The great team requires a commitment to excellence and meritocracy but communism had begun to invade the health care system with the increasing power of the unions and the lack of training of administration.
I was there when the cleaning staff in the hospital refused to clean up blood. This was the height of the AIDS epidemic so no one could fault them but it was also the beginning of the end of the Canadian Health Care System. Overnight highly trained nurses were required to do the job of the cleaning staff because the administration would not do it’s job. As leading health care professions, the highest trained individuals were increasingly expected to do the menial labour.
It’s not in the ‘menialness’ of the job but rather in the fact that no one could do our jobs. Our specialization and training entailed years of advanced education. I couldn’t be replaced tomorrow any more than a nurse could be. But with days or weeks of training a cleaning person could be brought up to task. Rather than do that administration made a unilateral executive decision to remove the leading personnel from their necessary and irreplaceable jobs and have them do the lowest least least trained jobs.
This is the failure of communism and the NDP in BC dominated the health care industry and played to the lowest common denominator for votes. It was sad seeing that one day that doctors and nurses began to clean up the blood . I did that. Rather than seeing patients we were cleaning. I’ve cleaned alongside nurses for hours. All the while a cleaning staff person stood by and literally ‘smirked’.
Today I’m doing all the work that once was done by administrative staff and clerical personnel and now administration is living a perpetual party going on and on in utter ignorance creating more and more self serving propaganda about their importance all the while morbidity and mortality and other medical and nursing matters are left at the wayside.
Rather than improve the plumbing in the old hospitals and put sinks in the hall way so staff will wash their hands administration goes on and on and on about getting people to wash their hands knowing as all of us who are researchers know the key to this is hallways sinks. Repeatedly the research has shown that staff don’t like to use the patient’s wash room and that sinks at nursing stations are surrounded by files and charts so no one wants to wash their hands there. The staff washrooms have dirty handles. While doctors are expected to be at the 21st Century cutting edge administration is somewhere in the 19th century swaggering and smirking and making a ‘killing’ in their jobs.
I increasingly am becoming aware of the graft and corruption in the system. Repeatedly a few doctors are politically bought off and the rest suffer. This corruption in communist systems eventually erodes the whole. There simply is no real accountability in administration and so much profit in anything but saving lives and doing real medicine.
The actual salaries now are seen as ‘base incomes’ with all the effort applied to ‘accessory’ income - getting tips as described in ‘trade’ but now these ‘extras’ are anything but the job the tax payer money went to.
When I smoked dope and drank people liked me more because I was so easy going and didn’t particularly care. We laughed when things broke down and crashed. It was easy to forget about the disease and death. That first year working in the Aids epidemic I didn’t think I was going to live.
Police would bring psychotic HIV positive patients in the Emergency in chains and hand cuffs with bags over their heads and I’d go into the Quiet Rooms and talk to them as I took off their chains and took the bag from off their heads. They were spitting at us and trying to bite us. I’d use all my compassion and hypnosis skills to soothe the raging beasts. I’d give injections and medications and still I’d not know. Even now I tremble remember those times. I’d volunteered because I didn’t have children and I was single. The cleaning staff were always laughing and smirking to see me the doctor on my knees doing their job after the patient was sedated. The blood was in the halls and in the rooms.
I’d be on my knees with a nurse and so admire her. The cleaning staff were always standing by talking to each other, pointing at us, leaning on their brooms and the administration never came to the wards. The administration were never ever was there.
When HIV patients were violent and psychotic the emergency room staff would call psychiatry. A nurse and I would go. The problem was these young men and women were dying. The prostitutes had HIV. The Gay men had HIV. The drug addicts had HIV. They’d come in with cuts and fractures and the emergency room doctors would need help. As psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses we knew how to ‘manage’ the hostile and out of control better than security who were morbidly afraid of the HIV patients. I”d wrestle with one on the floor and no one would come to my aid because everyone was afraid of getting blood on them. I got spat at so many times and cried cleaning blood off my face. One person had a cut almost like someone was trying to scalp them. They were totally psychotic and flailing about. This amazing nurse somehow got the head board and strap on this fellow while I held him down with my body across their chest on the gurney. The ER doctor masked and gloved got the sutures in to hold the face and scalp together all the while the patients was trying to escape spitting at all of us, cursing.
