Yesterday, Edmund received some of the best medical care in the world. Literally. Dell Children’s Hospital is one of the best in the nation, and what’s best in our nation is best in the world. We are so very blessed.
Edmund's strapped in!
What struck me most yesterday, as Edmund and I spent time at St. David’s North, then in the ambulance, then at Dell Children’s, was a sense of wonder that we were receiving such care. Every nurse and doctor was attentive and cheerful and so compassionate toward our littlest son. They went out of their way to cheer us up and anticipate our needs. Here we were, a middle-class mother and her baby, and we were attended to as if we really mattered.
Why is that? A pragmatist would say that we were given such care because we were paying customers; healthcare is a business, the cynic might say, and the hospital staff was just practicing good customer service. Doubt it. Because, customer service does not constitute the sort of care we received, attention given with energy and concern. Really, ultimately, we were given such care because the hospital system is a Christian invention and Christian virtue still permeates much of it.
Ours is a fractured, post-Christian culture. Alistair MacIntyre does a great job examining this reality in his “After Virtue”, where he highlights the way we use Christian words (“freedom”, “dignity”, “equality”) but out of context because we no longer have a Christian culture in which to ground them. He does a much better job than I explaining how that all works itself out. The same is true of our healthcare system. While it may have become bloated and inefficient, it is still a remnant of the Christian culture from which it grew, a culture in which every person had dignity, regardless of their age or skin color, and was treated as the imago Dei that they were.
Non-Christian cultures did not develop hospital systems. India, for example, has imported the idea of a hospital system, but only in a few cities and not very successfully. Because, if I am a Hindu and I see someone dying on the side of the road, I think to myself, “That person must deserve such a death. They probably offended Vishnu in a past life and are now making reparation for their offense. I dare not interfere with their karma, in case I might upset my own karma and be punished in a future life.” There is no sense of the brotherhood of men, that we are responsible for each other and must care for the poor among us. That is a Christian idea.
So, thanks be to God for our hospital system and for the goodness of all who served us. We were deeply blessed yesterday.
You are so right, Katie. Last year when our little guy was ten days old he came down with bronchiolitis caused by RSV and was at our local children’s hospital for ten nights. It was no fun, but it was bearable only because of the love and care of the staff of the hospital. The nurses took such good care of our baby… and even of me, when I was having a hard time. (One of them who was our night nurse several times even spent half an hour at a time chatting with me when the baby was up at 2am!) When I think back on that time, the care we received is the good part of the memory for me. All those people do good Christian work whether they know it or not!
Oh, I’m just so glad little Edmund is doing well! What a scare for mom and dad. Prayers of Thanksgiving for good healthcare!