Lockdown Memories

 

Lest we forget... And I know a lot of you want to forget. It's understandable. The Covid 19 pandemic hit a hard stop in November 2021. It was a remarkable occurrence that has never happened before in politics. What had been the "current thing" for the previous eighteen months just vanished overnight down the Memory Hole. The bigger issues associated with that can be found in the background link below and lie outside the remit of the HPWA. It is possible we hospital porters might have to go through the same thing again. The World Health Organization keeps talking about "the next pandemic". What next pandemic? How do they know? Whatever the answer the HP's will be on the front line of dealing with it, like all healthcare providers. Joe Albro is a porter at Harrogate District Hospital. He says he walks 23,000 to 30,000 steps a day; yes indeed! At least we keep fit with our job. He is engaged to be married to a girl in HR, presumably not a girl like the ones I knew, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2023/05/ive-got-posting-in-thailand.html. He joined the porters in 2019, not knowing that six months later he'd be at the pandemic coalface. "The job was already busy, but when Covid happened it got crazy. The second wave has been manic. You can work non-stop some days, walking everywhere and pushing stuff around. It is exhausting. It doesn't worry me working here, especially as we've got all the correct PPE." Contrary to popular belief, a lot of the personal protective equipment we used in the lockdown was that which we used anyway in some situations because we're all trained for quarantine conditions, what we call "barrier". Joe is very inspired because he had to care for his mother who has multiple sclerosis. Of all the traumatic elements of the job, the part he finds the most difficult to deal with is patients with dementia. Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-55984765. I salute my EP&DBP Joe Albro! I wonder what he's doing now. Is he still in HPing? Did he get married to his admin sweetheart? If he's still one of us, what will he be having to deal with in the years to come. Whatever the answer, I wish him all the best.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/02/coronavirus-portal.html.

HP Seeks Missing Boy

 

When a young person goes missing it is terrifying and worrying for their parents and everybody else who is close to them. When the disappearance is permanent and has no apparent explanation it is even worse. One of the most disturbing examples of just such an occasion happened in Glasgow on New Year's Day 1966. A teenage boy called Alex Cleghorn was first-footing with his two older brothers, a Scottish New Year tradition involving visiting a stranger's house bearing gifts. The three boys were walking along Govan Road in the east of the city when the two older boys, David and William, suddenly realized Alex was no longer beside them. They looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen. The police investigated, but to this day Alex is listed as a missing person. Members of Alex' family still comment on articles and social media posts about this case. It has divided the family. Some people think Alex was simply drunk and wandered off, but that doesn't explain why he never came back or contacted home. I expect fingers pointed at the brothers, as so often happens in these cases. Six years later on New Year's Day 1972 David and William retraced their steps in the forlorn hope that somehow their little brother might return. This sounds to me rather like the "Missing 411" cases investigated by David Paulides, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/03/portal-caught-on-film.html. However, it is very rare for a person to disappear so suddenly in the presence of witnesses. Source: https://www.tiktok.com/@creepyglasgow_gal/video/7251064614119623963.
 
Luckily, a hospital porter is coming to the rescue. Andy Owens lives in West Yorkshire and his bio states that he "works as a hospital porter", but in fact nobody works as a HP. HPing is not a job; it's a calling, a way of life. It's what we are and what we do; it is not a job, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/its-not-job.html. Andy is the author of several books on the supernatural. He describes himself as "an open-minded skeptic" which makes a change from the usual kind. He is writing a new book called The British X-Files in which he describes his plan to get to the truth. See here for his website: https://owensandy.com. I have already contacted Andy and we've exchanged some emails. You might think that success is unlikely, but sometime missing people do come back, often in an equally mysterious way, for example: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2018/02/missing-skier.html. I also went missing for a while myself, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/10/ive-had-missing-time.html. I wish MEP&DBP Andy all the very best of luck in his mission. If anybody can find Alex, a HP can!
See here for more information: 

https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/skeptics-portal.html.

A HP's Life without Dignity Statements

 

I know what it is like to live as a hospital porter without dignity statements because I did so for the first few years of my career. I describe two experiences from that period here: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/how-dare-you.html and: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/01/well-take-it-from-here.html. There were many others. Deep down, maybe I should be grateful for those dark days because without them would there be a HPWA at all? What is it like to endure twenty-three years of that nightmare? I'm glad I never found out. But how do HP's who don't know about the dignity statement cope? What about those who positively reject it, for a recent example see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/02/it-doesnt-work.html? You can just bite your tongue and take it, but is that healthy? The brilliant 2003 comedy film Anger Management has Jack Nicholson, in one of his best performances, playing a psychotherapist. In one scene he tells one of his patients: "There are two kinds of angry people in this world, explosive and implosive. Explosive is the kind of individual you see screaming at the cashier for not taking their coupons. Implosive is the cashier who remains quiet day after day and finally shoots everyone in the store." Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw24BjNsnkw. You'll be relieved to know that I've never witnessed a HP shooting anybody in a hospital, but I have seen them blow their fuses and start shouting at the top of their voice, sometimes throwing objects around in their fury; and I've seen some civilians doing the same. Psychologists use a lot of physical metaphors when referring to emotion, like "bottling up" and "letting it out". What about the perfect stoic who bites his tongue for his entire career? I knew a porter who was six months away from retirement and he transformed into a docile sheep. As a result the rest of his section, and the civilians, used him as a walking punch-bag. We knew it was because he was just biding his time, running the calendar down; longing for that happy day when he walked out of the lodge for the last time. But memories of humiliation can torment; I've felt them. Injustice without recourse is a mental torture, and like all very intense negative emotions, it can lead to depression and post-traumatic stress that can cause physical ailments. I often wonder how much that man really enjoyed his retirement.
 
I know you'll sometimes hear phrases like "rise above it!" and "water off a duck's back!", but how honest is that? I also know many people who forgive their abusers, either from a sense of duty because of a religious belief or as a way to find personal peace. However, there is a shadow to that desire for peace. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche pointed out that abusers never forgive their victims, it is only the victim who has to forgive their abuser; and he believed this was fundamentally an expression of powerlessness. For a person without power at the mercy of another who is cruel and sadistic, you have to forgive for your own selfish needs, to avoid the only alternative which is to sit and seethe in ineffectual rage for your entire life. It was a part of what he called "slave morality". Source: https://fdrpodcasts.com/5412/how-to-never-be-bullied. In a hospital, being the type who screams at the cashier is not an option either, it will quickly get you discharged. People like that also have trouble holding down a civvy job. The only option is the dignity statement. It is the most gratifying revenge of all, and the most potent because it includes total impunity. It leads to the most sublime inner peace in a situation fraught with even the worst structural violence. There is no valour in false modesty; I believe I have made a world-changing breakthrough, one that can brighten up the lives or all my brother and sister porters; and anybody else who chooses to try it. If any readers disagree and think they have a better solution, feel free to let me know.