How to Ignore an Annoying Hospital Patient

If you, dear reader, should ever land in a French hospital, there is something you should know: The French health-care system, though one of the best in the world, is stretched very thin in places. One of those places is hospital staffing. So while you would undoubtedly be better off in a Parisian hospital than in, say, Bangladesh, you still might not get a bedpan when you need one. You might lie in bed, for hours, wondering if the frigging doctors and nurses even care whether you’re dead or alive.

One day I arrived at Chambre 44 to learn that my husband, who is very observant (he was a spy during the Cold War), had made a study of the ways in which French hospital personnel deal with this staffing shortage. The etiquette of ignoring a bedridden patient in France goes something like this:

Method No. 1: Avert your eyes. If you must pass by the open door of a patient who wants your attention (a patient who is not actually dying), keep your eyes focused firmly on your notepad or, if your notepad isn’t handy, your shoes. Walk quickly and purposefully, eyes down, until you are safely past the open door.

Method No. 2: If you can’t escape an encounter with a needy patient, explain that you have an even more urgent matter to attend to and promise to return in 10 minutes. Then go about your business and return when you can. Remember, time is meaningless to a hospital patient.

Method No. 3: Explain to the hospitalized person, in your sternest voice, that he is not your only patient. There are other patients who also have urgent needs. He must wait his turn.

Method No. 4: Be nice. Let him think that you are his friend, the only nice person in the entire unit. Do not tell him that you are only being nice because you have rented a vacation villa in Martinique for two weeks, you leave tomorrow, and you are hoping he will be gone by the time you get back.

This is why, after being the wife of a hospital patient for four weeks, I finally blew my stack.

I did not blow my stack at the nurses. I could see they were doing their best and that, were I in their position, the patient might not survive. I mean, it would be him or me. If I were the last nurse in the universe, and I were in charge of that hospital unit, anyone who couldn’t fire me would go straight to hell. That would be my approach to the situation. Starting with my husband’s horrible roommate, who shouted into his cell phone at 1 a.m., smoked e-cigarettes, and stuck blobs of chewing gum under the bedside table for the nurses to remove.

No, no, I blew my stack at one of the doctors. Not the nice one who brought Patrick a beat-up old wheelchair so he could escape his room for a few minutes, but the mean, nasty one who insisted that I leave the room when she came through with her tribe on their medical rounds.

“But I came to hear your report about my husband’s condition,” I explained, in my best French, which is pretty awful but not completely unintelligible.

“Madame, visiting hours begin at one.” The time was a little past noon.

“But I am here now.”

“You must leave.”

I turned to the patient. “Darling, do you want me to leave?” Patrick shook his head.

I turned back to the evil doctor. “He wants me to stay.”

“Madame Texier.” There followed more talk, in a very stern voice, about hospital regulations regarding visiting hours.

Well, I just refused to back down. As the argument continued, the five people trailing the mean doctor stared into space with their eyes unfocused, looking rather frightened. Finally, Patrick literally writhed, turning onto his side as if he were going to jump out of bed and try to escape, and cried, “Darling, it’s useless! It’s useless to try to talk to these people!”

Whereupon I left.

Later that day, I got an apology from the nice doctor on behalf of her colleague, and a much-needed change in the medical plan. The next day, the patient got his first shower in weeks. He perked up.

Right now, this minute, I have to start packing up the kitchen, and I don’t actually have time to finish this post. Let’s just say that I had another meltdown later that day, and then things started to get better. More to come . . .

Love, Sadie

PS The photograph shows an American Red Cross Hospital in Paris, I'm guessing World War I. No time to write a proper caption or credit or even figure out what the hell it is. The one Patrick's in is more modern.