My surgeon friend died of AIDS from a needle prick. A dentist I knew died. Our patients were dying. What was happening in our Emergency was happening all across the country and continent while politicians and administration dithered. Lots of talk and posturing.
One patient was a young gay schizophrenic prostitute who infected thousands of gay men. I was involved time and again trying to get him kept in hospital. As soon as he went out he ‘cruised’ and he didn’t like protection. We petitioned this one judge repeatedly and he played that ‘civil rights ‘card . I was a member of the Canadian Civil Rights at the time and had been in California in the Anti Discrimination League. I was a card carrying member and knew all the arguments. . In the end we figured this judge was homophobic and saw Aids as a means of cleansing the earth of ‘contagion’. We were trying to stop the disease but we were never on the same pagewith the anti gay lobby.
Equally evil was the refusal of the authorities to admit to the ‘tainted blood supply’. Hundreds of innoscent men and women were infected with HIV by the administration, executive decisions, who ignored what the doctors told them. To this day none of these evil men and women in administration have ever stood against the wall and shot. I had given gallons of blood over the years but stopped after I was anally raped. I would ask to give blood again but by then they were asking.
Have you had unprotected anal sex?
They had had no problem asking, “Have you used a needle for drugs’ and looking for track marks before accepting blood transfusions. But the Gay Administration didn’t want to offend people so countless died. The scandal resulted in the Red Cross no longer being the agency that collected blood but the ‘rot’ was everywhere and increasing exponentially. I’ve always felt unwholesome since being unable to give blood. Today science has moved forward finding new tests and ways to ensure the safety of the blood.
I would go home at night and cry. I’d expect every Friday night to be the night. I couldn’t back down because the others on the team were courageous and strong. The head nurse in the psychiatry emergency was this beautiful wise woman who truly soldiered on, a regular Florence Nightingale. She was like a war nurse and kept the emergency taking patients in and passing them on. She was amazing. I would hold an HIV patient down while she gave the Haldol and Clonazepam or she would hold them down and I would give the needle. The HIV patients would be psychotic on drugs or have head injuries and we’d have to get them settled to get the xrays. I’d see her up close, this wonderful slightly older woman with amazing laughter wrinkles around her eyes. We’d be struggling with a patient trying to bite us. I can remember her pores and skin. I’d be beside such a nurse and feel I just had to do my bit. it was a war. We were soldiers. We were standing together without staff, undermanned, gurneys in the hall, all our beds full and I’d just do my bit. I ‘d get home and my hands would be shaking and I’d be crying and I’d pour a glass of wine and light up a joint and get some sleep before Saturday night. The rest of the week was fine. Friday and Saturday night were always bad. I didn’t think I’d survive. I was in constant terror.
When I’d worked in London during the IRA bombings, my building was evacuated weekly and bombs were killing people. I remember the security guard, an old veteran. He’dwalk around the building looking for anything suspicious. He’d enter rooms with a chair in front of him. I imagined if there was a bomb, he’d lose his legs and arms and perhaps even his head but his balls would be protected. I liked those old guys. They were some of the bravest men I knew.
Now I worked with Psychiatry Emergency nurses and felt like I was the guy without protection. We had a gauze mask and gloves. There were no hazmats suits like they show on television. There were no plastic screens or special clothes. Sometimes we’d be able to get into surgical clothes but mostly because of the pressure of patients and lack of time we were just winging it. One fellow broke away. He had scalp laceration and whenever he swung his head blood would splash on the walls and ceiling. With the help of security and the nurse we disarmed him of the scalpel he’d stolen. I always tried to hide my shaking. After these ‘events’ , a regular Friday night in those days, I’d have a tremor and sometimes shakes. I had to hide them. Everyone else was so strong and brave and only I was scared.
Then we’d have the patient sedated and 24 hours later the drugs worn off then he or she was taken and some crisis intervention and more medication we’d discharge him.
Then the nurse and I would be on our hands and knees cleaning up the blood, trying to get it all so the Union Cleaners and Administration wouldn’t have a ‘raisin d’etre’., a ‘talking point’.
I remember holding men in my arms who’d just been diagnosed with HIV and failed in their suicide attempts. I’d wonder about their tears in my jacket. We did’t know at first how easily or hard it was to spread.
I remember with a couple of nurses and a mattress charging insanely violent men, getting them up against the wall with them pinned behind the mattress one someone jabbed them with a needle as if it were a bayonet. Then they’d collapse and we could get them in restraints.
