods would contract, the service and public sectors would expand dramatically. When we look at the world, we see a huge number of unmet needs: caring for elderly, restoring the environment, educating illiterate and unskilled youth, repairing decaying roads and infrastructure, providing health care, creating community markets and local enterprises, retrofitting the urban landscape for sustainability and many more. Because there are an enormous number of unmet needs, there are an equally large number of purposeful and satisfying jobs waiting to get done. There will be no shortage of employment opportunities in an Earth-friendly economy.
A central and exciting task for our times is consciously designing ourselves into a sustainable and meaningful future, from the personal level outwards. In envisioning what this future could look like, it is important to not be bound by old stereotypes and to instead see the realism and the beauty of simpler ways of living.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Emergency medicine healthcare delivery
The Hamilton Spectator article on emergency services in the area.
The issues highlighted are common healthcare delivery issues in North America and the UK (I can't comment on elsewhere because I don't know).
ER worst at Jo Brant
Just not enough beds,
Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital is battling the worst emergency room waits in Ontario, two years into a public monitoring program.
Ninety per cent of the sickest patients spent up to 25.2 hours in the Burlington hospital's emergency room in April before being discharged or admitted.
That's the longest total ER wait time for seriously ill patients at any Ontario hospital measured that month. It's virtually identical to the 26-hour statistic Jo Brant reported in 2009, the first year Ontario made wait times public online at the Ministry of Health website.
Emergency room wait times remain a problem for Jo Brant, said Mary MacLeod, vice-president of patient care services. But she said the problem isn't the ER — it's the lack of beds for patients admitted to hospital.
MacLeod pointed out Jo Brant's reported wait time for less serious ER patients, who are often usually treated and discharged, is 4.9 hours.
That's not far off Ontario's target of four hours.
By contrast, the hospital sometimes triples the province's eight-hour wait time target for seriously ill patients.
Like most hospitals, Joe Brant has many acute care beds “clogged” with older patients who no longer need hospital care but must wait for beds to open up in a long-term care facility or nursing home.
About 52 of the hospital's 248 acute care beds, or 21 per cent, are filled with patients in limbo.
MacLeod said the high percentage is due partly to an increasingly elderly population in Burlington. About 15 per cent of city residents are 65 and older, according to census data, but MacLeod said she's noticed a “significant” bump in patients over the age of 80.
The Local Health Integration Network is working with hospitals and associated agencies to help keep more complex-care patients in their homes, rather than in hospital, said Donna Cripps, the executive director for the Hamilton-area LHIN.
For example, the LHIN found one-time funding last year for the Community Care Access Centre to provide more hours of “home care.”
MacLeod said Jo Brant simply needs more beds.
The hospital has pitched a $300-million redevelopment plan to the province that would add at least 70 acute care beds.
“We're hoping for approval … The plan calls for us to add (beds) by 2013 or 2014, but we need them now.”
Burlington isn't alone in its struggle to cut wait times.
In Hamilton, no hospital serving adults came anywhere close to the eight-hour wait time target for seriously ill patients — or even the provincial average in April of 11.4 hours.
April was a “tricky month” for all Hamilton ERs after McMaster converted its emergency room to a children-only operation, said Ida Porteous, administrative director for emergency services at St. Joseph's Healthcare.
Porteous said she's “cautiously optimistic” the hospital's wait times will improve this summer, especially after the addition of several “short-stay” beds funded by the province in May.
Over time, average ER wait times in Ontario are creeping down, said Dr. Chris Simpson, a spokesperson for the Wait Times Alliance that represents more than 14 Canadian medical associations.
The alliance just released a report card on wait times nationally for major medical procedures such as hip replacements, knee replacements, cataract surgery, radiation oncology and cardiac services.
“We have to give credit where it's due: Ontario scored straight As for those indicators,” Simpson said.
Bed shortages are a national problem, so nobody gets good grades for ER wait times.
“But most provinces aren't even making wait times public,” Simpson said. “I give kudos (to Ontario) for being brave enough to report it.”
The issues highlighted are common healthcare delivery issues in North America and the UK (I can't comment on elsewhere because I don't know).
ER worst at Jo Brant
Just not enough beds,
Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital is battling the worst emergency room waits in Ontario, two years into a public monitoring program.
Ninety per cent of the sickest patients spent up to 25.2 hours in the Burlington hospital's emergency room in April before being discharged or admitted.
That's the longest total ER wait time for seriously ill patients at any Ontario hospital measured that month. It's virtually identical to the 26-hour statistic Jo Brant reported in 2009, the first year Ontario made wait times public online at the Ministry of Health website.
Emergency room wait times remain a problem for Jo Brant, said Mary MacLeod, vice-president of patient care services. But she said the problem isn't the ER — it's the lack of beds for patients admitted to hospital.
MacLeod pointed out Jo Brant's reported wait time for less serious ER patients, who are often usually treated and discharged, is 4.9 hours.
That's not far off Ontario's target of four hours.
By contrast, the hospital sometimes triples the province's eight-hour wait time target for seriously ill patients.
Like most hospitals, Joe Brant has many acute care beds “clogged” with older patients who no longer need hospital care but must wait for beds to open up in a long-term care facility or nursing home.
About 52 of the hospital's 248 acute care beds, or 21 per cent, are filled with patients in limbo.
MacLeod said the high percentage is due partly to an increasingly elderly population in Burlington. About 15 per cent of city residents are 65 and older, according to census data, but MacLeod said she's noticed a “significant” bump in patients over the age of 80.
The Local Health Integration Network is working with hospitals and associated agencies to help keep more complex-care patients in their homes, rather than in hospital, said Donna Cripps, the executive director for the Hamilton-area LHIN.
For example, the LHIN found one-time funding last year for the Community Care Access Centre to provide more hours of “home care.”
MacLeod said Jo Brant simply needs more beds.
The hospital has pitched a $300-million redevelopment plan to the province that would add at least 70 acute care beds.
“We're hoping for approval … The plan calls for us to add (beds) by 2013 or 2014, but we need them now.”
Burlington isn't alone in its struggle to cut wait times.
In Hamilton, no hospital serving adults came anywhere close to the eight-hour wait time target for seriously ill patients — or even the provincial average in April of 11.4 hours.
April was a “tricky month” for all Hamilton ERs after McMaster converted its emergency room to a children-only operation, said Ida Porteous, administrative director for emergency services at St. Joseph's Healthcare.
Porteous said she's “cautiously optimistic” the hospital's wait times will improve this summer, especially after the addition of several “short-stay” beds funded by the province in May.
Over time, average ER wait times in Ontario are creeping down, said Dr. Chris Simpson, a spokesperson for the Wait Times Alliance that represents more than 14 Canadian medical associations.
The alliance just released a report card on wait times nationally for major medical procedures such as hip replacements, knee replacements, cataract surgery, radiation oncology and cardiac services.
“We have to give credit where it's due: Ontario scored straight As for those indicators,” Simpson said.
Bed shortages are a national problem, so nobody gets good grades for ER wait times.
“But most provinces aren't even making wait times public,” Simpson said. “I give kudos (to Ontario) for being brave enough to report it.”
Monday, June 20, 2011
More on the protester of Westminister
Brian Haw: The ultimate protester
By Alex Stevenson Talking Politics
The traffic continues to flow around Parliament Square, the tourists continue to bustle. But something is unmistakeably missing.
Early on Saturday Brian Haw died of lung cancer. It was the end of a life whose last ten years had been among the most unusual in modern British history. He had devoted himself to a solitary protest against Britain's foreign policy, earning himself an unusual place in the history books. His dogged unshakeable stubbornness was as British as the red buses constantly passing by.
Haw's message was all the more powerful because, somewhat paradoxically, he shunned attention. "I will not be a media whore," his website declared. His target was MPs, the men and women who had authorised the invasion of Iraq and the suffering it and its aftermath caused. The media, so often viewed as part of the establishment, were invariably treated with suspicion.
I caught a glimpse of this during the heavy snowfalls of early 2009. Central London was brought to a standstill and many MPs were forced to stay away from parliament altogether. But Haw was there, in the midst of the blizzard, and so an obvious candidate for interviewing.
Perhaps it was the suit, or the notebook, or the fact I had clearly emerged from the Palace across the road. Whatever, he didn't answer my first few remarks. He just stood there, glaring contemptuously. "Look," I said desperately, "I just want to know what you think of all the MPs not bothering to come in." Slowly, like an ancient tortoise, he craned his neck towards me. "I'm still here," he growled. And then began showing me, half-covered by snow, pictures of dead babies.
Haw's comment was an appropriate one. He had begun his protest on June 2nd 2001 over the economic sanctions being imposed on Iraq. Doing so was an extraordinary step for anyone to make: after a couple of years sleeping in the square he and his wife divorced, after all. Even before the 2003 invasion an attempt to remove him was made. It was the first of many defeats for those seeking to end his vigil.
Haw was an irritant to many in parliament. So MPs decided they could get rid of him on security grounds in 2003. Their recommendation became part of New Labour legislation two years later, by which time public anger at the Iraq war was at its peak. It was now combined with frustration by civil liberties campaigners. The court of appeal overturned the measures.
The transition from an angry carpenter to a global icon was not quite complete. Even as fresh attempts were begun to oust him, he won an award for being that year's 'most inspiring political figure'. In 2007 a reproduction of one of his protest banners by artist Mark Wallinger won the Turner Prize. He appeared on CNN regularly.
Wallinger has described Haw as a man of "tenacity, integrity and dignity". "Brian showed us what a quiescent and supine country we've become," he wrote in an article for the Independent newspaper. "What Brian was saying was never really reported properly, nor was the depth and heroism of his struggle. People who should know better would describe him as a crank and wouldn't bother to hear what he had to say."
It had looked as if the days of his protest were numbered, for he had lost an appeal in March against eviction from the grassy area of Parliament Square. But in the end, it was to be lung cancer, not politicians or officials, which forced him from Parliament Square.
Haw was never interested in becoming a legend. He was a pain, a thorn in the government's side, nothing more. Those inspired by his example who attempted to join him were often surprised when he turned out to be irascible and grumpy. His purpose was not to charm, like a politician, or tell a story, like a journalist. It was to make a point — an enduring reminder that the decisions made in Westminster have real consequences.
By Alex Stevenson Talking Politics
The traffic continues to flow around Parliament Square, the tourists continue to bustle. But something is unmistakeably missing.
Early on Saturday Brian Haw died of lung cancer. It was the end of a life whose last ten years had been among the most unusual in modern British history. He had devoted himself to a solitary protest against Britain's foreign policy, earning himself an unusual place in the history books. His dogged unshakeable stubbornness was as British as the red buses constantly passing by.
Haw's message was all the more powerful because, somewhat paradoxically, he shunned attention. "I will not be a media whore," his website declared. His target was MPs, the men and women who had authorised the invasion of Iraq and the suffering it and its aftermath caused. The media, so often viewed as part of the establishment, were invariably treated with suspicion.
I caught a glimpse of this during the heavy snowfalls of early 2009. Central London was brought to a standstill and many MPs were forced to stay away from parliament altogether. But Haw was there, in the midst of the blizzard, and so an obvious candidate for interviewing.
Perhaps it was the suit, or the notebook, or the fact I had clearly emerged from the Palace across the road. Whatever, he didn't answer my first few remarks. He just stood there, glaring contemptuously. "Look," I said desperately, "I just want to know what you think of all the MPs not bothering to come in." Slowly, like an ancient tortoise, he craned his neck towards me. "I'm still here," he growled. And then began showing me, half-covered by snow, pictures of dead babies.
Haw's comment was an appropriate one. He had begun his protest on June 2nd 2001 over the economic sanctions being imposed on Iraq. Doing so was an extraordinary step for anyone to make: after a couple of years sleeping in the square he and his wife divorced, after all. Even before the 2003 invasion an attempt to remove him was made. It was the first of many defeats for those seeking to end his vigil.
Haw was an irritant to many in parliament. So MPs decided they could get rid of him on security grounds in 2003. Their recommendation became part of New Labour legislation two years later, by which time public anger at the Iraq war was at its peak. It was now combined with frustration by civil liberties campaigners. The court of appeal overturned the measures.
The transition from an angry carpenter to a global icon was not quite complete. Even as fresh attempts were begun to oust him, he won an award for being that year's 'most inspiring political figure'. In 2007 a reproduction of one of his protest banners by artist Mark Wallinger won the Turner Prize. He appeared on CNN regularly.
