It's just something that has been on my mind for way too long and I've decided to just tell the story and be done with it.
Back when Bellevue Hospital opened its first virology clinic I got hired as the receptionist. My job was to register patients and call them once their name came up on the AZT eligibility list. Once AZT became FDA approved, real nurses and employees got hired and replaced the volunteers who worked on the placebo trials. I had been a volunteer and I was hired. They eventually hired a Dutch nurse LV who on the surface seemed gregarious and nice. She was tall, pretty had a weird accent and seemed perfect for the job.
In short time, I began to notice that patients left her office in one of two ways: eyes rolling or an actual demand to change nurses. I have no clue to this day what annoyed so many patients but annoy them she did. And they all complained to me. They complained to me because I was the first person they saw upon arrival and the first voice they heard inviting them to a clinic that had the very real potential to save their lives. I can also guess that I was not a threat. I didn't write chart notes at that time and I was simply a nice person at the front desk who kept people entertained while they waited to see the doctor.
Some clinics have an array of different patients from a host of backgrounds and educational levels but at this time in history this clinic was primarily made up of well-to-do, famous, educated Gay men who were all HIV infected. I can't think of one that was an idiot or needed help figuring things out. They were the first wave of the epidemic and all of them, having Larry Kramer to thank, where informed, aware, and up to date on what was available to them for survival. Coming to Bellevue was a peg down for some because most had had private insurance, private doctors and coming to a county hospital was a frightening experience. They were afraid they were going to have to mingle with the dregs of society. But we hand picked that clinic and it ran like no other clinic. And everyone was relieved and thankful they had found it.
This story has bothered me for a long time because what the clinic attempted to do I still feel today was wrong.
John had gone in to see LV and upon completion of his visit, she came with his chart, told me to give him a return appointment and placed his chart on the counter in front of me and in front of him. I liked John very much. He was gentle, quiet and incredibly sad. Most times he came to the clinic alone but he did have supports as sometimes friends came to the clinic with him. He took vacations and came back with gifts for everyone and nothing in my experience would say he was anything other than depressed due to his status.
On this day he opened his chart and read what LV had written. It was something along the lines, unbeknownst to him, that she thought he was in need of psychiatric care. This by itself would not be an unusual chart note. But LV wasn't a psychiatric nurse. He demanded that she explain herself and was visibly upset. Not violent or chair throwing upset but: Get your ass over here and explain yourself upset. LV did not tolerate being questioned by anyone. She told him to take a seat, which he did, and she said she would get the doctor to talk to him. What she did was got the doctor and called psych emergency to have him committed. Her explanation was that anyone who questioned her needed to be committed. He waited outside her office for about 45 minutes, calm as can be, and they huddled in her office plotting his demise. All the while I was receiving phone calls from this three feet away office telling me what they were up to and to keep him there.
Here is what I did. I went over to John and told him they were about to commit him and for him to get the hell out of there. I asked him not to tell them I had done this as it would mean my job. He sat for another five minutes, came and hugged me and left. LV came out and demanded to know where he had gone and I simply said: he left. They couldn't do anything about it except what they did do. They told him that unless he committed himself he couldn't come back to the clinic! What the fuck was that all about? When John became hospitalized I went to visit him and trimmed his moustache and gave him massages. When I mentioned once that I had gone to visit him LV asked me why I was visiting him in such a way that I knew she viewed me as a traitor. John eventually died and I haven't one regret that I did what I did.
Years later, I was in a park near the hospital and I'd run into a fellow from medical records who told me the following story: LV's office had been destroyed. Someone had gone into it and not only destroyed it but I guess put graffiti on the wall specific to her. She called the cops on me and had them sent to my home but I no longer lived there. I was hearing this story maybe 5 years after the fact. Five years after that I ran into her in an elevator at my new job and and I could tell she would have killed me if we weren't in a public space. My new job, also in virology was supervised by AH. LV had applied for a job with AH but AH had simply said: Crazy as a loon. I was hired.
I think of John a lot. He was sad but not committable sad. He was sad in the same way anyone would be who found themselves, in the prime of their life, suddenly stricken with such a burden. That burden coupled with being committed for expressing what he had the right to express, would have been to much. No one with such little time left should be locked away trying to defend themselves against the indefensible.
LV is off checking vagina's now in an OB/GYN clinic. And I'm happy in Mexico.
