Patients, families need sympathy

One of my rabbinic duties is to visit hospitalized people. There were times that I wished the person I was calling on was sleeping when I reached their hospital bed. This would allow me to leave a note informing them the rabbi was here, instead of dealing with the myriad issues that come with a hospital visit.

The mitzvah of visiting the sick can be broken down into two very distinct parts. One portion of the mitzvah is to show sympathy to and help the one lying in the hospital bed, and the other is the secondary sympathy and help for whoever is sitting at the bedside of the sick patient.

When contemplating visiting someone in the hospital, we must take two things into account. First, that visitors are actually welcome, and second, that we are informed enough to say the correct thing.

As to the first issue, most people don't want to be seen in a moment of weakness. To many, lying in a hospital bed is such a moment. Someone desiring to visit a sick person really has to respect their wish of whether there should be visitors at their bedside at all.

As to the second issue, I learned as a rabbi that there is information I should know in order to talk about the proper things at a hospital bedside. Like the time I went to visit a 26-year-old woman and asked all the wrong questions. When my questions were answered with silence the doctor pulled me aside to say, "Rabbi, maybe you don't know it, but this woman is dying of AIDS." In this situation, not being informed led me to an uncomfortable mistake. On the other hand, when I went to visit a sick man who was admitted to the hospital suffering from extreme anxiety, with nothing physically wrong with him, I realized that there are times extra information won't change anything. All that man needed was to have someone to talk to - it didn't matter what about.

These two issues, one of being a wanted visitor and the other of being an informed visitor, are crucial to anyone who wants to make a successful visit to the sick in the hospital.

When it comes to dealing with the person next to the bed, as opposed to the one in it, we should take the time to recognize that we are most likely looking at the person who is at the patient's bedside all day and night. They are the one absorbing all the other pressures of the house in order to protect the patient. That person also needs our sympathy, assurance and help - maybe even more than the bedridden person, since the sick person is being cared for by a concerned hospital staff and the caregiver at their bedside.

When I was younger, my grandmother was in a comatose state. Over a period of three years, we would often visit her in the hospital. We didn't really make the visit for my grandmother. She was in the deepest coma and didn't know we were there - we really went to visit and cheer up my grandfather, who spent his days at her bedside.

It takes great sensitivity not to overlook the caregiver and family of the ill. My brother is a pulpit rabbi and a chaplain at a hospital. When one of his congregants is hospitalized, his wife makes food for the family of the sick person - be they at home or in the hospital. They recognize what a great deed it is to feed the family that surely suffers when there's a loved one in the hospital. What can maybe be a greater favor, though, is to tell the person at the bedside that they should go home and rest or take a shower while you take over their watch.

In short, when is comfort a real comfort? When is consolation a solace? The answer is this: When we go to visit a sick person, we must focus on their needs and the needs of the caregiver. A visit that serves our needs instead of the needs of those whom we want to give comfort and strength to is lacking the crucial ingredients for a successful hospital visit.

Rabbi Shea Hecht is chairman of the board of National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education. He lives in New York.

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