It was always the same. For us and the police. We’d be trying to restrain them and so often they’d be trying to kill us, not intentionally but out of fear. All the while in the back ground administration was paying themselves more and more and swaggering about and giving orders beyond their limited intelligence. They never were on the wards on Friday nights.
We once got an “emergency lawyer on call” number so I convinced a patient to call it on Friday night.
When he began shouting at the patient, I took the phone and explained that his name was on the ‘emergency lawyer on call’ in the Psychiatry Emergency.
“I don’t care what you have there. I’m at a cocktail party and I don’t have time for this nonsense.”
He hung up. No doubt he’d bill the hospital a thousand. At least he came to see the patient the next day, obviously hung over but ready to help this poor fellow who had been locked up wrongly.
I had countless stories and cases from that year. They start popping up in my mind. The ugly ones first. I was in charge of medical student training in psychiatry and would go out to UBC for monthly meetings. I’d have a dozen medical students and interns following me about on the wards..I’d assign them with tasks and do all those teaching things which I was good at but didn’t particularly enjoy.
The interns jobs were to exam the patients before they were admitted. We had a lady from the north and this arrogant medical student who had told us all he thought psychiatry was a waste of time and how he was going to be a cardiologist which was real medicine. I hated attitude and we got a lot of it in psychiatry. The fact always was the old ‘bad apple’. A hundred nice and fine people but one little scuzzbucket. This guy.
There was a party that night. I don’t remember what it was but all the interns and residents were excited and looking forward to it. The woman from up north had arrived late. I asked him if he’d examined her. He said he had. I Asked him for his findings read the chart and then because of this ‘intuitiion’ I have ,went round to see her. Unfortunately she was already on the ward with 20 other women.
The intern had lied to me. He’d lied in the chart. He hadn’t examined her. He fudged the notes. The nurses confirmed he’d never come round. She was coughing up blood and her lungs sounded like freight trains. The nurses were glad that I’d come by because they had been about to call me.
She had tuberculosis. She had to be treated. 20 women had to undergo a year of toxic antibiotic regimens including a couple of nurses. The intern had never seen her. I wrote him up. I refused to pass him.
I was told yet again by administration that I was wrong. I was told that I would be fired if I didn’t change my grade and ‘pass’ him. He snickered. His father and mother were wealthy powerful Vancouver ‘people’. He complained to the college that I’d used ‘harsh language’ and ‘blamed him.”
I was investigated and told I was ‘unprofessional’ saying that he’d caused a ‘fucking nightmare” for all these other people because of his gross negligence. The College person said, “didn’t you know who his parents were?” Eventually my “punishment’ ended. The bureaucrats never apologize, but let things slide, always leaving you with the fear they can come after you again.
I’d get in trouble again when I refused to pass an East Indian princess who refused to ‘touch’ everyone . She would do a history and physical on the wealthy and clean but would only take a cursory history of the poor and homeless. She’d never touch them and falsified her findings physical exam, Pulse, BP etc.
I confronted her. “They are ‘unclean’ “ she said in her defence.
“ I know they’re unclean but they can be sick and you have to exam them and you can’t lie about your findings.”
“None of the other supervisors have objected. They told me that I had to fill in the chart to make it look like I examined them.”
“No . You have to examine them. You don’t falsify the chart. “
‘That’s not what he said.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“ I simply can’t touch them and you’re being a bully to expect me to. I must complain about you.”
So there I was again cited for being ‘culturally insensitive.’ I’d spent years as a fly in doctor working cross culturally. I had been to India and worked with the greatest Indian doctors. She was a lazy entitled cunt. They exist in every race. She was passed and I was again told that I had to be ‘less demanding’.
Dr. Brown, one of the truly greats of psychiatry, he’d been head of the Asylum, and had forgotten more about psychiatry and hospitals than others had ever learned. He’d become my mentor and try to teach me the ‘ropes’.
“What you’re missing Dr. Hay, is that the system says that if any of us clinically fail a patient they must repeat the rotation. If you think that young lady who didn’t want to touch ‘untouchable people’ was a nightmare on psychiatry you must realize our colleagues in Surgery and Medicine found her a hundred times more loathsome. Yet they passed her. Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s a lousy doctor. Probably one of the lousiest we have seen other that that little asshole son of a rich man e had earlier this year.If Surgery or Medicine had failed her she would have had to repeat her rotation there so they passed her along knowing she’ll kill someone sooner than later. Because of her political clout and the spineless ness of the present administration class some doctor was going to pay for her error just like you did even for pointing out she’s a lying dangerous nightmare waiting to happen. We’re passing her so she doesn’t kill any of our patients because frankly her kind and the other guy are unteachable.”
