We talk often about what’s broken in healthcare. And rightly so. There are silences where there should be answers. There are decisions made without consulting the people they affect. There are waitlists longer than grief can wait.
And yet, there are also moments, small, almost forgettable, where something holds. Something works. Not the system. But the person in it.
I remember a woman nearing the end of life. The ward was full, loud, and understaffed. Nothing about the environment said “peace.” But that afternoon, a nurse pulled up a stool, sat beside her, and simply said, “Tell me something you don’t want to forget.”
That’s it. No intervention. No form to fill. Just one human offering another a moment of stillness.
Not the oxygen
Not the IV
Not the chart that said
“Do not resuscitate”
Not the fan that clicked
Or the tray that never came
But
A hand on her hand
A stool that stayed
A voice that asked,
“Tell me.”
That’s what worked
That day.
That’s what held
When nothing else did.
We don’t always fix what’s broken.
Sometimes we simply bear witness to someone’s fear, or memory, or breath, and that becomes enough.
This is what we forget when we look only at the gaps:
That somewhere, in the middle of the chaos, someone still asks,
“Are you okay?”
And means it.
Hope doesn’t always look like innovation.
Sometimes it looks like someone who stayed five minutes longer, even though their shift had ended.
What’s broken still matters.
But so do the people who show us what’s possible
quietly,
daily,
without making it look like a miracle.
Edited by Parth Sharma
Image by Janvi Bokoliya
