HOPE

I’ve started doing this distance course from Flinders University & so far it has highlighted the very reasons why I should not be nursing at the moment. The first week has been an overview of the basis of health care ethics (e.g. non-maleficence, beneficence, justice, veracity, fidelity etc) & I realised just how “hopeless” I am feeling at the moment, not just about me personally but in regards to health care & humanity in general. I have to work on restoring this ‘hope’ as it is fundamental not only for the well being of the people I nurse for me also. I’ve lost it somewhere along the way, I don’t know where. I do know that a sense of “hopelessness” is also a key indicator of major depression. I’ve seen a lot of things as a nurse, things that most people go their whole lives without seeing…..you generally see the worst of people. You see them when they’re sick……..when they’re dying. I think I’ve got to recognise that to some extent I’ve come to “burnout”, a condition that can be quite common when working in health care. I have to get back to that place where “death” is not merely a “medical event”, or a “defeat” but where it is a “natural process” that each one of us needs to go through, & that it is as individual as the person themselves. Most importantly I have to get back to that place where we are “Alive” until we are no longer…& that whilst we are alive there is “Hope” – whether this be a hope for better symptom control, a hope to reconcile with loved ones, or a hope to reconcile with one’s God......there is "Hope".