Comments on: Whose autonomy is it anyway? Drawing back the curtain http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-humanities/2010/02/03/whose-autonomy-is-it-anyway-drawing-back-the-curtain/ Just another blogs.bmj.com weblog Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:48:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Farai Madzimbamuto http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-humanities/2010/02/03/whose-autonomy-is-it-anyway-drawing-back-the-curtain/#comment-170 Farai Madzimbamuto Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:52:43 +0000 http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-humanities/?p=80#comment-170 I would not call it privacy what goes on in the UK. It is isolation. I found it difficult the way some patients in hospitals in UK wanted to shut themselves out from other people who are probably struggling emotionally just as much as they are or have been there. When the doctor comes round there is importance put on curtaining when everything that is said can be heard by everyone anyway. So there is no privacy there. It is true there may a sense of theatre when evryone is watching on the round.

Now that I am back in Africa, it seems natural, communal to be out in the open. Also there is a sense of fellow feeling
that grows with being part of something bigger.

However, even here curtains are on their way. I hope they will be only for those moments when privacy is not isolation. Farai

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