Wallinger has described Haw as a man of "tenacity, integrity and dignity". "Brian showed us what a quiescent and supine country we've become," he wrote in an article for the Independent newspaper. "What Brian was saying was never really reported properly, nor was the depth and heroism of his struggle. People who should know better would describe him as a crank and wouldn't bother to hear what he had to say."
It had looked as if the days of his protest were numbered, for he had lost an appeal in March against eviction from the grassy area of Parliament Square. But in the end, it was to be lung cancer, not politicians or officials, which forced him from Parliament Square.
Haw was never interested in becoming a legend. He was a pain, a thorn in the government's side, nothing more. Those inspired by his example who attempted to join him were often surprised when he turned out to be irascible and grumpy. His purpose was not to charm, like a politician, or tell a story, like a journalist. It was to make a point — an enduring reminder that the decisions made in Westminster have real consequences.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Poem: The Five Stage of Grief
The night I lost you
someone pointed me towards
the Five Stages of Grief
Go that way, they said,
it's easy, like learning to climb
stairs after the amputation.
And so I climbed.
Denial was first.
I sat down at breakfast
carefully setting the table
for two. I passed you the toast---
you sat there. I passed
you the paper---you hid
behind it.
Anger seemed so familiar.
I burned the toast, snatched
the paper and read the headlines myself.
But they mentioned your departure,
and so I moved on to
Bargaining. What could I exchange
for you? The silence
after storms? My typing fingers?
Before I could decide, Depression
came puffing up, a poor relation
its suitcase tied together
with string. In the suitcase
were bandages for the eyes
and bottles sleep. I slid
all the way down the stairs
feeling nothing.
And all the time Hope
flashed on and off
in detective neon.
Hope was a signpost pointing
straight in the air.
Hope was my uncle's middle name,
he died of it.
After a year I am still climbing, though my feet slip
on your stone face.
The treeline
has long since disappeared;
green is a color
I have forgotten.
But now I see what I am climbing
towards: Acceptance
written in capital letters,
a special headline:
Acceptance
its name is in lights.
I struggle on,
waving and shouting.
Below, my whole life spreads its surf,
all the landscapes I've ever known
or dreamed of. Below
a fish jumps: the pulse
in your neck.
Acceptance. I finally
reach it.
But something is wrong.
Grief is a circular staircse.
I have lost you.
Linda Pastan
someone pointed me towards
the Five Stages of Grief
Go that way, they said,
it's easy, like learning to climb
stairs after the amputation.
And so I climbed.
Denial was first.
I sat down at breakfast
carefully setting the table
for two. I passed you the toast---
you sat there. I passed
you the paper---you hid
behind it.
Anger seemed so familiar.
I burned the toast, snatched
the paper and read the headlines myself.
But they mentioned your departure,
and so I moved on to
Bargaining. What could I exchange
for you? The silence
after storms? My typing fingers?
Before I could decide, Depression
came puffing up, a poor relation
its suitcase tied together
with string. In the suitcase
were bandages for the eyes
and bottles sleep. I slid
all the way down the stairs
feeling nothing.
And all the time Hope
flashed on and off
in detective neon.
Hope was a signpost pointing
straight in the air.
Hope was my uncle's middle name,
he died of it.
After a year I am still climbing, though my feet slip
on your stone face.
The treeline
has long since disappeared;
green is a color
I have forgotten.
But now I see what I am climbing
towards: Acceptance
written in capital letters,
a special headline:
Acceptance
its name is in lights.
I struggle on,
waving and shouting.
Below, my whole life spreads its surf,
all the landscapes I've ever known
or dreamed of. Below
a fish jumps: the pulse
in your neck.
Acceptance. I finally
reach it.
But something is wrong.
Grief is a circular staircse.
I have lost you.
Linda Pastan
Literature and medicine
Intenstive Care by Danielle Ofri
Winthrop Cohen - An elderly man is treated by a psychiatrist for depression. But the depression is caused by his reflections on his actions as a young man during the war. The psychiatrist treats him according to the guidelines - on the surface appearing to be successful, the Mr Cohen is able to return to work. However, he does not thank the psychiatrist, instead, a question is asked...
'Winthrop Cohen’s clinical depression responded to a short course of antidepressant medication and psychodynamic psychotherapy focused on clarifying and interpreting his wartime trauma in the context of his biography and intimate relations. After eight weeks, he no longer stared off into space or looked agitated or seriously depressed. He returned to work. His wife and daughter thanked me for treating this ‘breakdown’. But Winthrop Cohen never thanked me. To the contrary, at our last meeting, he implied that I was part of the societal collusion to cover up the threatening implications of war experiences such as his.
"I can put it away again. I don’t feel the same pressure. I can sleep, and eat, and fornicate again. But you know as well as I do that what’s bothering me can’t be treated or cured. Job said: ‘I will maintain my integrity. I will hold on to my righteousness’. I did neither. I soiled myself as I was soiled. I lost my humanity as those around me did the same. You don’t have any answers. Nor do I. Save to live with it. To realize I did the worst is to understand how ordinary men do bad things. How ordinary Americans were so anti-Semitic at that time. How ordinary Germans did what did during the Holocaust. How all of us are capable of murder. In the midst of war when all hell breaks loose and you are empowered to act with impunity, you can do horror and be decorated for it. And you can dine out for decades telling war stories, stories that are untrue. Because who can face up to the reality of the evil we did? Only the patriotic memories last. The killing is forgotten. The suffering remembered, because it is legitimate to speak of it. What can’t be said – I mean in public – is what I did. What dos that tell you about the soul?" '.
The words of Mr Cohen are more reflective than that of the psychiatrist.
Winthrop Cohen - An elderly man is treated by a psychiatrist for depression. But the depression is caused by his reflections on his actions as a young man during the war. The psychiatrist treats him according to the guidelines - on the surface appearing to be successful, the Mr Cohen is able to return to work. However, he does not thank the psychiatrist, instead, a question is asked...
'Winthrop Cohen’s clinical depression responded to a short course of antidepressant medication and psychodynamic psychotherapy focused on clarifying and interpreting his wartime trauma in the context of his biography and intimate relations. After eight weeks, he no longer stared off into space or looked agitated or seriously depressed. He returned to work. His wife and daughter thanked me for treating this ‘breakdown’. But Winthrop Cohen never thanked me. To the contrary, at our last meeting, he implied that I was part of the societal collusion to cover up the threatening implications of war experiences such as his.
"I can put it away again. I don’t feel the same pressure. I can sleep, and eat, and fornicate again. But you know as well as I do that what’s bothering me can’t be treated or cured. Job said: ‘I will maintain my integrity. I will hold on to my righteousness’. I did neither. I soiled myself as I was soiled. I lost my humanity as those around me did the same. You don’t have any answers. Nor do I. Save to live with it. To realize I did the worst is to understand how ordinary men do bad things. How ordinary Americans were so anti-Semitic at that time. How ordinary Germans did what did during the Holocaust. How all of us are capable of murder. In the midst of war when all hell breaks loose and you are empowered to act with impunity, you can do horror and be decorated for it. And you can dine out for decades telling war stories, stories that are untrue. Because who can face up to the reality of the evil we did? Only the patriotic memories last. The killing is forgotten. The suffering remembered, because it is legitimate to speak of it. What can’t be said – I mean in public – is what I did. What dos that tell you about the soul?" '.
The words of Mr Cohen are more reflective than that of the psychiatrist.
'Doctor Talk to Me'
Doctor Talk to Me - An article from the New York Times from just over 20 years ago. An editor, turned patient, gives his viewpoints and experiences. He lays out his prejudices, reflects on them, and what he would have wished to have and see in an 'ideal doctor'. This is very much one man's perspective, and obviously not reflective of all people. He makes some interesting points, made me notice some aspects that I previously did not think particularly important (e.g. having 'style'), although there are some points that I completely disagree with. But, overall it does make for a reflective and thought provoking read, and it was very brave, and even honourable, of him to write and share such an honest piece of his personal experiences and musings.
The bits I've put in bold are pretty much parts I would have highlighted or underlined if this were in a book.
pdf
By Anatole Broyard; Anatole Broyard is a former editor of The New York Times Book Review
Published: August 26, 1990
When, in the Summer of 1989, I moved from Connecticut to Cambridge, Mass., I found that I had difficulty urinating. I was like Portnoy, in ''Portnoy's Complaint,'' who couldn't fornicate in Israel. I had always wanted to live in Cambridge, and the thought passed through my mind that I couldn't urinate because - like Israel for Portnoy - Cambridge was a transcendent place for me.
When my inhibition persisted, I began to think about a doctor, and I set about finding one in the superstitious manner most of us fall back on: I asked a couple I knew for a recommendation. To be recommended, for whatever unreasonable reasons, gives a doctor an aura, a history, a shred of magic. Though I thought of my disorder as a simple matter - prostatitis is common in men of my age - I still wanted a potent doctor.
I applied to this particular couple for a recommendation because they are the two most critical people I know: critics of philosophy, politics, history, literature, drama, music. They are the sort of people for whom information is a religion, and the rigor of their conversation is legendary. To talk with them is an ordeal, a fatigue of fine distinctions, and I wanted a doctor who had survived such a scrutiny.
They could only give me the name of their internist, who referred me to a urologist. The recommendation was diluted, but it was better than none, so I made an appointment to see the urologist in a local hospital. The visit began well. The secretary was attractive, efficient and alert. She remembered my name. I was shown into a pleasant office and told that the doctor would be with me in a few minutes.
While I waited, I subjected the doctor to a preliminary semiotic scrutiny. Sitting in his office, I read his signs. The diplomas I took for granted; what interested me was the fact that the room was furnished with taste. There were well-made, well-filled bookcases, an antique desk and chairs, a reasonable Oriental rug on the floor. A large window opened one wall of the office to the panorama of Boston, and this suggested status, an earned respect. I imagined the doctor taking the long view out of his window.
On the walls and desk were pictures of three healthy-looking, conspicuously happy children, photographed in a prosperous outdoor setting of lawn, flowers and trees. As I remember, one of the photographs showed a sailboat. From the evidence, their father knew how to live - and by extension, how to look after the lives of others.
Soon the doctor came in and introduced himself. ''Let's go into my office,'' he said, and I realized that I had been waiting among someone else's effects. I felt that I had been tricked. Having already warmed myself to the first doctor, I was obliged to follow this second man, this impostor, into another office, which turned out to be modern and anonymous. There were no antiques, no Oriental rug and no pictures that I could see.
From the beginning, I had a negative feeling about this doctor. He didn't seem intense enough or determined enough to prevail over something powerful and demonic like illness. He had a pink, soft face and blue eyes, and his manner was hearty and vague at the same time, polite where politeness was irrelevant. He reminded me of a salesman with nothing to sell but his inoffensiveness.
I didn't like the way he spoke: it struck me as deliberately deliberate, a man fixed in a pose, playing doctor. There was no sign of a tragic sense of life in him that I could see, no furious desire to oppose himself to fate. I realized, of course, that what I was looking for was extravagant, that I was demanding nothing less than an ideal doctor, yet isn't that what we all want?
In the end, it didn't matter whether my reading of this particular man was just or unjust - I simply couldn't warm up to him. Choosing a doctor is difficult because it is our first explicit confrontation of our illness. ''How good is this man?'' is simply the reverse of ''How bad am I?'' To be sick brings out all our prejudices and primitive feelings. Like fear, or love, it makes us a little crazy. Yet the craziness of the patient is part of his condition. I was also aware of a certain predisposition in myself in favor of Jewish doctors. I thought of them as the trouble-shooters -the physicians, lawyers, brokers, arbiters and artists - of contemporary life. History had convinced them that life was a disease. My father, who was an old-fashioned Southern anti-Semite, insisted on a Jewish doctor when he developed cancer of the bladder. A Jewish doctor, he argued, had been bred to medicine. In my father's Biblical conception, a Jew's life was a story of study, repair and reform. A Jewish doctor knew what survival was worth, because he had had to fight for his. Obliged to treat life as a business as well as a pleasure, Jews drove hard bargains. To lose a patient was bad business. In his heart, I think my father believed that a Jewish doctor was closer to God and could use that connection to ''Jew down'' death.
This other, all-too-human doctor took me into an examining room and felt my prostate. It appeared to me that he had not yet overcome his self-consciousness about this procedure. Back in his office, he summed up his findings. There were hard lumps in my prostate, he said, which suggested tumors, and these ''mandated'' further investigation. He used the word ''mandate'' twice in his summary, as well as the word ''significantly.''