Back when Bellevue Hospital opened its first virology clinic I got hired as the receptionist. My job was to register patients and call them once their name came up on the AZT eligibility list. Once AZT became FDA approved, real nurses and employees got hired and replaced the volunteers who worked on the placebo trials. I had been a volunteer and I was hired. They eventually hired a Dutch nurse LV who on the surface seemed gregarious and nice. She was tall, pretty had a weird accent and seemed perfect for the job.
In short time, I began to notice that patients left her office in one of two ways: eyes rolling or an actual demand to change nurses. I have no clue to this day what annoyed so many patients but annoy them she did. And they all complained to me. They complained to me because I was the first person they saw upon arrival and the first voice they heard inviting them to a clinic that had the very real potential to save their lives. I can also guess that I was not a threat. I didn't write chart notes at that time and I was simply a nice person at the front desk who kept people entertained while they waited to see the doctor.
Some clinics have an array of different patients from a host of backgrounds and educational levels but at this time in history this clinic was primarily made up of well-to-do, famous, educated Gay men who were all HIV infected. I can't think of one that was an idiot or needed help figuring things out. They were the first wave of the epidemic and all of them, having Larry Kramer to thank, where informed, aware, and up to date on what was available to them for survival. Coming to Bellevue was a peg down for some because most had had private insurance, private doctors and coming to a county hospital was a frightening experience. They were afraid they were going to have to mingle with the dregs of society. But we hand picked that clinic and it ran like no other clinic. And everyone was relieved and thankful they had found it.
This story has bothered me for a long time because what the clinic attempted to do I still feel today was wrong.
John had gone in to see LV and upon completion of his visit, she came with his chart, told me to give him a return appointment and placed his chart on the counter in front of me and in front of him. I liked John very much. He was gentle, quiet and incredibly sad. Most times he came to the clinic alone but he did have supports as sometimes friends came to the clinic with him. He took vacations and came back with gifts for everyone and nothing in my experience would say he was anything other than depressed due to his status.
On this day he opened his chart and read what LV had written. It was something along the lines, unbeknownst to him, that she thought he was in need of psychiatric care. This by itself would not be an unusual chart note. But LV wasn't a psychiatric nurse. He demanded that she explain herself and was visibly upset. Not violent or chair throwing upset but: Get your ass over here and explain yourself upset. LV did not tolerate being questioned by anyone. She told him to take a seat, which he did, and she said she would get the doctor to talk to him. What she did was got the doctor and called psych emergency to have him committed. Her explanation was that anyone who questioned her needed to be committed. He waited outside her office for about 45 minutes, calm as can be, and they huddled in her office plotting his demise. All the while I was receiving phone calls from this three feet away office telling me what they were up to and to keep him there.
Here is what I did. I went over to John and told him they were about to commit him and for him to get the hell out of there. I asked him not to tell them I had done this as it would mean my job. He sat for another five minutes, came and hugged me and left. LV came out and demanded to know where he had gone and I simply said: he left. They couldn't do anything about it except what they did do. They told him that unless he committed himself he couldn't come back to the clinic! What the fuck was that all about? When John became hospitalized I went to visit him and trimmed his moustache and gave him massages. When I mentioned once that I had gone to visit him LV asked me why I was visiting him in such a way that I knew she viewed me as a traitor. John eventually died and I haven't one regret that I did what I did.
Years later, I was in a park near the hospital and I'd run into a fellow from medical records who told me the following story: LV's office had been destroyed. Someone had gone into it and not only destroyed it but I guess put graffiti on the wall specific to her. She called the cops on me and had them sent to my home but I no longer lived there. I was hearing this story maybe 5 years after the fact. Five years after that I ran into her in an elevator at my new job and and I could tell she would have killed me if we weren't in a public space. My new job, also in virology was supervised by AH. LV had applied for a job with AH but AH had simply said: Crazy as a loon. I was hired.
I think of John a lot. He was sad but not committable sad. He was sad in the same way anyone would be who found themselves, in the prime of their life, suddenly stricken with such a burden. That burden coupled with being committed for expressing what he had the right to express, would have been to much. No one with such little time left should be locked away trying to defend themselves against the indefensible.
LV is off checking vagina's now in an OB/GYN clinic. And I'm happy in Mexico.
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