“At Home” with Other Health Care Workers
Nineteen people attended the October 2021 (online) Health Care Workers’ Workshop. It was led by Anne Greenwald, the editor of the RC journal Well-Being and the Area Reference Person for Muddy River, Massachusetts, USA.
We were mostly nurses. Also attending were pharmacists, social workers, a chaplain, a physiotherapist, and one other doctor and me. Most of us were from the United States. Sweden, Germany, and Canada were also represented.
Anne reminded us that we are all trying courageously and intelligently to do our best within an oppressive system.
She offered us a direction: “I am simply an assistant to the client I am supporting.”
After mini-sessions, we each had three minutes to discharge in front of the group. Issues that surfaced included capitalism, the oppression of health care workers, women’s internalized oppression, death and dying, self-care, and lots on COVID.
I felt more immediately “at home” with this group than I have with my RC doctor colleagues (all of whom I love dearly). I think it’s because we doctors are so heavily weighed down by isolation. Also, I have worked much more intimately with non-doctor health care folk in my forty years of doctoring than I have with doctors.
Clydesdale, Nova Scotia, Canada
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion list for RC Community members interested in health care workers
(Present Time 206, January 2022)