The Bed 11

Mr. Alberto Silva was seventy -two when he was again admitted to the hospital. Civil Engineer by profession, had a chronic disease that often led him to a hospital hospitalization. But in his previous stays in previous stays, he had never been through situations like the one he was now living in that ward. When this time was hospitalized no one asked him the name or how he would like to be treated. He was very early that he quickly stopped being Eng. Alberto Silva or even Mr. Silva to simply become Bed 11. This is how nurses referred to him as they passed in the hallway – Have you come to bed 11?

That was the number that was on the head of his bed, and that was how he heard his name was muttered during shift changes. Its existence had been reduced to a bed number, its filed human identity somewhere in the hospital’s bureaucratic forms.

That ward was a microcosm of disease and suffering where dignity seemed to have been forgotten at the door. And Alberto Silva watched, with growing discomfort, how the other patients were also treated in the same impersonal way. In the bed next door was a man, also he old, and who never knew the real name, but who for some of those doctors was simply The pancreas cancer that will make TAC tomorrow. This is how they heard them refer to him in conversations with colleagues, as if the pathology had completely swallowed the person. It was disturbing to witness how a serious illness had become the only identity that was left to that man.

Over the days it began to realize that there were also other maladjusted ways to deal with the sick. Some medical action assistants used infantilizing expressions when addressing the most elderly patients: So, dear, how spent the night? Come on, love, you need to take the medicines, They said in a huge tone, as if they were talking to a small child, completely ignoring respectability and maturity with decades of experience.

The way they addressed the sick was totally inadequate. The most elderly are not even Dear nor love – They are adult human beings, with their own names, with their life stories, families and dreams interrupted by the disease. The condescending tone of those professionals turned the sick into a kind of pets, removing them the latest dignity portions that disease had not yet been able to steal.

Mr. Alberto Silva noticed all this, and experienced a mixture of feelings of indignation and sadness. In that hospital where everything could even function as in an efficient machine, treating sick bodies with high technical quality, there was no “space” for the valorization of the human soul that inhabited each of these sick bodies. Each patient was attributed there a label, a number, a pathology (Bed 11, pancreas cancer, etc.) who coisified him by stripping him of his most fundamental identity: to be recognized as a person.

The way we address the inpatients is an essential pillar in the humanization of care in a hospital. Treatment by the name they want to be treated represents more than a mere courtesy, is an act of recognition of the person in their entirety, transcending their condition as a sick and embracing their Single and Individual Identity.

It is a simple but deeply significant practice that conveys respect, recognition and dignity that is due to each person. Some patients may prefer more formally treated while others may feel more comfortable with a less ceremonious approach. It is therefore essential that this approach is made with cultural sensitivity and consideration by individual preferences.

The humanization of health care is not a luxury or an option. It is a fundamental need that benefits patients, professionals and the health system as a whole, contributing to better clinical results and greater professional satisfaction.

References:
Commitment to Hospital Humanization, SNS, 2019
Claude Ai (2025)

Doctor. Civic Movement Humanize Health Coimbra