A female doctor with incurable cancer has launched a massive social media campaign to urge healthcare professionals to be more compassionate with patients.
When Dr. Kate Granger, 31, fell ill, she discovered behind the scenes. An incurable cancer forced this hospital practitioner to immerse herself in the distressing world of patients, to share their frustrations, their questions. And what she saw did not please her at all.
“The impression of being just a sick body …”
“I have observed the attitudes of the nursing staff,” she says. in a BBC interview. And I realized that most of the team didn’t show up when they were meeting a patient ”. Throughout her treatment, anonymous nurses and unnamed doctors followed one another. Whoever told her about her diagnosis didn’t bother to say “hello” or look her in the eye.
“I felt like I was just a sick body in a hospital bed, and not a person,” she laments. However, when certain health professionals showed up, it made all the difference! I felt much more at ease, and less alone in the hospital ”.
Humanize the caregiver-patient relationship
On the strength of this observation, and carried by indignation, Kate Granger launched two years ago a campaign called: “Hello, my name is…” (Hello, my name is…), where the participants photograph themselves with their first name written on a sign. The campaign urges all healthcare professionals to adopt a more compassionate attitude towards patients.
Very quickly, the movement, born on social networks with the hashtag #hellomynameis, spread across the English, Scottish and Welsh health system. More than 400,000 nurses, doctors, therapists, receptionists and even stretcher bearers took part in it, from around a hundred public care centers in the United Kingdom (attached to the NHS, the National Health Center). All are committed to “humanizing” the caregiver-patient relationship.
Dr Keith McNeil and all the staff at Cambridge University Hospitals supports the #hellomynameis campaign pic.twitter.com/YInGPsklOh
– CUH (@CUH_NHS) February 2, 2015
David Cameron, Bob Geldof …
Emblematic personalities have also lent their support to this now national campaign, such as David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, Jeremy Hunt, Minister of Health, or the singer Bob Geldof. The Scottish government announced on Monday that it would pay £ 40,000 (€ 53,000) to the NHS to expand the campaign across the country.
PM: Congratulations to @GrangerKate who I met last year – leading the #hellomynameis campaign for compassionate care. pic.twitter.com/MH9JmTsb5J
– UK Prime Minister (@ Number10gov) February 2, 2015
“I’m convinced it’s not just about knowing someone’s name. It’s much deeper. It’s about creating human contact, starting a therapeutic relationship based on trust, ”writes Kate Granger on her blog. Today, the young woman is terminally ill and has no hope of remission. “I hope my testimony will put the issue of compassion at the heart of health care,” she concludes.
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