But he was the only urologist I knew in Cambridge, and so, a few days later, I allowed him to perform a cystoscopy, a procedure in which a small scope was inserted through my urethra up to my prostate and bladder. During surgical procedures, doctors wear a tightfitting white cap, a sort of skullcap like the one Alan Alda wears in ''M*A*S*H*.'' To this, my doctor had added what looked like a clear plastic shower cap, and the moment I saw him in these two caps, I turned irrevocably against him. He wore them absolutely without inflection or style, with none of the jauntiness that usually comes with long practice. He wore them like an American in France who affects a beret without understanding how to shape or cock it. To my eyes, this doctor simply didn't have the charisma to overcome or assimilate those caps, and that finished him off for me.
I want to point out that this man is in all likelihood an able, even a talented doctor. Certainly, I'm no judge of his medical competence, nor do I mean to criticize it. What turned me against him was what I saw as a lack of style. I realized that I wanted my doctor to have style - which I think of as a dash of magic - as well as medical ability. It was like having a lucky doctor. I've described all this - a patient's madness - to show how irrational such transactions are, how far removed from any notion of dispassionate objectivity. To be sick is already to be disordered in your mind as well. Still, this does not necessarily mean that I was wrong to want to change doctors: I was simply listening to my unconscious telling me what I needed.
Now that I know I have cancer of the prostate, the lymph nodes and part of my skeleton, what do I want in a doctor? I would say that I want one who is a close reader of illness and a good critic of medicine. I secretly believe that criticism can wither cancer. Also, I would like a doctor who is not only a talented physician but a bit of a metaphysician too, someone who can treat body and soul. I used to get restless when people talked about soul, but now I know better. Soul is the part of you that you summon up in emergencies. You don't need to be religious to believe in the soul or to have one.
My ideal doctor would be my Virgil, leading me through my purgatory or inferno, pointing out the sights as we go. He would resemble Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who wrote ''Awakenings'' and ''The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.'' I can imagine Dr. Sacks entering my condition, looking around at it from the inside like a benevolent landlord with a tenant, trying to see how he could make the premises more livable for me. He would see the genius of my illness. He would mingle his daemon with mine; we would wrestle with my fate together. Inside every patient, there's a poet trying to get out. My ideal doctor would ''read'' my poetry, my literature. He would see that my sickness has purified me, weakening my worst parts and strengthening the best.
To most physicians, my illness is a routine incident in their rounds, while for me it's the crisis of my life. I would feel better if I had a doctor who, at least, perceived this incongruity. I don't ask him to love me - in fact, I think the role of love is greatly exaggerated by many writers on illness. Of course you want your family and close friends to love you, but the situation shouldn't become a hunting season for love, or a competition, a desperate kiss before dying. To a critically ill person, love may begin to resemble an anesthetic. In a novel by Joy Williams called ''State of Grace,'' a character asks, ''What can be beyond love? I want to get there.'' The sick man has got there: he's at a point where what he wants from most people is not love but a spacious, flaring grasp of his situation, what is known now in the literature of illness as ''empathetic witnessing.'' The patient is always on the brink of revelation, and he needs someone who can recognize it when it comes.
Just as I see no reason for my physician to love me, I would not expect him to suffer with me either. On the contrary, what would please me most would be a doctor who enjoyed me. I want to be a good story for him, to give him some of my art in exchange for his. If a patient expects a doctor to be interested in him, he ought to try to be interesting. When he shows nothing but a greediness for care, nothing but the coarser forms of anxiety, it's only natural for the physician to feel an aversion. There is an etiquette to being sick.
I wouldn't demand a lot of my doctor's time; I just wish he would brood on my situation for perhaps five minutes, that he would give me his whole mind just once. I would like to think of him as going through my character, as he goes through my flesh, to get at my illness, for each man is ill in his own way. Proust complained that his physician did not allow for his having read Shakespeare. I have a wistful desire for my relation to my doctor to be beautiful - but I don't know how this can be brought about. Though I see us framed in an epiphany, I can't make out the content.
Just as he orders blood tests and bone scans of my body, I'd like my doctor to scan me, to grope for my spirit as well as my prostate. While he inevitably feels superior to me because he is the doctor and I am the patient, I'd like him to know that I feel superior to him too, that he is my patient also and I have my diagnosis of him. There should be a place where our respective superiorities could meet and frolic together.
Since technology deprives me of the intimacy of my illness, makes it not mine but something that belongs to science, I wish my doctor could somehow restore it to me and make it personal again. When my father's father died in the French Quarter of New Orleans 60 years ago, the popularly accepted story was that on a humid night in mid-August, he had eaten a dozen bananas and then taken a cold bath. He was a man of 87 whose life had been a strenuous assertion of his appetites, and this explanation suited him, just as it suited his friends in the French Quarter. It would be more satisfying to me, it would allow me to feel that I owned my illness, if my urologist were to say, ''You know, you've beat the hell out of this prostate of yours. It looks like a worn-out baseball.'' Nobody wants an anonymous illness. I'd much rather think that I brought it on myself than that it was a mere accident of nature.
It is only natural for a patient to feel some dismay at the changes brought about in his body by illness, and I wonder whether an innovative doctor - again, like Oliver Sacks - couldn't find a way to reconceptualize this situation. If only the patient could be allowed to see his illness not so much as a failure of his body as a natural consumption of it. Any reconciling idea would do. The doctor could say, ''You've spent your self unselfishly, like a philanthropist who gives all his money away.'' If the patient could feel that he has earned his illness, that his sickness represents the decadence that follows a great flowering, he might look upon the ruin of his body as tourists look upon the ruins of antiquity. (Of course I'm offering these suggestions playfully, as experiments in thinking about medicine.) Physicians have been taught in medical school that they must keep the patient at a distance because there isn't time to accommodate his personality, or because if the doctor becomes ''involved'' in the patient's predicament, the emotional burden will be too great. As I've suggested, it doesn't take much time to make good contact, but beyond that, the emotional burden of avoiding the patient may be much harder on the doctor than he imagines. It may be this that sometimes makes him complain of feeling harassed. The patient's unanswered questions will always thunder in his stethoscope. A doctor's job would be so much more interesting and satisfying if he would occasionally let himself plunge into the patient, if he could lose his own fear of falling.
Applying to other friends, following new recommendations, I found another urologist. He's highly regarded in his field, and he inspired such confidence in me that my cancer immediately went into remission. My only regret is that he doesn't talk very much - and when he does, he sounds like everybody else. His brilliance has no voice - at least not when he's with me. There's a paradox here at the heart of medicine, because a doctor, like a writer, must have a voice of his own, something that conveys the timbre, the rhythm, the diction and the music of his humanity, that compensates us for all the speechless machines. When a doctor makes a difficult diagnosis, it is not his medical knowledge only that determines it, but a voice in his head. Such a diagnosis depends as much on inspiration as art does. Whether he wants to be or not, the doctor is a storyteller, and he can turn our lives into good or bad stories, regardless of the diagnosis. If my doctor would allow me, I would be glad to help him here, to take him on as my patient.
Although I hope to live for a while, my urologist is young, and I see us as joined till death do us part. Perhaps later, when he is older, he'll have learned how to converse. Astute as he is, he doesn't yet understand that all cures are partly ''talking cures.'' Every patient needs mouth-to-mouth resusitation, for talk is the kiss of life.
Yet it's too easy to accuse the doctor, to blame the absence of natural talk on him. It's also true that some of what the patient asks is ineffable. Even a doctor like Chekhov would be hard put to answer him. For example, I would like to discuss my prostate with my urologist not as a diseased organ but as a philosopher's stone. Every patient invites the doctor to combine the role of the priest, the philosopher, the poet, the scholar. He expects the doctor to evaluate his entire life, like a biographer.
Of course, a physician may reasonably ask: ''But what am I supposed to say? All I can tell the patient is the facts, if there are any facts.'' But this is not quite true. The doctor's answer to his patient is yet to be born. It will come naturally - or at first unnaturally - from the intersecting of the patient's needs with the physician's as yet untried imagination. Just as a mother ushers her child into the world, so the doctor must usher the patient out of the ordinary world into whatever place awaits him. The physician is the patient's only familiar in a foreign country.
To help the doctor reach the patient, and the patient to reach the doctor, the mood of the hospital might have to be modified. It might be less like a laboratory and more like a theater, which would be only fitting, since no place contains more drama. The laboratory atmosphere can probably be traced back to the idea of asepsis, to the avoidance of contagion. Originally, the patient was protected by the sterility of the hospital. Only the sterility went too far: It sterilized the doctor's thinking. It sterilized the patient's entire experience in the hospital. It sterilized the very notion of illness to the point where we can't bring our soiled thoughts to bear on it. But the sick man needs the contagion of life.
Not every patient can be saved, but his illness may be eased by the way the doctor responds to him - and in responding to him, the doctor may save himself. But first he must become a student again; he has to dissect the cadaver of his professional persona; he must see that his silence and neutrality are unnatural. It may be necessary to give up some of his authority in exchange for his humanity, but as the old family doctors knew, this is not a bad bargain. In learning to talk to his patients, the doctor may talk himself back into loving his work. He has little to lose and much to gain by letting the sick man into his heart. If he does, they can share, as few others can, the wonder, terror and exaltation of being on the edge of being, between the natural and the supernatural.
The bits I've put in bold are pretty much parts I would have highlighted or underlined if this were in a book.
By Anatole Broyard; Anatole Broyard is a former editor of The New York Times Book Review
Published: August 26, 1990
When, in the Summer of 1989, I moved from Connecticut to Cambridge, Mass., I found that I had difficulty urinating. I was like Portnoy, in ''Portnoy's Complaint,'' who couldn't fornicate in Israel. I had always wanted to live in Cambridge, and the thought passed through my mind that I couldn't urinate because - like Israel for Portnoy - Cambridge was a transcendent place for me.
When my inhibition persisted, I began to think about a doctor, and I set about finding one in the superstitious manner most of us fall back on: I asked a couple I knew for a recommendation. To be recommended, for whatever unreasonable reasons, gives a doctor an aura, a history, a shred of magic. Though I thought of my disorder as a simple matter - prostatitis is common in men of my age - I still wanted a potent doctor.
I applied to this particular couple for a recommendation because they are the two most critical people I know: critics of philosophy, politics, history, literature, drama, music. They are the sort of people for whom information is a religion, and the rigor of their conversation is legendary. To talk with them is an ordeal, a fatigue of fine distinctions, and I wanted a doctor who had survived such a scrutiny.
They could only give me the name of their internist, who referred me to a urologist. The recommendation was diluted, but it was better than none, so I made an appointment to see the urologist in a local hospital. The visit began well. The secretary was attractive, efficient and alert. She remembered my name. I was shown into a pleasant office and told that the doctor would be with me in a few minutes.
While I waited, I subjected the doctor to a preliminary semiotic scrutiny. Sitting in his office, I read his signs. The diplomas I took for granted; what interested me was the fact that the room was furnished with taste. There were well-made, well-filled bookcases, an antique desk and chairs, a reasonable Oriental rug on the floor. A large window opened one wall of the office to the panorama of Boston, and this suggested status, an earned respect. I imagined the doctor taking the long view out of his window.
On the walls and desk were pictures of three healthy-looking, conspicuously happy children, photographed in a prosperous outdoor setting of lawn, flowers and trees. As I remember, one of the photographs showed a sailboat. From the evidence, their father knew how to live - and by extension, how to look after the lives of others.
Soon the doctor came in and introduced himself. ''Let's go into my office,'' he said, and I realized that I had been waiting among someone else's effects. I felt that I had been tricked. Having already warmed myself to the first doctor, I was obliged to follow this second man, this impostor, into another office, which turned out to be modern and anonymous. There were no antiques, no Oriental rug and no pictures that I could see.
From the beginning, I had a negative feeling about this doctor. He didn't seem intense enough or determined enough to prevail over something powerful and demonic like illness. He had a pink, soft face and blue eyes, and his manner was hearty and vague at the same time, polite where politeness was irrelevant. He reminded me of a salesman with nothing to sell but his inoffensiveness.
I didn't like the way he spoke: it struck me as deliberately deliberate, a man fixed in a pose, playing doctor. There was no sign of a tragic sense of life in him that I could see, no furious desire to oppose himself to fate. I realized, of course, that what I was looking for was extravagant, that I was demanding nothing less than an ideal doctor, yet isn't that what we all want?
