Multitude of Suffering: From Sickness to Hospital Treatment

Vollständiger Abstract

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This auto-ethnography examines the multiple scopes of suffering experienced from the beginning of illness throughout hospitalization and cure processes, by means of the theoretical perspectives of critical medical anthropology. It explores the psychological, material, and social, aspects of suffering correlated with illness, healthcare performs, hospital atmospheres, and the result of cure. In Nepal, healthcare arrangement and infrastructure is unequally distributed within geographic regions, with well-resourced hospitals and specialized health services focused mainly in urban areas. Thus, access to quality healthcare services remains greatly imbalanced, shaped by spatial, social, and economic inequalities that intensify occurrences of suffering to the patients and their families. The paper draws on data gathered during 18-days hospital stay in Kathmandu in the month of December 2019 whilst a family member undertook treatment for a case of brain hemorrhage. Main data were produced throughout participant observation and informal discussions with doctors, stationed nurses, hospital administrative staffs, support staffs, patients, and their families. The study conceptualizes suffering as a multidimensional experience incorporating the emotional, physical, social, and economic difficulties endured by patients and their family members from the start of illness through treatment processes and post treatment recovery. The findings show that suffering is shaped not only by the illness itself but also by psychological distress, institutional treatment procedures, socio-economic inequalities, and the larger organization of healthcare arrangements. The study further shows insistent asymmetrical power relations between patients, healthcare professionals, and hospital officials, revealed through unequal access to medical knowledge, institutional influence, and monetary resources. It claims that suffering should be understood not only as an individual experience but as a collective and socially shaped phenomenon formed by structural inequalities, healthcare institutes, and social relationships throughout the illness course.