What we call people can determine the way we treat them. At one hospital in the 1980s, the rank odour of urine, tobacco and grime that characterised some homeless patients led to them being referred to as 'dunnies'.
To be a patient is to place yourself in the hands of another, to give them your trust and expect it to be honoured. If you call sick people 'clients' or 'customers' you risk turning healing into a commodity to be purchased — or rationed.
Modern hospital management theory recognises the importance of workplace culture but doesn't know how to create one that works for the sick. Hosptials need to recapture a philosophy of practice that is lived, not written down in unread mission statements.
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