In the end, it didn't matter whether my reading of this particular man was just or unjust - I simply couldn't warm up to him. Choosing a doctor is difficult because it is our first explicit confrontation of our illness. ''How good is this man?'' is simply the reverse of ''How bad am I?'' To be sick brings out all our prejudices and primitive feelings. Like fear, or love, it makes us a little crazy. Yet the craziness of the patient is part of his condition. I was also aware of a certain predisposition in myself in favor of Jewish doctors. I thought of them as the trouble-shooters -the physicians, lawyers, brokers, arbiters and artists - of contemporary life. History had convinced them that life was a disease. My father, who was an old-fashioned Southern anti-Semite, insisted on a Jewish doctor when he developed cancer of the bladder. A Jewish doctor, he argued, had been bred to medicine. In my father's Biblical conception, a Jew's life was a story of study, repair and reform. A Jewish doctor knew what survival was worth, because he had had to fight for his. Obliged to treat life as a business as well as a pleasure, Jews drove hard bargains. To lose a patient was bad business. In his heart, I think my father believed that a Jewish doctor was closer to God and could use that connection to ''Jew down'' death.
This other, all-too-human doctor took me into an examining room and felt my prostate. It appeared to me that he had not yet overcome his self-consciousness about this procedure. Back in his office, he summed up his findings. There were hard lumps in my prostate, he said, which suggested tumors, and these ''mandated'' further investigation. He used the word ''mandate'' twice in his summary, as well as the word ''significantly.''
But he was the only urologist I knew in Cambridge, and so, a few days later, I allowed him to perform a cystoscopy, a procedure in which a small scope was inserted through my urethra up to my prostate and bladder. During surgical procedures, doctors wear a tightfitting white cap, a sort of skullcap like the one Alan Alda wears in ''M*A*S*H*.'' To this, my doctor had added what looked like a clear plastic shower cap, and the moment I saw him in these two caps, I turned irrevocably against him. He wore them absolutely without inflection or style, with none of the jauntiness that usually comes with long practice. He wore them like an American in France who affects a beret without understanding how to shape or cock it. To my eyes, this doctor simply didn't have the charisma to overcome or assimilate those caps, and that finished him off for me.
I want to point out that this man is in all likelihood an able, even a talented doctor. Certainly, I'm no judge of his medical competence, nor do I mean to criticize it. What turned me against him was what I saw as a lack of style. I realized that I wanted my doctor to have style - which I think of as a dash of magic - as well as medical ability. It was like having a lucky doctor. I've described all this - a patient's madness - to show how irrational such transactions are, how far removed from any notion of dispassionate objectivity. To be sick is already to be disordered in your mind as well. Still, this does not necessarily mean that I was wrong to want to change doctors: I was simply listening to my unconscious telling me what I needed.
Now that I know I have cancer of the prostate, the lymph nodes and part of my skeleton, what do I want in a doctor? I would say that I want one who is a close reader of illness and a good critic of medicine. I secretly believe that criticism can wither cancer. Also, I would like a doctor who is not only a talented physician but a bit of a metaphysician too, someone who can treat body and soul. I used to get restless when people talked about soul, but now I know better. Soul is the part of you that you summon up in emergencies. You don't need to be religious to believe in the soul or to have one.
My ideal doctor would be my Virgil, leading me through my purgatory or inferno, pointing out the sights as we go. He would resemble Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who wrote ''Awakenings'' and ''The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.'' I can imagine Dr. Sacks entering my condition, looking around at it from the inside like a benevolent landlord with a tenant, trying to see how he could make the premises more livable for me. He would see the genius of my illness. He would mingle his daemon with mine; we would wrestle with my fate together. Inside every patient, there's a poet trying to get out. My ideal doctor would ''read'' my poetry, my literature. He would see that my sickness has purified me, weakening my worst parts and strengthening the best.
To most physicians, my illness is a routine incident in their rounds, while for me it's the crisis of my life. I would feel better if I had a doctor who, at least, perceived this incongruity. I don't ask him to love me - in fact, I think the role of love is greatly exaggerated by many writers on illness. Of course you want your family and close friends to love you, but the situation shouldn't become a hunting season for love, or a competition, a desperate kiss before dying. To a critically ill person, love may begin to resemble an anesthetic. In a novel by Joy Williams called ''State of Grace,'' a character asks, ''What can be beyond love? I want to get there.'' The sick man has got there: he's at a point where what he wants from most people is not love but a spacious, flaring grasp of his situation, what is known now in the literature of illness as ''empathetic witnessing.'' The patient is always on the brink of revelation, and he needs someone who can recognize it when it comes.
Just as I see no reason for my physician to love me, I would not expect him to suffer with me either. On the contrary, what would please me most would be a doctor who enjoyed me. I want to be a good story for him, to give him some of my art in exchange for his. If a patient expects a doctor to be interested in him, he ought to try to be interesting. When he shows nothing but a greediness for care, nothing but the coarser forms of anxiety, it's only natural for the physician to feel an aversion. There is an etiquette to being sick.
I wouldn't demand a lot of my doctor's time; I just wish he would brood on my situation for perhaps five minutes, that he would give me his whole mind just once. I would like to think of him as going through my character, as he goes through my flesh, to get at my illness, for each man is ill in his own way. Proust complained that his physician did not allow for his having read Shakespeare. I have a wistful desire for my relation to my doctor to be beautiful - but I don't know how this can be brought about. Though I see us framed in an epiphany, I can't make out the content.
Just as he orders blood tests and bone scans of my body, I'd like my doctor to scan me, to grope for my spirit as well as my prostate. While he inevitably feels superior to me because he is the doctor and I am the patient, I'd like him to know that I feel superior to him too, that he is my patient also and I have my diagnosis of him. There should be a place where our respective superiorities could meet and frolic together.
Since technology deprives me of the intimacy of my illness, makes it not mine but something that belongs to science, I wish my doctor could somehow restore it to me and make it personal again. When my father's father died in the French Quarter of New Orleans 60 years ago, the popularly accepted story was that on a humid night in mid-August, he had eaten a dozen bananas and then taken a cold bath. He was a man of 87 whose life had been a strenuous assertion of his appetites, and this explanation suited him, just as it suited his friends in the French Quarter. It would be more satisfying to me, it would allow me to feel that I owned my illness, if my urologist were to say, ''You know, you've beat the hell out of this prostate of yours. It looks like a worn-out baseball.'' Nobody wants an anonymous illness. I'd much rather think that I brought it on myself than that it was a mere accident of nature.
It is only natural for a patient to feel some dismay at the changes brought about in his body by illness, and I wonder whether an innovative doctor - again, like Oliver Sacks - couldn't find a way to reconceptualize this situation. If only the patient could be allowed to see his illness not so much as a failure of his body as a natural consumption of it. Any reconciling idea would do. The doctor could say, ''You've spent your self unselfishly, like a philanthropist who gives all his money away.'' If the patient could feel that he has earned his illness, that his sickness represents the decadence that follows a great flowering, he might look upon the ruin of his body as tourists look upon the ruins of antiquity. (Of course I'm offering these suggestions playfully, as experiments in thinking about medicine.) Physicians have been taught in medical school that they must keep the patient at a distance because there isn't time to accommodate his personality, or because if the doctor becomes ''involved'' in the patient's predicament, the emotional burden will be too great. As I've suggested, it doesn't take much time to make good contact, but beyond that, the emotional burden of avoiding the patient may be much harder on the doctor than he imagines. It may be this that sometimes makes him complain of feeling harassed. The patient's unanswered questions will always thunder in his stethoscope. A doctor's job would be so much more interesting and satisfying if he would occasionally let himself plunge into the patient, if he could lose his own fear of falling.
Applying to other friends, following new recommendations, I found another urologist. He's highly regarded in his field, and he inspired such confidence in me that my cancer immediately went into remission. My only regret is that he doesn't talk very much - and when he does, he sounds like everybody else. His brilliance has no voice - at least not when he's with me. There's a paradox here at the heart of medicine, because a doctor, like a writer, must have a voice of his own, something that conveys the timbre, the rhythm, the diction and the music of his humanity, that compensates us for all the speechless machines. When a doctor makes a difficult diagnosis, it is not his medical knowledge only that determines it, but a voice in his head. Such a diagnosis depends as much on inspiration as art does. Whether he wants to be or not, the doctor is a storyteller, and he can turn our lives into good or bad stories, regardless of the diagnosis. If my doctor would allow me, I would be glad to help him here, to take him on as my patient.
Although I hope to live for a while, my urologist is young, and I see us as joined till death do us part. Perhaps later, when he is older, he'll have learned how to converse. Astute as he is, he doesn't yet understand that all cures are partly ''talking cures.'' Every patient needs mouth-to-mouth resusitation, for talk is the kiss of life.
Yet it's too easy to accuse the doctor, to blame the absence of natural talk on him. It's also true that some of what the patient asks is ineffable. Even a doctor like Chekhov would be hard put to answer him. For example, I would like to discuss my prostate with my urologist not as a diseased organ but as a philosopher's stone. Every patient invites the doctor to combine the role of the priest, the philosopher, the poet, the scholar. He expects the doctor to evaluate his entire life, like a biographer.
Of course, a physician may reasonably ask: ''But what am I supposed to say? All I can tell the patient is the facts, if there are any facts.'' But this is not quite true. The doctor's answer to his patient is yet to be born. It will come naturally - or at first unnaturally - from the intersecting of the patient's needs with the physician's as yet untried imagination. Just as a mother ushers her child into the world, so the doctor must usher the patient out of the ordinary world into whatever place awaits him. The physician is the patient's only familiar in a foreign country.
To help the doctor reach the patient, and the patient to reach the doctor, the mood of the hospital might have to be modified. It might be less like a laboratory and more like a theater, which would be only fitting, since no place contains more drama. The laboratory atmosphere can probably be traced back to the idea of asepsis, to the avoidance of contagion. Originally, the patient was protected by the sterility of the hospital. Only the sterility went too far: It sterilized the doctor's thinking. It sterilized the patient's entire experience in the hospital. It sterilized the very notion of illness to the point where we can't bring our soiled thoughts to bear on it. But the sick man needs the contagion of life.
Not every patient can be saved, but his illness may be eased by the way the doctor responds to him - and in responding to him, the doctor may save himself. But first he must become a student again; he has to dissect the cadaver of his professional persona; he must see that his silence and neutrality are unnatural. It may be necessary to give up some of his authority in exchange for his humanity, but as the old family doctors knew, this is not a bad bargain. In learning to talk to his patients, the doctor may talk himself back into loving his work. He has little to lose and much to gain by letting the sick man into his heart. If he does, they can share, as few others can, the wonder, terror and exaltation of being on the edge of being, between the natural and the supernatural.
Westminister peace protester dies - RIP
Anti-War Campaigner Haw Loses Cancer Battle
.Veteran anti-war campaigner Brian Haw - who spent years living in a tent opposite the Houses of Parliament - has died after a long battle against cancer.
A statement by his family on brianhaw.tv, said: "It is with deepest regret that I inform you that our father, Brian, passed away this morning.
"As you know he was battling lung cancer, and was having treatment in Germany.
"He left us in his sleep and in no pain, after a long, hard fight."
Mr Haw, who was 62, had been battling for his right to remain living in a tent in Parliament Square.
He had been stationed in the square for 10 years, and had fought off a series of legal objections to his presence there.
The latest saw the Greater London Authority get him and his supporters thrown off the grass area at the centre of the square.
Later this year Westminster Council will attempt to get the camp moved off the pavement, which could see it removed permanently.
Mr Haw, began his round-the-clock protest opposite the Houses of Parliament against the UK's policy in Iraq and elsewhere on June 2, 2001.
It began as an angry response to economic sanctions and British and American bombing raids on Iraq.
But the scope widened after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington DC, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that followed.
Mr Haw's tent and ragtag collection of horrific pictures of war victims and hand-written posters with slogans like "baby killers" was a familiar sight in the square.
Civil rights campaigners got behind him as he saw off various attempts to force him to move.
In November 2004, ministers announced provisions in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill that could have seen him removed from Parliament Square.
Initially, the High Court ruled Mr Haw's protest was not covered by the Act because it started before the new law came into effect.
But the case was taken to the Court of Appeal which, in May 2006, ruled he would have to apply to the police under the Act for permission to continue his protest.
Fellow members of the Parliament Square Peace Campaign said the authorities "should forever be ashamed of their disgraceful behaviour towards Brian".
.
.Veteran anti-war campaigner Brian Haw - who spent years living in a tent opposite the Houses of Parliament - has died after a long battle against cancer.
A statement by his family on brianhaw.tv, said: "It is with deepest regret that I inform you that our father, Brian, passed away this morning.
"As you know he was battling lung cancer, and was having treatment in Germany.
"He left us in his sleep and in no pain, after a long, hard fight."