Dr. Brown was truly the greatest psychiatrist. He’d object to me giving high grades to all my students. He was old school. .I was giving A’s and B’s. He was giving C’s and B’s. Other than those two wankers the rest of the medical students and interns I taught were amazing. Dr. Brown and I had this long discussion and debate about the whole idea of grading. I reminded him that these students were really good and that if they got an A in psychiatry which I felt they deserved they’d be more likely to want to be psychiatrists. I told them Family Medicine was giving out A’s by the bucket and that the old one person a year gets an A wasn’t true. It was a level of ‘competence’ not a ‘competition’. Dr. Brown thanked me and after that began giving A’s and B’s rather than C’s and B’s .
We had a suicide on the ward and rather than address it as I ‘d be trained, the administrations and lawyers arrived and said we couldn’t talk about it. Weird legal beurocratic behaviour. Suddenly the ‘post mortem’ that we’d done with all suicides so we could learn what we did wrong or what we could do better or just to mutually support each other was gone. The administrator said,”we can’t have people thinking we did anything wrong because that could lead to law suits.”
The decline in the standards of the Canadian Health Care system, now the Legal Administrative Meal with a little spice of medicine was truly greased to descend. The party at the top with the easy jobs, higher pay, lower education and glad handing just got better and better.
I was at a conference where a great American psychiatrist had fifty of us in a room. He asked if anyone had felt badly about the loss of a patient.
I immediately shared that I’d had a patient suicide and felt badly and felt even worse because we were told not to talk about it. I felt the whole ward felt that way and in fact none of us had done anything wrong. This was just a case of a patient stealing medication and over dossing secretly on the ward, everyone doing everything to the best of their ability but still it was sad. It was so much worse because we couldn’t talk about it. Schizophrenics will kill themselves and will say they won’t and will take your saying we don’t want you to kill yourself as meaning that you do want them to kill themselves.
Well, this pompous psychiatrist then stood up, must have been in his 60’s and said very loudly and very smugly,
, “I’ve never had a patient suicide.’
Dr. Brown immediately stood up and said, “I know Dr. Hay is practicing psychiatry but I don’t know what you’ve been doing all these years.”
He then turned and shared that he’d had a suicide early in his career that still gnawed at him. Being the head of the asylum Dr. Brown had seen many suicides. I’d go on to stop a couple of suicide epidemics thanks to his wisdom but on this occasion the other psychiatrist went red in the face and stormed out.
The American psychiatrist went on to discuss the suicide rate among doctors, especially psychiatrists, burn out and the ‘survivor guilt’ and the effect of suicide on those working in acute care like Psychiatry Emergencies, Schizophrenic wards and the new Psychiatric ICU’s. I felt less burdened and other psychiatrists, older wiser came up and talked with me after. There was indeed a whole lot of younger and older paychiatrist exchange and support following this . If it hadn’t been for Dr Brown it would have remained with an incompetent inexperienced ass hole shaming the young guy. As it turned out it was one of the frankest discussions and warm collegial sharing I’d know at VGH. Increasingly the administration and lawyers were destroying this collegiality with their win all ‘divide and conquer’. The ass would go on to a high position in administration. I’d learn that Dr. Brown who was a clinician’s clinician had a long history of dealing with this guy who avoided seeing patients especially sick ones.
Dr. Brown’s wife was Rosemary Brown, the famous NDP Member of Parliament. They were a truly amazing individuals. Because of working with Dr. Brown and admiring his knowledge of the worst of psychiatry acquired working in the asylum I”d jump at the opportunity to work in the asylum again later in my career. I’d learned so much in Brandon but asylum work was considered the least sexy and not a good choice for career advancement. I didn’t think in ‘career’ but always where the ‘greatest need’ was and ‘where I could learn the most’.
I dated a nurse at VGH. When I think of heaven I think of her. Now I’ve been married and loved and been blessed in partners but this girl always comes to mind more like an addiction but truly a marvellous one. She had been a gymnast and a dancer. She was incredible. Her body was perhaps the most unforgetably perfect.
