Róisín Ingle: I know this place so intimately. It’s where I can weep out loud in comfort

Nobody likes hospitals. This sounds like a statement of fact, but I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that it might actually be an example of fake news.

For a start, it excludes a lot of people. The main people in the excluded category are those of us who had our lives saved or prolonged in a hospital. The so-called fact that “nobody likes hospitals” also fails to consider most of the people who work in hospitals, some of whom are in their dream jobs, helping the most vulnerable people in society.

I used to be in the “nobody likes hospitals” brigade. “I don’t like hospitals,” I’d say as a child if anyone suggested going near one. This aversion can probably be traced back to the time I got my tonsils and adenoids out, which was a scary time. But my aversion remained well into adulthood when I really should have known better.

Years ago, a close relative was in hospital for a prolonged period. While others in my family visited every day, I was, to my shame, mostly absent. When I did visit somebody in hospital, I usually kept the encounter as brief as possible. The hospital smell scared me. I felt lost in the endless corridors with crucifixes on the walls. I just didn’t like the places.

Then I was diagnosed with an illness. It has meant that, for the past three years, I’ve been in and out of the Mater public hospital in Dublin. I’ve spent time in the A&E, in surgical wards, in phlebotomy, in oncology clinics, in coffee shops, in hospital beds, in physio and on trolleys. I go to the cancer day ward every three weeks to get an injection of immunotherapy treatment from some of the finest people I’ve ever met, including many people making new lives in this country. I can honestly say I now love hospitals, especially that particular hospital.

I don’t wrinkle my nose up when I go into the Mater anymore. The fragrance of chemical cleaning products, with a hint of boiled carrots, smells like compassion to me now. When a friend was in the Mater for heart surgery, my love for the place meant I could show him around and visit him for hours, chatting to nurses and doctors and porters like they were old friends. The Mater is where I’ve had some of the most challenging moments of my life, but it’s also where I feel safe and cared for in a profound way.

I was in the Mater again the other day to get my big toenail removed. The worst part turned out to be the five or six injections around the toe to deliver the local anaesthetic. As usual, everyone I encountered was kind and caring and did their best to make me comfortable. I lay on the surgical trolley and I found myself sobbing in front of Sylvia, one of the medical staff. While her colleague tugged away at my toenail, I cried. I was not weeping for my ingrown toenail. Believe me, I was happy to have it gone. I was crying because I’ve come to know this place so well.

Nobody likes hospitals. And of course, I would prefer if I was never in here. But I am a regular now and I will be for as long as I live. Coming to know this place so intimately has been a gift. I don’t know what other adventures await me in the Mater, but it will always feel like a safe space to me. A place where I can weep out loud in comfort.

Nobody Likes Hospitals. A German indie-rock band called Giant Rooks has a song of that name. I discovered them while writing this column. It’s a song about visiting a person in hospital, thunderclouds hovering over the building, rain falling like tears on the concrete walls. “Every time I visit you, you talk about just how much you hate this place. And I answer every time that nobody likes hospitals.”

But that is just something we say.

Nobody likes hospitals? Not true. There is a lot of love for them. Or there should be anyway. Love for the people who work on hospital wards across this country. I especially love the ones who are not paid enough and who are not recognised adequately for the incredible work they do. There are too many of them, unfortunately.

Some of these workers who love hospitals and love what they do have recently had to stand outside with signs protesting their current rates of pay. They are standing up for their rights at a time when their pay has fallen way behind the cost of living and diminishing resources are making their jobs even harder.

This is not an original thought, but whether it’s nurses or teachers, most public service workers are not paid enough for the important, essential, vocational work they do.

Nobody likes hospitals. But everybody should love hospitals. Give them more money. Show them more love. For crying out loud.