Rouen with love ...

A city in the city.

I indeed had this feeling on my first visit to the Universaty Hospital Center of Rouen.

Accustomed during 18 years to the hospital of Paros (Greece) which, in comparison, was not even the size of a street of a country village, I found myself impressed, a little lost too, by the gigantic dimensions of that of Rouen.

Convinced of being just one more number in this company, I was pleasantly surprised by the welcome from its staff, who did not hesitate to guide me. I quickly realized that it was very easy to navigate in the services thanks to the indicative panels, to the colored arrows stuck on the ground.

Impossible to get lost ... well almost!

No worries, we always end up meeting a nursing staff, who even when urged, takes the time to give us the right directions.

"Beehive", "anthill", "factory" ... I heard so many different designations that we could end up forgetting that it is a place that remains human thanks to the people who work there & try to heal as well as possible the pathologies of each of us, to humanize care, examinations.

I like the idea of ​​the transmission from the university hospital; seeing the medical students who already seem to know a lot while knowing that everything remains to be learned. Cross them in the cafeteria and tell myself  that they consider all things " normal "and speak like ordinary people (ie me) of banalities, gossip & gossip, thus forgetting for a few moments their working day. And certainly, also forgetting about the disease.

I admire the doctors, surgeon-teachers who, facing patients, know how to find simple words, accessible to everyone.

Some seem to have just left high school. I would almost want to ask them if they obtained a mention in the baccalaureate! .... it must be a question of age (mine): younger, the surgeons seemed to me so old, today they seem to have just come out of their mother's petticoats ...

Whether they (women & men of course) are surgeons, nurses, nursing assistants, they are a formidable human chain which does a demanding job, certainly fascinating but surely sometimes demoralizing in the face of human distress.

I do not envy their position in certain respects, on the other hand they have all my admiration & my respect. Too many forget that they are not machines.

Thanks to them.

 

Alexandrine aka Gallida-Hellas