This memory remains partly because I had a penthouse suite off the beach in Kitsilano. I had this great balcony where I did whole tai chi routines each day along with meditation. It was here she did dance gymnastic routines naked in the moonlight. It was like watching Venus. REally I’ve been spoiled. I have been blessed beyond what any man deserves. To have one night with a nurse like her is the fantasy of every teen age boy on the planet. She really was the ‘girl next door’. She was the Playboy fantasy come true. She was perfect. Except.
She had a cocaine habit she at first hid from me. She would be called a ‘borderline personality disorder’ by another doctor who’d dated her and everyone who knew her called her ‘histrionic’. I really wished I was 10 years older and a million dollars richer because maybe then I’d have the time to give her what she needed. As it was her constant demand for attention, mood swings, jealousy and frank insaniety were a distraction. All my friends said she was the most gorgeous woman they’d ever seen until she opened her mouth. A constant barrage of complaining and criticism and demands.
Who cared? Sex was spectacular.
She was totally on or totally off. She was passionately in love with me one day and the next she hated me. She was Sophia Loren and her evil sister. She was always having major scenes screaming in the streets. Marching out of rooms. Banging doors. I’d never dated a truly crazy lady. I now know I’d never dated a cocaine addict before but would years later and recognize the traits. On and off and on and off. And always the man or someone else is to blame. Rage and passion.
I lasted a few months but couldn’t see continuing so tried to break it off. We’d moved some stuff together to go to the next stage but I’d kept my apartment. In that first week she was up all night and I needed my sleep.Im a doctor. She was on shift. I had to function. She was truly out of it. I called a friend with a truck and took my few possessions home one day saying I loved her but I just couldn’t go without sleep and couldn’t take the rage and screaming despite the pleasure of ‘make ups’.
That night she broke into my apartment, she’d stolen my keys and made copies. I woke to fists pounding into my eyes and her screaming “No man leaves me.”
I threw her out all the while she was screaming waking the neighbours and saying she loved me and we needed to be together.
Did I say the sex was spectacular?
Did I say she was like a puma?
Did I say just watching her walk caused my heart to beat faster?
Did I say that when she wasn’’t in rage she was the most enjoyable funny companion , like the best friend , sister, girl next door, buddy. She was also extremely bright and a great nurse. She was wonderful but catching her cutting the tips off the condoms had been bad. When I’d confronted her she said ‘I’d kill myself if you left me. I want your baby so bad so you will stay with me.” That was probably the night before I left and now I had two black eyes.
Then I hired a cleaning lady who climbed into bed with me one morning. That was very nice. Guys with morning hard ons. I rather liked it. She wasn’t a particularly outstanding lady but young and pleasant and frankly ‘any ship in a storm.’ I’m a fool and slut and my little head is worse.
The trouble is she never cleaned after that. She ‘d come over and fuck me and I’d pay her and she’d leave. Other times she’d just come for the money and leave. Then she’d just come for the money and leave. I was a fool.
I now had a Rabbit, my VW Bug having died in the rain. I was enjoying going out into the woods alone camping and hiking and mountain climbing alone. I loved British Columbia. I’d had my firearms and hunting permit in Manitoba but got them all for BC. Weekends I’d go out in the woods. In the fall I’d shoot grouse. I was supposedly deer hunting but wouldn’t shoot deer for another year or two. I just loved the hiking and sitting in clearings in the woods.
The nurse and I would get back together.
When I thought I was safe she showed up at my door in 4 inch heels and her black ankle length fur coat. She begged me to let her in. I was smart enough to know that I was a mere man and the power of her sensuality would overwhelm me if I opened the door a crack. But she said, ‘at least let me use your bathroom. I have to pee.”
Only a cad would deny a girl the use of his bathroom.
I opened the door.
She flowed by me. There was a long hallway. She dropped the mink on the floor as she walked to the bathroom door. She was gloriously naked except for the 4 inch heels. She let her hair down and turned and smiled at me. She didn’t need to pee. We made love on the living room rug in front of the fireplace. If on call medicine taught me to dress fast this nurse taught me to undress fastest.
We were off and fucking for another 4 months. Who cared if she hit me?
Addiction is on and off. Love is a steady thing. This was addiction. I’ve always loved the song, “Addicted to love!” She could have replaced any of those famous back up singers. Her every move was a dancers elegance. I remembered the song ,When I was 21 it was a very good year, .....when I was 21 it was a very good year for city girls who lived up the stair with perfumed hair, that came undone when I was 21.