Mr Haw, who was 62, had been battling for his right to remain living in a tent in Parliament Square.
He had been stationed in the square for 10 years, and had fought off a series of legal objections to his presence there.
The latest saw the Greater London Authority get him and his supporters thrown off the grass area at the centre of the square.
Later this year Westminster Council will attempt to get the camp moved off the pavement, which could see it removed permanently.
Mr Haw, began his round-the-clock protest opposite the Houses of Parliament against the UK's policy in Iraq and elsewhere on June 2, 2001.
It began as an angry response to economic sanctions and British and American bombing raids on Iraq.
But the scope widened after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington DC, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that followed.
Mr Haw's tent and ragtag collection of horrific pictures of war victims and hand-written posters with slogans like "baby killers" was a familiar sight in the square.
Civil rights campaigners got behind him as he saw off various attempts to force him to move.
In November 2004, ministers announced provisions in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill that could have seen him removed from Parliament Square.
Initially, the High Court ruled Mr Haw's protest was not covered by the Act because it started before the new law came into effect.
But the case was taken to the Court of Appeal which, in May 2006, ruled he would have to apply to the police under the Act for permission to continue his protest.
Fellow members of the Parliament Square Peace Campaign said the authorities "should forever be ashamed of their disgraceful behaviour towards Brian".
.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Film: Koudak va fereshteh (Child and Angel)
2009, 95 mins, Iranian feature.
Director : Masoud Naghashzadeh.
Producer : Hassan Kalami.
Set in a town in southern Iran in the summer of 1980, the film follows the experiences of a school girl as was descends, and sets in. A carefully and sensitively told story.
16th International Children's Film Festival India page 3 of the document
SCHLINGEL International Film Festival - 2009 Cinestar Youth Film Award
Profile from the Schlingel archive - in German
... and translated into english, courtesy of google translate. Somewhat cumbersome translation unfortunately.
Nominated for best film editing in 27th Fajr International Film Festival
Director : Masoud Naghashzadeh.
Producer : Hassan Kalami.
Set in a town in southern Iran in the summer of 1980, the film follows the experiences of a school girl as was descends, and sets in. A carefully and sensitively told story.
16th International Children's Film Festival India page 3 of the document
SCHLINGEL International Film Festival - 2009 Cinestar Youth Film Award
Profile from the Schlingel archive - in German
... and translated into english, courtesy of google translate. Somewhat cumbersome translation unfortunately.
Nominated for best film editing in 27th Fajr International Film Festival
Friday, June 03, 2011
Poet arrested
The Independant
Locked up for reading a poem
Ayat al-Gormezi, the woman who symbolises Bahrain's fight for freedom
By Patrick Cockburn
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Bahrain's security forces are increasingly targeting women in their campaign against pro-democracy protesters despite yesterday lifting martial law in the island kingdom.
Ayat al-Gormezi, 20, a poet and student arrested two months ago after reading out a poem at a pro-democracy rally, is due to go on trial today before a military tribunal, her mother said. Ayat was forced to turn herself in when masked policemen threatened to kill her brothers unless she did so.
She has not been seen since her arrest, though her mother did talk to her once by phone and Ayat said that she had been forced to sign a false confession. Her mother has since been told that her daughter has been in a military hospital after being tortured.
"We are the people who will kill humiliation and assassinate misery," a film captures Ayat telling a cheering crowd of protesters in Pearl Square in February. "We are the people who will destroy the foundation of injustice." She addresses King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa directly and says to him: "Don't you hear their cries, don't you hear their screams?" As she finishes, the crowd shouts: "Down with Hamad."
Ayat's call for change was no more radical than that heard in the streets of Tunis, Cairo and Benghazi at about the same time. But her reference to the king might explain the fury shown by the Bahraini security forces who, going by photographs of the scene, smashed up her bedroom when they raided her house and could not find her.
There are signs that Bahraini police, riot police and special security are detaining and mistreating more and more women. Many are held incommunicado, forced to sign confessions or threatened with rape, according to Bahraini human rights groups.
Bahrain is the first country affected by the Arab Spring where women have been singled out as targets for repression. Human rights groups say that hundreds have been arrested. Many women complain of being severely beaten while in custody. One woman journalist was beaten so badly that she could not walk.
A woman doctor, who was later released but may be charged, says she was threatened with rape. She told Reuters news agency that the police said: "We are 14 guys in this room, do you know what we can do to you? It's the emergency law [martial law] and we are free to do what we want."
The ending of martial law and a call for dialogue from King Hamad appear to be part of a campaign to show that normal life is returning to Bahrain. The Bahraini government is eager to host the Formula One motor race, which was postponed from earlier in the year, but may be rescheduled to take place in Bahrain by the sports governing body meeting in Barcelona tomorrow.
Despite the lifting of martial law, imposed on 15 March, there is no sign of repression easing. Some 600 people are still detained, at least 2,000 have been sacked, and some 27 mosques of the Shia, who make up 70 per cent of the population, have been bulldozed.
The protests started on 14 February in emulation of events in Egypt and Tunisia with a campaign for political reform, a central demand being civil and political equality for the majority Shia. The al-Khalifa royal family and the ruling class in Bahrain are Sunni.
The targeting of women by the security forces may, like the destruction of mosques, have the broader aim of demonstrating to the Shia community that the Sunni elite will show no restraint in preventing the Shia winning political power. Shia leaders complain that the state-controlled media is continuing to pump out sectarian anti-Shia propaganda.
The government is eager to show that Bahrain can return to being an untroubled business and tourist hub for the Gulf. Having the Formula One race rescheduled to take place on the island later this year would be an important success in this direction.
The New York based Human Rights Watch has written to the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), saying that the race would take place in an environment of unrelenting "punitive retribution" against pro-democracy protesters.
If the race does go ahead it will be without a quarter of the staff of the Bahrain International Circuit, the host organisation, who have been arrested, including two senior staff. Most have been sacked or suspended, accused of approving of the postponement of the Formula One event earlier in the year.
The government has been detaining and beating local reporters. The one international journalist based permanently in Bahrain was ordered out this month. Even foreign correspondents with entry visas have been denied entry when they arrive in Bahrain.
Profile: Ayat al-Gormezi
Ayat al-Gormezi, a 20-year-old poet and student at the Faculty of Teachers in Bahrain, was arrested on 30 March for reciting a poem critical of the government during the pro-democracy protests in Pearl Square, the main gathering place for demonstrators, in February. She was forced to give herself up after police raided her parents' house and made four of Ayat's brothers lie on the floor at gunpoint. She was not there at the time. One policeman shouted at their father to "tell us where Ayat is or we will kill each of your sons in front of your eyes".
Masked police and special riot police later took Ayat away telling her mother that her daughter would be interrogated. Her mother was told to pick up her daughter from Al-Howra police station, but has not seen her since her arrest. She did speak to her once on the phone when Ayat told her that she had been forced to sign a false confession. Her mother has been told confidentially that Ayat is in a military hospital as a result of injuries inflicted when she was tortured.
Locked up for reading a poem
Ayat al-Gormezi, the woman who symbolises Bahrain's fight for freedom
By Patrick Cockburn
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Bahrain's security forces are increasingly targeting women in their campaign against pro-democracy protesters despite yesterday lifting martial law in the island kingdom.
Ayat al-Gormezi, 20, a poet and student arrested two months ago after reading out a poem at a pro-democracy rally, is due to go on trial today before a military tribunal, her mother said. Ayat was forced to turn herself in when masked policemen threatened to kill her brothers unless she did so.
She has not been seen since her arrest, though her mother did talk to her once by phone and Ayat said that she had been forced to sign a false confession. Her mother has since been told that her daughter has been in a military hospital after being tortured.
"We are the people who will kill humiliation and assassinate misery," a film captures Ayat telling a cheering crowd of protesters in Pearl Square in February. "We are the people who will destroy the foundation of injustice." She addresses King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa directly and says to him: "Don't you hear their cries, don't you hear their screams?" As she finishes, the crowd shouts: "Down with Hamad."
Ayat's call for change was no more radical than that heard in the streets of Tunis, Cairo and Benghazi at about the same time. But her reference to the king might explain the fury shown by the Bahraini security forces who, going by photographs of the scene, smashed up her bedroom when they raided her house and could not find her.
There are signs that Bahraini police, riot police and special security are detaining and mistreating more and more women. Many are held incommunicado, forced to sign confessions or threatened with rape, according to Bahraini human rights groups.
Bahrain is the first country affected by the Arab Spring where women have been singled out as targets for repression. Human rights groups say that hundreds have been arrested. Many women complain of being severely beaten while in custody. One woman journalist was beaten so badly that she could not walk.
A woman doctor, who was later released but may be charged, says she was threatened with rape. She told Reuters news agency that the police said: "We are 14 guys in this room, do you know what we can do to you? It's the emergency law [martial law] and we are free to do what we want."
The ending of martial law and a call for dialogue from King Hamad appear to be part of a campaign to show that normal life is returning to Bahrain. The Bahraini government is eager to host the Formula One motor race, which was postponed from earlier in the year, but may be rescheduled to take place in Bahrain by the sports governing body meeting in Barcelona tomorrow.
Despite the lifting of martial law, imposed on 15 March, there is no sign of repression easing. Some 600 people are still detained, at least 2,000 have been sacked, and some 27 mosques of the Shia, who make up 70 per cent of the population, have been bulldozed.
The protests started on 14 February in emulation of events in Egypt and Tunisia with a campaign for political reform, a central demand being civil and political equality for the majority Shia. The al-Khalifa royal family and the ruling class in Bahrain are Sunni.
The targeting of women by the security forces may, like the destruction of mosques, have the broader aim of demonstrating to the Shia community that the Sunni elite will show no restraint in preventing the Shia winning political power. Shia leaders complain that the state-controlled media is continuing to pump out sectarian anti-Shia propaganda.
The government is eager to show that Bahrain can return to being an untroubled business and tourist hub for the Gulf. Having the Formula One race rescheduled to take place on the island later this year would be an important success in this direction.
The New York based Human Rights Watch has written to the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), saying that the race would take place in an environment of unrelenting "punitive retribution" against pro-democracy protesters.
If the race does go ahead it will be without a quarter of the staff of the Bahrain International Circuit, the host organisation, who have been arrested, including two senior staff. Most have been sacked or suspended, accused of approving of the postponement of the Formula One event earlier in the year.
The government has been detaining and beating local reporters. The one international journalist based permanently in Bahrain was ordered out this month. Even foreign correspondents with entry visas have been denied entry when they arrive in Bahrain.
Profile: Ayat al-Gormezi
Ayat al-Gormezi, a 20-year-old poet and student at the Faculty of Teachers in Bahrain, was arrested on 30 March for reciting a poem critical of the government during the pro-democracy protests in Pearl Square, the main gathering place for demonstrators, in February. She was forced to give herself up after police raided her parents' house and made four of Ayat's brothers lie on the floor at gunpoint. She was not there at the time. One policeman shouted at their father to "tell us where Ayat is or we will kill each of your sons in front of your eyes".
Masked police and special riot police later took Ayat away telling her mother that her daughter would be interrogated. Her mother was told to pick up her daughter from Al-Howra police station, but has not seen her since her arrest. She did speak to her once on the phone when Ayat told her that she had been forced to sign a false confession. Her mother has been told confidentially that Ayat is in a military hospital as a result of injuries inflicted when she was tortured.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
An article on an inspirational woman...
From the Guardian
The Guardian Profile: Helen Bamber
Small wonder
As a teenager, she volunteered to help concentration camp survivors and the experience changed her life. Today she works with victims of torture and helps them overcome unimaginable horrors. Simon Hattenstone on the tireless compassion of an 'ordinary woman with extraordinary talents'
Saturday 11 March 2000
In 1945 Helen Bamber made the decision that was to shape her life. She was 19 years old, still a girl, when she told her parents that she was going to Belsen with the Jewish Relief Unit. She didn't quite know why she felt compelled to see, to smell, to understand the dreadful aftermath of Nazism, but she knew she had to. It was in Germany that Bamber decided the world was divided into two camps: bystanders and witnesses. Bystanders see what they want, turn away when it suits them, deny the evidence if necessary. Witnesses have a duty to observe and report truthfully.
Now, 55 years on, Bamber still divides the world into bystanders and witnesses. As founder and director of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, she has borne witness to myriad horror stories. At the foundation, she works as a psychotherapist, listening to clients for as long as they wish or can bear to talk. And when she's not listening, she is tending the foundation's ever expanding bureaucracy or travelling the world to discover the most repugnant details of the world's most oppressive regimes. The title of Neil Belton's recent biography of her, The Good Listener (Phoenix, £7.99), is a perfect summation of her life and work: understated, to the point, practical - rather like the foundation itself.
