An Inconvenient Truth

Last night I woke up to a very very bad dream, a nightmare actually.

In this dream, I was inside a complex which looked like a hospital. Everywhere, you can see cameras and apparently all employees are being monitored on those cameras. I saw a person using a sink and while he was not looking, a hand came out, but then I saw people from a 'control room' quickly hiding the hand (through a complicated technology).

Then I saw a room with no windows. I keep on seeing bodies being thrown in that room. The bodies smelled like paint (in the dream the paint was sort of an embalming procedure). Then there were some people who were still alive however there were cloths which were placed inside their system and so they couldn't breathe. At one time, three of them woke up discovering their situation and looking at each other as if crying out for help.

And then I saw my classmate. She was being chased by some men. Apparently, they were her co-members in a fraternity.

Anyway what freaked me out the most in this dream is the scene inside the room with all those dead bodies. After waking up, I couldn't shake off that scene away. For a good few minutes, I couldn't sleep.

What is interesting is that when I woke up, I instantly thought that maybe that place in my dream is actually the ZCMC-Zamboanga City Medical Center (the hospital wherein I will have my duty for that day).

That same day, I went to ZCMC for my duty (at the Psychiatric ward). My immediate reaction was one of extreme shock.

The patients were being kept inside (jail) cells. These small rooms are so dirty and some even smell of urine. Then I can see some beds with no matress (and so the patient had to place some cartons on top of the bed so as not to hurt her back). And then I can also see some of them in the hallway because there was not enough space inside the cells.

The conditions in the Psychiatric ward of ZCMC is beyong upholing. It was inhuman! If you're poor, beware of becoming mentally ill, you would be treated like dogs! You lose your privacy (they don't have comfort rooms inside their rooms, just some small containers for their urine). Some of them sleep using mats. They don't have immediate access to water (they have to call on their watchers to get water for them and most seem unwilling to help them).

What was very shocking was the retarded person inside the psychiatric ward. Imagine that! We were told that there isn't a proper institution for retarded people in this city and so they were placed there.

The first time we were brought inside, I felt so depressed and stressed out. I felt like I was living in medieval Europe. The conditons are just so dire that you feel so blessed and lucky not to be one of them.

For a while tears welled from my eyes.

But of course, we are student nurses and so there's no room for overwhelming emotions. We are there to take care of the sick and that's what we have to do.

PATIENT WITH NO ROOM

'JAIL CELLS'
NON-THERAPEUTIC GATE
WARD 9
ZCMC WARD 9 (PSYCHIATRIC WARD)
GREEN AREA OF ZCMC