She’d come hunting with me too. I remember lying at dawn while guns were being fired around and above us and we were in this sheep skin sleeping bag I’d made and she said she was ‘keeping her head down.” Whenever she was with me we didn’t get much hunting done but she’d laugh so whimsically.
I expect I left Vancouver as much to get away from her.
I’d left VGH after the decision of the head of psychiatry caused a patient’s death but he tried to blame it on me. Having that ‘intuition’ I made sure he signed the orders for the ‘pass’ as I insisted I believed the patient only wanted to have a pass to kill himself. I’d recorded that and yet the head because he was in the drug research program wanted to appease the patient and hoped to get him to continue. The patient killed himself. The head destroyed the chart then lied bold faced at the meetings of the psychiatrists saying that my physician error had caused the patient’s death. He further complained that the chart had gone missing. There was all this ‘fake consternation’ and I remained quiet while everyone condemned me with their looks and looked askance at my poor clinical acumen. He really laid it on thick.
I responded by producing a copy of the records and pointing to his lies, to his errors and with my typical good humor saying ‘go fuck it.” It was the Morris Hospital Administrator all over and the Black nurse murderer. I was told to wait it out but because I was having trouble getting away from Venus saw this as an opportunity to go to the country. I asked the College Registrar, a really good old guy if there was any need for a pscyhiatrist and was immediately told they needed one in Campbell River and Comox. What I wasn’t told was that the psychiatrist in Comox had succeeded in maintaining a veritable ‘monopoly’ on the North Vancouver Island by scaring off or ruining some dozen psychiatrists before me. The community had had 6 psychiatrists then he arrived and now there was one. Yet Comox was the mos desirable place in the country.
God works in mysterious ways. In Campbell River the family physician who was most welcoming I’d learn later had been sober in AA for 30 years. My nurse girlfriend who had the cocaine problem hated this man who I loved . She instead loved the Comox psychiatrist and really encouraged me to take that position because she said she’d come to visit me there but not Campbell River. I really believe if I’d gone to Campbell River my life would have taken a more positive turn. It was a nodal point. Like the several properties which I’d not bought which went on to be worth millions. I think also I really loved and lusted after my nurse friend and hoped someway we could make it work. Maybe if she did come to the country we could have a family. I just couldn’t let go and the psychiatrist in Comox was so svelte and deceitful.
Life was too short for should have, could have.would have ‘retrospective falsification’. Each decision we make is the best at the time with all the information we have at the time. Later with more or different information a different choice would have been possible. But it was already shown on multiple choice exams that mostly people who change their answer on uncertain questions from one to another will make an equal number of errors in the other directions. If I’d gone to Campbell River I might have got back into the church and got away from the alcohol and drug crowd but then I might just as well have been hit by a truck.
I went to Comox. I’d eventually no longer have those magnificent long red painted nails anchored in my back and I’d move on with a wealth of regret. She would tell me that she had once worked as a professional masseuse and that she’d not prostituted but used her voice and hands to pleasure men for considerable wealth. That never left me and I always admired ‘professionals’ thereafter known that amateurs don’t have the same ‘skill set’. All together I missed her and wished I could have been a better man to be able to tolerate her insaneity if only for the sex but as much for the fun times, the little sister quality of the relationship and her amazing enthusiasm for life and courage. She was the definitive MASH nurse and leaving Vancouver for thecountry I also left the psychiatry emergency with a wealth of skills and now not as likely to be facing HIV and near death on a Friday night.
Rural psychiatry had it’s own set of skills and challenges.
I’d been flying up north every couple of months to Fort St. John, Fort Nelson and Watson Lake. I’d go from there to surrounding Indian reserve having week long clinics. Dr. No one the Emergency Psychiatrist who would be my drinking buddy for a time would arrange the trips to the Yukon. He’d been to medical school with Said in Dublin. Hedy Fry was there with them. I’d campaign for Hedy and thought what a small world.