"Helen is not an extraordinary person in many respects," says Sherman Carroll, her director of public affairs at the foundation. "She's not an intellectual, she's not terribly well educated with a fancy degree, she's not a lawyer, not a doctor. She's an ordinary woman who has committed her life to good works. So in that sense she's amazing ... but ordinary."
John McCarthy, the broadcaster and former hostage, remembers being as intrigued as he was impressed the first time he met her. "She's tiny. She'll come to slightly above your waist," he says. "Yet as you talk to her you realise there's a great deal of not just energy but power. She is an interesting mix - so caring and compassionate, but also direct and determined."
When you enter the foundation you walk past a room full of disparate people, of all colours and nationalities. Many faces are marked with the lines and scars of struggle. One woman is laughing with a friend; one man holds the weight of his head - the world - in his hands; a couple of children run about the waiting room. You can't help wondering about their history. Where are they from? How did they offend their home state? Were they psychologically tortured, starved, beaten, locked in solitary? Can they ever be happy again?
Helen Bamber, 74, seems even tinier than John McCarthy suggests. She's wearing a glistening white shirt that is buried inside a smart blue cardigan which trails down to her ankles. Her lips are glossed, her nails varnished in a transparent silver. Any number of bracelets dance up her arms. The foundation has just heard that General Pinochet will be returned to Chile, and she can't hide her despondency. She questions the value of the British medical reports and says she would be happy if the Chilean authorities disregarded them .
She speaks softly and slowly, slightly pedantically. It's a lovely voice - ebbing and flowing, massaging. She gestures emphatically as she talks, and when this is pointed out she is a little embarrassed and defensive. "So many of my clients put their hand on their heart when they want to express something. It's a language of the body."
A conversation with Bamber soon turns to Belsen. She talks about how inexperienced she was, how she had to learn quickly. "I realised after a time that I couldn't take away their suffering, or their images or their losses, or their terrible sense of unresolved grief. People would tell you their story and it would spill out like a kind of vomit. They would go on talking, talking, talking ..." You can hear their despair in her voice. "And what they were telling you was sometimes quite dreadful. After a while I began to realise the most important role for me there was to bear witness. Bearing witness to the vulnerability of humanity."
She stops herself. "It sounds a very pompous phrase doesn't it? But the evil that can be done to human beings is something that I suppose has dominated my life."
Did her parents support her when she went to Germany? "My father accepted it, almost with a shrug of resignation. I think it was something about repaying a debt. I was aware that if the Nazis had succceeded in invading England, we would have been the victims."
Bamber grew up with a sense of persecution. Her father, Louis Balmuth, was born in New York, but his family returned to the Poland of the pogroms before emigrating to England in 1895 when he was nine. He was in his late 30s when he married Marie Bader, who had been born in Britain of Polish extraction. Bamber's first memories are of a huge house in north London's Amhurst Park that she shared with her extended family, a "splendid house" with its own billiards room.
Louis was an accountant by day and a philosopher/scribbler/ mathematician by night. Marie was a singer and pianist who hoped that Helen would realise the dreams she had had for herself and become a celebrated performer. The house was owned by the mysterious Uncle Michael, who had made a fortune as a "merchant", though what he sold no one seemed to know. The Balmuths were clever, multilingual and argumentative, and unsympathetic to the ways and needs of children. Before long, the Depression swallowed up Michael's money, and Helen and her parents found themselves relegated to a much smaller home in nearby Stamford Hill.
Fascism and its attendant fears were a backdrop to daily life. An educated pessimist, Louis Balmuth seemed to regard extermination as an inevitability. As the second world war scoured Europe, he listened to broadcasts by Goebbels, read young Helen extracts from Hitler's treatise Mein Kampf, and told her exactly what the Nazi leader was doing and where it would all end. Balmuth lived petrified by the past and in fear of the future.
Bamber had initially been sent to a private Jewish school in London. But when her parents began to struggle financially she was switched to a multi-denominational primary, from where she won a scholarship to high school in Tottenham. This is where a teacher bawled her out for not knowing the second verse of the national anthem and told her that of all parents, the parents of Jewish children had a particular duty to make sure their children knew the anthem.
She says her real education happened at home in early childhood. Bamber was a sick girl who spent much of her childhood bedridden with an illness that was probably TB. Relatives and refugee friends of her parents used to visit her, talk to her as if she were an adult and deliver bedside chats that could go on for days. She recalls a man who sat by her side explaining the first world war, and how the punitive settlement led to the rise of Hitler.
Bamber didn't go to Belsen with a sense of mission, but with foreboding. "I felt I had to face something, the fear in myself. I had to understand other people's fear, and I had to understand something about overcoming fear_ living. How does one live with the knowledge of atrocity?"
Henry Lunzer, her boss in the Jewish Relief Unit, still thinks of her as a "lovely, vivacious little girl". She was also a natural organiser. "Helen just took charge of headquarters, administered the whole thing," says Lunzer. "It was amazing at that age. God only knows what made her so efficient!" When we talk about Lunzer, Bamber smiles abstractedly. He was "quite a guy", she says, "looked very handsome in uniform, but then everyone looked good in uniform". She pulls herself up abruptly: "That's a stupid thing to say."
Bamber founded the the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture in 1985. She had spent three decades campaigning for the human rights organisation Amnesty International, where she had started a group to help torture victims. Amnesty leaders decided that treating torture victims as well as campaigning against the regimes that abused them was too broad a remit, which spurred her to start the foundation. Today there are 85 paid staff and 110 volunteers.
Although never formally trained, Bamber says she has no qualms about calling herself a psychotherapist - she has earned the title, having trained on the job for most of her life. Sheila Melzak, head of child and adolescent psychotherapy, at the foundation says she doesn't know how Bamber does it, but somehow people just open up to her. "She's very moth erly, maternal, but not in a pampering way. All sorts of people feel safe with her, especially those who have missed out on parenting. They'll talk to her about the most private experiences." She says no level of training could equip someone with this skill, and suggests that it is down to Bamber's own childhood experiences.
"I do think it's because of her own lack of parenting in her childhood. Her father was passionate about human rights. Fixated. So she was taught from a very early age about repression and about how other people may challenge that. But as parents they were not particularly good at parenting."
Bamber believes torture is a political act, but she says she must be careful here - the foundation is a charity, and it is important for it not to be perceived as politically motivated. "For me, torture is about total helplessness and total power, the deliberate destruction of people. It often can be at the instigation of the government, carried out by their henchmen. It is about the destruction of human beings, often while keeping them alive. Torture has been described as the attempt to kill a person without their dying."
The foundation exists to help people like Luis Muñoz who was tortured by Pinochet's henchmen. In 1974 his wife, a journalist who had written a book about Chile's ruling class, disappeared and he never saw her again. He was 26, she was 23. Muñoz was then thrown into a torture centre. He was beaten, kicked, forced to hang by his arms. His torturers attached electrodes to his mouth, his ears his eyes, his penis, his anus and his toes. They applied a soldering iron to his testicles. "They thought I was going to die, but they didn't want me dead yet, so they stopped the shock treatment and put me in a wooden box and deprived me of sleep, food and hygiene. There was a little hole for ventilation. They put me in there to drive me mad."
After three months in the torture centre, he was put in solitary confinement for another couple of months before being transferred to a concentration camp. On the way, the guards tormented him with a mock execution. Muñoz pleaded with them to kill him. "I thought I'd be better off dead, I'd given up."
When he arrived in Britain in 1977 he suffered depression, panic attacks and guilt, in addition to considerable physical pain. He first met Bamber when he and fellow Chilean refugees were on a 16-day hunger strike protesting against Pinochet. He discovered that Bamber, like him, lived in London's Muswell Hill, and after that they kept bumping into each other on the 43 bus. "She was very concerned about me. She knew more about my physical and mental health than I did at the time." Bamber told him he looked terrible, broken, that he needed help. "She doesn't let go. You can't evade her. She's very persistent. If you keep stuff from her, she won't give up."
He started going to Bamber for therapy. "For a long time I thought that if you talk about what happened to you, you'll hurt the person; you think it's too much for anyone else to bear. But Helen can contain you. She enables you to cry."
Luis Muñoz is what Bamber would call a creative survivor. She says there is so much rubbish talked about survivors and victims, as if survival itself is enough. But people have to be shown how to live again. She cites the strongest she found at Belsen - those who formed political committees, held religious meetings, started a theatre, forced themselves into being more than helpless victims. In a strange way the culture that grew out of concentration camps like Belsen become a template for the foundation. It is not simply a clinic where victims come to unveil themselves of their histories, but a cultural centre with allotments, holiday clubs, chess groups and drawing classes.
Creative survival is also about allowing people to grieve. Bamber talks about the Jews who came to Britain after the Holocaust and found themselves in a new world where they had to put their past behind them because it was not acknowledged, a world where they had to make do and get on. Many Jewish people did get on, but without an emotional release some imploded.
"That is something I feel so strongly about here. How do you retrieve their memory of somebody so you can bury them in an appropriate way, and not be fixed on their grotesque way of dying? I think many of us have found ways of sitting with people and retrieving that young man or woman by talking about the way they looked, the way they dressed, the way they smoked, and their irritating ways. You can bring the person back as they were in the best of memories, and you then see it's time to bury them." She apologises for her bluntness.
Soon after returning from Belsen she married Rudi Bamberger, who changed his named to the more British Bamber. He had escaped from Germany and the thugs who destroyed his parents' house and beat his father to death with fists and truncheons. There was tenderness and love in their relationship, but it was doomed. Like her father, Rudi was a terminal pessimist. He was drowning in his own darkness, and Bamber couldn't cope. Although her father had been more articulate about his helplessness, they shared the same quietness, the sense of having withdrawn from life. Living with victims is a very different matter to working with them, says Bamber. They divorced after 23 years together.
"It's not that one doesn't have affections or love, but very often somebody who has survived becomes disassociated from themselves as well as other people." She is almost whispering. "That was quite hard to live with - someone who was cut off from communication. You couldn't have spontaneity or celebration."
She says it would have been easier to divorce if they had simply not liked each other. "I was very sad for a long time. I think I'm still very sad." For many years she has lived by herself in Muswell Hill. Life was tough after they split up. She worked as a medical secretary at St George's hospital in east London, but was always broke. Their two sons Jonathan (now a physicist), and David (a sculptor whose work often alludes to the Holocaust), attended separate schools, she didn't have a car, the house they lived in was condemned.
John Rundle, a doctor who has known Bamber for 30 years and now works at the foundation, thinks struggle has made her what she is today. "If you're capable of dealing with the sorts of people we get here I don't think you could come from a jolly-hockey-sticks, wonderfully protective background. Helen has been fighting adversity ever since she was at Belsen. I don't think life has left her much room for personal comforts."
In some ways the breakdown of her marriage was liberating. Because she was short of money she rented rooms to foreign students. Suddenly her morose, dilapidated home was transformed by youth and optimism. "I suppose I began to laugh a lot when they were around. We had fun, we danced, we cooked, I used to book the entire launderette on a Sunday afternoon. There were six or seven students at a time, every nationality under the sun, and there would be great battles or debates about the virtues of eating rhinoceros. There hadn't been much laughter in my parents' home or in my married life."
Bamber has a lovely girlish giggle, and can extract humour from the grimmest situations. She says the ability to laugh is terribly important, especially in someone so prone to crying. Does she cry at work? "No. I can listen to the most appalling stories that people tell me, I can bear it." She says the one thing she can't cope with is hearing people sing. "We used to hold a music group downstairs. And sometimes there would be singing, and this I could hardly bear. We had a terribly sad woman from Iran who used to sit there and do very little, and then she sang, and I had to leave the room. There's something about the human voice; seeing what capacity people have for creativity and what's denied them. Perhaps it's about what people might be if left alone."
Bamber has a famously tough exterior - the woman who gets things done. When asked for five words to describe his mother, Jonathan Bamber chooses: "Driven, focused, dedicated, slightly obsessive . . . She has an unimaginable amount of energy, disappearing off to Uganda, to Kosovo, to the West Bank, all of the most horrible, devastated places in the world. I am exactly half her age and I would struggle to maintain that schedule." Bamber is quietly proud of what she is achieving at her age. She mentions a few times that she will be 75 in May.
Monday to Friday she deals with the bureaucracy, at the weekend she sees clients. Her biographer Neil Belton says: "She works harder than anybody else at the foundation. She is obsessive. It can drive people mad." Sheila Melzak says that she is finally learning to let go a bit, to delegate, though she's still reluctant to cede control. . "But recently, more and more, I've seen she can have fun."
