The first and most ancient of caregivers were our mothers and grandmothers, who from early humanity have cared for the children. But for them, none of us would be here to talk about caring.
We would like to mention in this context two figures, true archetypes of caring: the Swiss physician, Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) and the British nurse, Florence Nightingale (1820-1910).
Albert Schweitzer was an exceptional Biblical exegete and one of the best concert interpreters of Bach of his time. When he was 30 years old, already famous throughout Europe, he left everything, and studied medicine, in the spirit of the beatitudes of Jesus, to care for the poorest of the poor, the lepers, in Lambarene (Gabon). He explicitly confessed in one of his letters: «what we need are not missionaries who want to convert the Africans, but persons ready to do what must be done for the poor, if the Sermon on the Mount and the words of Jesus are to have any value. My life is neither in the arts nor in science but in being a simple human being who, in the spirit of Jesus, does something, no matter how insignificant it may be». He was one of the first Nobel Peace prize laureates.
Schweitzer lived and worked for about forty years in a hospital he built with money earned from his Bach concert tours. In his scarce free hours, he managed to write a vast work centered on the ethics of caring and respect for life. He expressed his motto this way: «ethics is the unlimited responsibility for all that exists and lives». He affirms in another book: «the key idea of good consists of preserving life, developing and raising it to its highest value; evil consists of destroying life, damaging and precluding its full development; this is the necessary, universal and absolute principle of ethics».
Another archetype of caring was the British nurse, Florence Nightingale. A humanist, and profoundly religious, she decided to improve the nursing models in her country.
In 1854, with 38 companions, Florence went to the Crimean war, in Turkey, where fragmentation bombs that caused many casualties were being used. Strict application of the practice of caring in the military hospital reduced mortality from 42% to 2% in 6 months. This success brought her universal notoriety.
Back in her country, and shortly thereafter in the United States, she created a network of hospitals that applied caring as the fundamental principle guiding nursing, and as its natural ethic. Florence Nightingale continues to be an inspiring reference.
Health workers are fundamentally caregivers. They care for the well being of the others, as a mission and a life option. But, who cares for the caregiver? ¿Quem Cuida do Cuidador? is the title of a beautiful book by physician Eugenio Paes Campos (Vozes 2005).
We start from the fact that the human being is, by nature and essence, a being of caring. The human being feels predisposed to care for the other, and also feels the need to be cared for. To care for and to be taken care of are existential elements (permanent structures) that are inseparable. It is known that caring is demanding, and can cause stress to the caregiver. Specially if the caring constitutes, as it should be, not a sporadic act, but a permanent and conscious attitude. We are limited, subject to becoming tired, and to experiencing small failures and deceptions. We feel alone. We need to be cared for, if not, our desire to care for others diminishes. What must we do then?
Logically, each person must confront with resilience (the capacity to heal) this painful situation. But this effort is no substitute for the desire to be cared for. It is then that the community of caregivers, other health workers, physicians and the body of nurses, must take action.
Nurses and physicians, male and female, also need to be cared for. They need to feel welcomed and revived, exactly as mothers do with their sons and daughters. At times they feel the need for caring as support, sustenance and protection, things that a father offers to his sons and daughters.
That is when what pediatrician D. W. Winnicott called holding is created: namely, the group of caring and animating factors that strengthen the stimulus to continue caring for the patients. When this spirit of caring prevails, lateral relationships of trust and mutual cooperation appear, and the discomfort born of the need to be cared for is overcome.
Happy is the hospital and still happier are the patients who can count on a team of caregivers. They will have neither «signers of medical prescriptions» nor providers of formulas, but human beings «caring» for infirm lives that seek health. The good energy that caring irradiates reinforces healing.