Said was the most amazing family physician I was ever to know. He was everything of days of yore. The one man emergency doctor, the northern giant of a man, the great family man and father. I admired Dr. No one for his family. He had a beautiful wife and lovely children and was devoted to their needs. These were the 50/60’s men. The great providers and protectors. Joe and Said were an incredible pair. If there was ever a war I’d want to be on their team. Joe had been in the military but Said was a grizzly bear hunter and we’d hunt together in the north where I’d see the kind of skill and awareness my father and grand father shared. His father had been a freedom fighter who fought guerrilla warfare. I think that’s what was the difference with Joe. He was a company man. Hierarchal. Said by contrast would never have been a regular army sort being all round militia at best. I by then was feeling rather unique and thought if war occured I’d have to be a sniper at best. I didn’t think I could trust anyone very much.
I’d certainly trust Said as a doctor. Truly the most amazing country clinician I’d ever know. Like Bob Manness but with more wilderness and surgical experience. There was simply no one else but him. I’d meet other Yukon doctors and they all shared that Livingston’s quality. My later friend Dr. Willie Gutowski had been a missionary doctor and he had that same clinical comfidecne. Said was truly a mensch. Skookum. And funny. Indeed joe and said were the two funniest most interesting friends and story tellers a person could ever have the joy to be with. Joe was Irish which explains that a bit but Said was as crazy and East European. Having worked in Chruchill and in nursing stations I really appreciated these men who worked and lived in the wilderness and their families. It is so unfortunate that the city chair warmers in government and administration have such unwarranted power. They simply could never do or understand what doctors like SAid did and do.
I’d later join the Wilderness Medicine Society and meet many others like Said. A different breed. Renaissance men. Dr. Osler sorts. Pioneers and adventurers. Watson Lake then was full of characters. Doing psychiatry in the Yukon was an eye opener because all the life stories were like nothing you’d hear in the south.
I ‘d actually treat cabin fever. One trapper would be picked up by the RCMP in a blizzard naked worst frost bitten feet I’d ever treated and he’d be flailing himself with a chain near dead walking down the centre of the highway nearly hit by the guy who notified the police. He’d been a trapper for decades and his partner had died. They had a little one tiny room log cabin and he’d stacked his friend outside to take back in when the spring came. It was months later that he went insane talking to his dead partner.
I’d treat more gunshot wounds. When I was in the north I was often covering Emergency when the doctor who was there was called out. That would leave me , the only doctor in town. Hence more experience with head injuries, gun shot wounds and respiratory and cardiac arrests.
The joy of the north was everyone pitched in. It’s a paradise of humans in the harshness of the world. People worked together or died. The nonsense of the south was never in the wilderness. It couldn’t survive.
When I was in Comox I’d begin my northern outreach to Port Mc Neil and Port Hardy. I”d also do two days a week in Campbell River.
I’d meet Ann and Marion, two of the greatest ladies in the world. I would first know them as colleagues then be truly blessed to have them as lifelong funds.One wash a Scottish social worker, the other a blond Psychologist from Winnipeg. Anne would take me to my first Robbie Burns dinner. When I visited Port Hardy and Port McNeil where she was in charge of Mental Health we’d play music. She was a classical violinist, I was a hack guitarists. She’d also play the flute. What a joy it was to visit her. We’d have music nights like one reads about in the 17 to 18th century. Hours of candlelight and wine and making music together.
We’ d practice Gordon Lightfoot’s Song for a Winter’s Night, she playing the flute and me picking guitar , the two of us alternately singing.
Truly I’ve been blessed. Truly I have no cause to be the terrible whiner and kafetch I can be. God had blessed me with companions and friends I have no right to have.
Marion was in Parksville. I ‘d come to know her family and friends. I’d eventually move into a house across from hers and have countless days and evenings of joy and fun. She was a kind of brilliant hippie. Her house was the centre for artists and intellectuals and shakers and makers to come together. There was always soup or stew on the stove and children and fire places with logs burning. She was always surrounded with beautiful younger people and truly gorgeous women around her.
She told me that after she got her PHD She had taken a van and dog and travelled about Mexico. She spoke Spanish fluently and Mexican musicians and artists would drop by. The truly beautiful were the dancers. Clothing at times was optional. I remember beautiful young dancers naked on her lawn doing modern dance. I had just woken and gone outside to have a coffee. Horses ran free in the lot beside her homestead. There were the most beautiful young women naked in this extraordinary Canadian tableau. Peace on earth. Make love, not war.
I miss those days. I’m always blessed and uplifted to be with Anne or Marion. God got it truly right when he made such extraordinary ladies. I am truly blessed to count them as my friends.
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