Bamber says she understands why she puts up a tough front, but doesn't like it. She talks about how she felt sorry for her parents, their sense of failure and unhappiness, and how she never wanted anyone to feel sorry for her. "I wanted to see myself as a very strong person not showing vulnerability, and I don't think this is helpful to people. It can be very irritating, to put it mildly. I get irritated with myself, so it's not surprising others do."
John Rundle says she is much more vulnerable than she lets on. "I think there are times when she is very upset by the intolerable experiences people go through." It has been suggested there is a masochistic streak in Bamber that forces her to go on, but Rundle disagrees. "I don't think it's obsessional or pathological. I think it's that she's been challenged. She knows the evil of mankind, and she won't put up with it. It's a crusade if you like. But it's not done as a zealot, it's done as a human being."
While much of Bamber's early middle age was devoted to the domestic, bringing up Jonathan and David, she also managed to hold down a series of demanding jobs - acting almoner (social worker) at Middlesex Hospital, administrator at the Middlesex and personal assistant to the brilliant orthopaedic surgeon Sir Herbert Seddon. For many years she couldn't see a pattern to her life. It's only recently that she has begun to realise it has all been of a piece - from her father; to Belsen; to Rudi, her husband; to Amnesty; to the foundation.
There was also her work with Dr Maurice Pappworth, a much-loved and vilified campaigner against the abuses that go on in the name of medical experimentation. Bamber met Pappworth at St George's where he was a consultant. Bamber would help him with his administration, and they would talk in his rooms for hours about the overuse of drugs, unnecessary surgery, the Nazi doctors' malign experimentation. Bamber says Pappworth educated her about medical ethics. "He was as preoccupied as I was with this question of total power, total helplessness." Together they compiled an archive of abuses. John Rundle, who was taught by Pappworth, describes him as the greatest doctor he met. "Like a lot of very clever people he was succinct and simple because he grasped all the underlying principles, and Helen's very much the same. She tends to be a person of few words, straight to the point."
Bamber is fidgeting again, desperate to get back to work. "It's like sitting here when Rome is burning." The therapists at the foundation see their own therapists, or supervisors, to make sure they are still up to the job. Her supervisor gives her a hard time for over-working. Is she right? "I don't think I'm terribly good at taking care of myself." Perhaps work is her way of looking after herself? "I think it is. I think it gives me a lot of hope, a lot of personal help. I get a lot back from the people we treat in terms of seeing them grow and develop and overcome."
Neil Belton talks about the paradox of the carer. "You can get a lot of satisfaction from being an omnipotent carer. There's a little bit of God that attaches to it, the way people come to rely on her. She is aware of that element."
Does she think there is a danger of playing God? She doesn't answer directly. "You have to be clear that you have tremendous limitations in this work; you know you're going to lose some along the line."
Belton spent three years writing The Good Listener. He says: "Helen remains an enigma to me. Most activists I've known don't retain the humour and human sympathy she brings to her work, the ability to focus on individuals. There's a side that's just the grimly dedicated campaigner, but another that brings a great deal of joy and light."
Earlier this year, the government introduced its immigration and asylum act, which has resulted in asylum seekers living off vouchers instead of real money while being banned from earning their own. Families have been dispersed across the country. "At least when Jewish people came to Britain after the war, they were allowed to live in communities," says Bamber. "I feel so ashamed of the situation."
John McCarthy says: "She starts from the basic premise of right and wrong. You need a fair degree of anger to do her work." Bamber agrees. She says that anger can be a tremendous creative driving force, that without it none of the world's most pernicious regimes would have been defeated.
In an earlier conversation she had talked about her need for openness, the need to challenge her parents' generations who refused to admit to or share what they had been through. Out of nowhere, she says: "I know that my husband and I did pass on something about the secrecy to our children. I know we did try to protect them from the full knowledge of what had happened, and I don't know that I blame myself for that.
"When one of my sons was very young he asked me whether his grandfather had been shot, and I said 'yes', which was a lie, because he was beaten to death in front of his family. At what age do you say that to a child? I suppose I didn't want them to have the same knowledge that I had when I was growing up" - the knowledge she desperately sought out. Bamber never attempts to reconcile her contradictions.
She offers a cigarette from a dusty box. She likes seeing people smoke, she says: it reminds her of the war. She is stroking the hair of a beautifully dressed soft doll that Chilean clients have made to raise money. She is talking about the disappointments in her life; how this fiercely independent woman had always aspired to Sunday-lunch domesticity. "I never quite pulled it off. I didn't achieve the married life that I wanted, so there have been gaps and loneliness as well, yes."
We talk about how important Judaism has been to her. Yes, she says, but that doesn't make her a believer. "It's very curious because I'm always moved by other people's devotion. But I don't have that sense of devotion. I must believe in something." And for once she's struggling to make sense of herself. Slowly, diffidently the words form. "I suspect that it's believing that even though I see a great deal of evil, there's something very good to be retrieved from people."
Life at a glance
Born: London, May 1, 1925.
Education: Down Lanes Central School; part-time social science student, London School of Economics.
Married: 1947 Rudi Bamberger, divorced 1970.
Work: 1945 volunteer on one of first rehabilitation teams to enter Belsen concentration camp; senior case worker, Committee for the care of Children from Concentration Camps (1947-1954); almoner at St George's hospital east London (1956); founder member, National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital (1961); joined Amnesty 1961; founded Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (1985).
Other positions: Advisory board, Gaza Community Mental Health; patron, Women Against Violence, Belfast.
Awards: European Woman of Achievement (1993), in recognition of work with survivors of repression and torture; OBE (1997).
The Guardian Profile: Helen Bamber
Small wonder
As a teenager, she volunteered to help concentration camp survivors and the experience changed her life. Today she works with victims of torture and helps them overcome unimaginable horrors. Simon Hattenstone on the tireless compassion of an 'ordinary woman with extraordinary talents'
Saturday 11 March 2000
In 1945 Helen Bamber made the decision that was to shape her life. She was 19 years old, still a girl, when she told her parents that she was going to Belsen with the Jewish Relief Unit. She didn't quite know why she felt compelled to see, to smell, to understand the dreadful aftermath of Nazism, but she knew she had to. It was in Germany that Bamber decided the world was divided into two camps: bystanders and witnesses. Bystanders see what they want, turn away when it suits them, deny the evidence if necessary. Witnesses have a duty to observe and report truthfully.
Now, 55 years on, Bamber still divides the world into bystanders and witnesses. As founder and director of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, she has borne witness to myriad horror stories. At the foundation, she works as a psychotherapist, listening to clients for as long as they wish or can bear to talk. And when she's not listening, she is tending the foundation's ever expanding bureaucracy or travelling the world to discover the most repugnant details of the world's most oppressive regimes. The title of Neil Belton's recent biography of her, The Good Listener (Phoenix, £7.99), is a perfect summation of her life and work: understated, to the point, practical - rather like the foundation itself.
"Helen is not an extraordinary person in many respects," says Sherman Carroll, her director of public affairs at the foundation. "She's not an intellectual, she's not terribly well educated with a fancy degree, she's not a lawyer, not a doctor. She's an ordinary woman who has committed her life to good works. So in that sense she's amazing ... but ordinary."
John McCarthy, the broadcaster and former hostage, remembers being as intrigued as he was impressed the first time he met her. "She's tiny. She'll come to slightly above your waist," he says. "Yet as you talk to her you realise there's a great deal of not just energy but power. She is an interesting mix - so caring and compassionate, but also direct and determined."
When you enter the foundation you walk past a room full of disparate people, of all colours and nationalities. Many faces are marked with the lines and scars of struggle. One woman is laughing with a friend; one man holds the weight of his head - the world - in his hands; a couple of children run about the waiting room. You can't help wondering about their history. Where are they from? How did they offend their home state? Were they psychologically tortured, starved, beaten, locked in solitary? Can they ever be happy again?
Helen Bamber, 74, seems even tinier than John McCarthy suggests. She's wearing a glistening white shirt that is buried inside a smart blue cardigan which trails down to her ankles. Her lips are glossed, her nails varnished in a transparent silver. Any number of bracelets dance up her arms. The foundation has just heard that General Pinochet will be returned to Chile, and she can't hide her despondency. She questions the value of the British medical reports and says she would be happy if the Chilean authorities disregarded them .
She speaks softly and slowly, slightly pedantically. It's a lovely voice - ebbing and flowing, massaging. She gestures emphatically as she talks, and when this is pointed out she is a little embarrassed and defensive. "So many of my clients put their hand on their heart when they want to express something. It's a language of the body."
A conversation with Bamber soon turns to Belsen. She talks about how inexperienced she was, how she had to learn quickly. "I realised after a time that I couldn't take away their suffering, or their images or their losses, or their terrible sense of unresolved grief. People would tell you their story and it would spill out like a kind of vomit. They would go on talking, talking, talking ..." You can hear their despair in her voice. "And what they were telling you was sometimes quite dreadful. After a while I began to realise the most important role for me there was to bear witness. Bearing witness to the vulnerability of humanity."
She stops herself. "It sounds a very pompous phrase doesn't it? But the evil that can be done to human beings is something that I suppose has dominated my life."
Did her parents support her when she went to Germany? "My father accepted it, almost with a shrug of resignation. I think it was something about repaying a debt. I was aware that if the Nazis had succceeded in invading England, we would have been the victims."
Bamber grew up with a sense of persecution. Her father, Louis Balmuth, was born in New York, but his family returned to the Poland of the pogroms before emigrating to England in 1895 when he was nine. He was in his late 30s when he married Marie Bader, who had been born in Britain of Polish extraction. Bamber's first memories are of a huge house in north London's Amhurst Park that she shared with her extended family, a "splendid house" with its own billiards room.
Louis was an accountant by day and a philosopher/scribbler/ mathematician by night. Marie was a singer and pianist who hoped that Helen would realise the dreams she had had for herself and become a celebrated performer. The house was owned by the mysterious Uncle Michael, who had made a fortune as a "merchant", though what he sold no one seemed to know. The Balmuths were clever, multilingual and argumentative, and unsympathetic to the ways and needs of children. Before long, the Depression swallowed up Michael's money, and Helen and her parents found themselves relegated to a much smaller home in nearby Stamford Hill.
Fascism and its attendant fears were a backdrop to daily life. An educated pessimist, Louis Balmuth seemed to regard extermination as an inevitability. As the second world war scoured Europe, he listened to broadcasts by Goebbels, read young Helen extracts from Hitler's treatise Mein Kampf, and told her exactly what the Nazi leader was doing and where it would all end. Balmuth lived petrified by the past and in fear of the future.
Bamber had initially been sent to a private Jewish school in London. But when her parents began to struggle financially she was switched to a multi-denominational primary, from where she won a scholarship to high school in Tottenham. This is where a teacher bawled her out for not knowing the second verse of the national anthem and told her that of all parents, the parents of Jewish children had a particular duty to make sure their children knew the anthem.
She says her real education happened at home in early childhood. Bamber was a sick girl who spent much of her childhood bedridden with an illness that was probably TB. Relatives and refugee friends of her parents used to visit her, talk to her as if she were an adult and deliver bedside chats that could go on for days. She recalls a man who sat by her side explaining the first world war, and how the punitive settlement led to the rise of Hitler.
Bamber didn't go to Belsen with a sense of mission, but with foreboding. "I felt I had to face something, the fear in myself. I had to understand other people's fear, and I had to understand something about overcoming fear_ living. How does one live with the knowledge of atrocity?"
Henry Lunzer, her boss in the Jewish Relief Unit, still thinks of her as a "lovely, vivacious little girl". She was also a natural organiser. "Helen just took charge of headquarters, administered the whole thing," says Lunzer. "It was amazing at that age. God only knows what made her so efficient!" When we talk about Lunzer, Bamber smiles abstractedly. He was "quite a guy", she says, "looked very handsome in uniform, but then everyone looked good in uniform". She pulls herself up abruptly: "That's a stupid thing to say."
Bamber founded the the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture in 1985. She had spent three decades campaigning for the human rights organisation Amnesty International, where she had started a group to help torture victims. Amnesty leaders decided that treating torture victims as well as campaigning against the regimes that abused them was too broad a remit, which spurred her to start the foundation. Today there are 85 paid staff and 110 volunteers.
Although never formally trained, Bamber says she has no qualms about calling herself a psychotherapist - she has earned the title, having trained on the job for most of her life. Sheila Melzak, head of child and adolescent psychotherapy, at the foundation says she doesn't know how Bamber does it, but somehow people just open up to her. "She's very moth erly, maternal, but not in a pampering way. All sorts of people feel safe with her, especially those who have missed out on parenting. They'll talk to her about the most private experiences." She says no level of training could equip someone with this skill, and suggests that it is down to Bamber's own childhood experiences.
"I do think it's because of her own lack of parenting in her childhood. Her father was passionate about human rights. Fixated. So she was taught from a very early age about repression and about how other people may challenge that. But as parents they were not particularly good at parenting."
Bamber believes torture is a political act, but she says she must be careful here - the foundation is a charity, and it is important for it not to be perceived as politically motivated. "For me, torture is about total helplessness and total power, the deliberate destruction of people. It often can be at the instigation of the government, carried out by their henchmen. It is about the destruction of human beings, often while keeping them alive. Torture has been described as the attempt to kill a person without their dying."
The foundation exists to help people like Luis Muñoz who was tortured by Pinochet's henchmen. In 1974 his wife, a journalist who had written a book about Chile's ruling class, disappeared and he never saw her again. He was 26, she was 23. Muñoz was then thrown into a torture centre. He was beaten, kicked, forced to hang by his arms. His torturers attached electrodes to his mouth, his ears his eyes, his penis, his anus and his toes. They applied a soldering iron to his testicles. "They thought I was going to die, but they didn't want me dead yet, so they stopped the shock treatment and put me in a wooden box and deprived me of sleep, food and hygiene. There was a little hole for ventilation. They put me in there to drive me mad."
After three months in the torture centre, he was put in solitary confinement for another couple of months before being transferred to a concentration camp. On the way, the guards tormented him with a mock execution. Muñoz pleaded with them to kill him. "I thought I'd be better off dead, I'd given up."
When he arrived in Britain in 1977 he suffered depression, panic attacks and guilt, in addition to considerable physical pain. He first met Bamber when he and fellow Chilean refugees were on a 16-day hunger strike protesting against Pinochet. He discovered that Bamber, like him, lived in London's Muswell Hill, and after that they kept bumping into each other on the 43 bus. "She was very concerned about me. She knew more about my physical and mental health than I did at the time." Bamber told him he looked terrible, broken, that he needed help. "She doesn't let go. You can't evade her. She's very persistent. If you keep stuff from her, she won't give up."
He started going to Bamber for therapy. "For a long time I thought that if you talk about what happened to you, you'll hurt the person; you think it's too much for anyone else to bear. But Helen can contain you. She enables you to cry."
Luis Muñoz is what Bamber would call a creative survivor. She says there is so much rubbish talked about survivors and victims, as if survival itself is enough. But people have to be shown how to live again. She cites the strongest she found at Belsen - those who formed political committees, held religious meetings, started a theatre, forced themselves into being more than helpless victims. In a strange way the culture that grew out of concentration camps like Belsen become a template for the foundation. It is not simply a clinic where victims come to unveil themselves of their histories, but a cultural centre with allotments, holiday clubs, chess groups and drawing classes.
Creative survival is also about allowing people to grieve. Bamber talks about the Jews who came to Britain after the Holocaust and found themselves in a new world where they had to put their past behind them because it was not acknowledged, a world where they had to make do and get on. Many Jewish people did get on, but without an emotional release some imploded.
"That is something I feel so strongly about here. How do you retrieve their memory of somebody so you can bury them in an appropriate way, and not be fixed on their grotesque way of dying? I think many of us have found ways of sitting with people and retrieving that young man or woman by talking about the way they looked, the way they dressed, the way they smoked, and their irritating ways. You can bring the person back as they were in the best of memories, and you then see it's time to bury them." She apologises for her bluntness.
Soon after returning from Belsen she married Rudi Bamberger, who changed his named to the more British Bamber. He had escaped from Germany and the thugs who destroyed his parents' house and beat his father to death with fists and truncheons. There was tenderness and love in their relationship, but it was doomed. Like her father, Rudi was a terminal pessimist. He was drowning in his own darkness, and Bamber couldn't cope. Although her father had been more articulate about his helplessness, they shared the same quietness, the sense of having withdrawn from life. Living with victims is a very different matter to working with them, says Bamber. They divorced after 23 years together.
"It's not that one doesn't have affections or love, but very often somebody who has survived becomes disassociated from themselves as well as other people." She is almost whispering. "That was quite hard to live with - someone who was cut off from communication. You couldn't have spontaneity or celebration."
She says it would have been easier to divorce if they had simply not liked each other. "I was very sad for a long time. I think I'm still very sad." For many years she has lived by herself in Muswell Hill. Life was tough after they split up. She worked as a medical secretary at St George's hospital in east London, but was always broke. Their two sons Jonathan (now a physicist), and David (a sculptor whose work often alludes to the Holocaust), attended separate schools, she didn't have a car, the house they lived in was condemned.
John Rundle, a doctor who has known Bamber for 30 years and now works at the foundation, thinks struggle has made her what she is today. "If you're capable of dealing with the sorts of people we get here I don't think you could come from a jolly-hockey-sticks, wonderfully protective background. Helen has been fighting adversity ever since she was at Belsen. I don't think life has left her much room for personal comforts."
In some ways the breakdown of her marriage was liberating. Because she was short of money she rented rooms to foreign students. Suddenly her morose, dilapidated home was transformed by youth and optimism. "I suppose I began to laugh a lot when they were around. We had fun, we danced, we cooked, I used to book the entire launderette on a Sunday afternoon. There were six or seven students at a time, every nationality under the sun, and there would be great battles or debates about the virtues of eating rhinoceros. There hadn't been much laughter in my parents' home or in my married life."
Bamber has a lovely girlish giggle, and can extract humour from the grimmest situations. She says the ability to laugh is terribly important, especially in someone so prone to crying. Does she cry at work? "No. I can listen to the most appalling stories that people tell me, I can bear it." She says the one thing she can't cope with is hearing people sing. "We used to hold a music group downstairs. And sometimes there would be singing, and this I could hardly bear. We had a terribly sad woman from Iran who used to sit there and do very little, and then she sang, and I had to leave the room. There's something about the human voice; seeing what capacity people have for creativity and what's denied them. Perhaps it's about what people might be if left alone."
Bamber has a famously tough exterior - the woman who gets things done. When asked for five words to describe his mother, Jonathan Bamber chooses: "Driven, focused, dedicated, slightly obsessive . . . She has an unimaginable amount of energy, disappearing off to Uganda, to Kosovo, to the West Bank, all of the most horrible, devastated places in the world. I am exactly half her age and I would struggle to maintain that schedule." Bamber is quietly proud of what she is achieving at her age. She mentions a few times that she will be 75 in May.
Monday to Friday she deals with the bureaucracy, at the weekend she sees clients. Her biographer Neil Belton says: "She works harder than anybody else at the foundation. She is obsessive. It can drive people mad." Sheila Melzak says that she is finally learning to let go a bit, to delegate, though she's still reluctant to cede control. . "But recently, more and more, I've seen she can have fun."
Bamber says she understands why she puts up a tough front, but doesn't like it. She talks about how she felt sorry for her parents, their sense of failure and unhappiness, and how she never wanted anyone to feel sorry for her. "I wanted to see myself as a very strong person not showing vulnerability, and I don't think this is helpful to people. It can be very irritating, to put it mildly. I get irritated with myself, so it's not surprising others do."
John Rundle says she is much more vulnerable than she lets on. "I think there are times when she is very upset by the intolerable experiences people go through." It has been suggested there is a masochistic streak in Bamber that forces her to go on, but Rundle disagrees. "I don't think it's obsessional or pathological. I think it's that she's been challenged. She knows the evil of mankind, and she won't put up with it. It's a crusade if you like. But it's not done as a zealot, it's done as a human being."
While much of Bamber's early middle age was devoted to the domestic, bringing up Jonathan and David, she also managed to hold down a series of demanding jobs - acting almoner (social worker) at Middlesex Hospital, administrator at the Middlesex and personal assistant to the brilliant orthopaedic surgeon Sir Herbert Seddon. For many years she couldn't see a pattern to her life. It's only recently that she has begun to realise it has all been of a piece - from her father; to Belsen; to Rudi, her husband; to Amnesty; to the foundation.
There was also her work with Dr Maurice Pappworth, a much-loved and vilified campaigner against the abuses that go on in the name of medical experimentation. Bamber met Pappworth at St George's where he was a consultant. Bamber would help him with his administration, and they would talk in his rooms for hours about the overuse of drugs, unnecessary surgery, the Nazi doctors' malign experimentation. Bamber says Pappworth educated her about medical ethics. "He was as preoccupied as I was with this question of total power, total helplessness." Together they compiled an archive of abuses. John Rundle, who was taught by Pappworth, describes him as the greatest doctor he met. "Like a lot of very clever people he was succinct and simple because he grasped all the underlying principles, and Helen's very much the same. She tends to be a person of few words, straight to the point."
Bamber is fidgeting again, desperate to get back to work. "It's like sitting here when Rome is burning." The therapists at the foundation see their own therapists, or supervisors, to make sure they are still up to the job. Her supervisor gives her a hard time for over-working. Is she right? "I don't think I'm terribly good at taking care of myself." Perhaps work is her way of looking after herself? "I think it is. I think it gives me a lot of hope, a lot of personal help. I get a lot back from the people we treat in terms of seeing them grow and develop and overcome."
Neil Belton talks about the paradox of the carer. "You can get a lot of satisfaction from being an omnipotent carer. There's a little bit of God that attaches to it, the way people come to rely on her. She is aware of that element."
Does she think there is a danger of playing God? She doesn't answer directly. "You have to be clear that you have tremendous limitations in this work; you know you're going to lose some along the line."
Belton spent three years writing The Good Listener. He says: "Helen remains an enigma to me. Most activists I've known don't retain the humour and human sympathy she brings to her work, the ability to focus on individuals. There's a side that's just the grimly dedicated campaigner, but another that brings a great deal of joy and light."
Earlier this year, the government introduced its immigration and asylum act, which has resulted in asylum seekers living off vouchers instead of real money while being banned from earning their own. Families have been dispersed across the country. "At least when Jewish people came to Britain after the war, they were allowed to live in communities," says Bamber. "I feel so ashamed of the situation."
John McCarthy says: "She starts from the basic premise of right and wrong. You need a fair degree of anger to do her work." Bamber agrees. She says that anger can be a tremendous creative driving force, that without it none of the world's most pernicious regimes would have been defeated.
In an earlier conversation she had talked about her need for openness, the need to challenge her parents' generations who refused to admit to or share what they had been through. Out of nowhere, she says: "I know that my husband and I did pass on something about the secrecy to our children. I know we did try to protect them from the full knowledge of what had happened, and I don't know that I blame myself for that.
"When one of my sons was very young he asked me whether his grandfather had been shot, and I said 'yes', which was a lie, because he was beaten to death in front of his family. At what age do you say that to a child? I suppose I didn't want them to have the same knowledge that I had when I was growing up" - the knowledge she desperately sought out. Bamber never attempts to reconcile her contradictions.
She offers a cigarette from a dusty box. She likes seeing people smoke, she says: it reminds her of the war. She is stroking the hair of a beautifully dressed soft doll that Chilean clients have made to raise money. She is talking about the disappointments in her life; how this fiercely independent woman had always aspired to Sunday-lunch domesticity. "I never quite pulled it off. I didn't achieve the married life that I wanted, so there have been gaps and loneliness as well, yes."
We talk about how important Judaism has been to her. Yes, she says, but that doesn't make her a believer. "It's very curious because I'm always moved by other people's devotion. But I don't have that sense of devotion. I must believe in something." And for once she's struggling to make sense of herself. Slowly, diffidently the words form. "I suspect that it's believing that even though I see a great deal of evil, there's something very good to be retrieved from people."
Life at a glance
Born: London, May 1, 1925.
Education: Down Lanes Central School; part-time social science student, London School of Economics.
Married: 1947 Rudi Bamberger, divorced 1970.
Work: 1945 volunteer on one of first rehabilitation teams to enter Belsen concentration camp; senior case worker, Committee for the care of Children from Concentration Camps (1947-1954); almoner at St George's hospital east London (1956); founder member, National Association for the Welfare of Children in Hospital (1961); joined Amnesty 1961; founded Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (1985).
Other positions: Advisory board, Gaza Community Mental Health; patron, Women Against Violence, Belfast.
Awards: European Woman of Achievement (1993), in recognition of work with survivors of repression and torture; OBE (1997).
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