Bikur Holim: Tips for Patients and Their Helpers

Have you ever been ill and found your friends and family lacking in skills to help you? or, as a helper to someone who is ill, been frustrated and wished you had more knowledge about how to be helpful? This is the case for most of us, if it strikes a chord with you, too, read on….

In 2013 I published a post about this topic, Bikur Holim. It is time for a refresher, with more thoughts and tips to help you establish who you are, what your needs are, and how to communicate them best.

It might surprise you to know that there are guidelines available for being a patient or caregiver. Yes, that’s right, you don’t have struggle with asking for what you need as a patient, or guess or worry about what to do or of making a mistake because you are winging it. I’m going to write mainly about Jewish practices for visiting the sick, Bikur Holim, but you don’t have to be Jewish to use them.

I actually feel it is my duty, with all my professional knowledge and experience, to share what I know on this most important topic. My professional specialty is to be present for people who are ill and their supporters, whether in hospital, or in my office where we can meet for spiritual care and counselling. This is a ministry that I have many years of accredited study in, as well as work experience. I have also spent a few years on the care receiving side, as a dis-abled person. I know the territory well from all angles.

So, let’s start with those of you who are well persons, who have never been ill or dis-abled enough to need help from others. And, by ‘others’, I am not referring not only to healthcare professionals, but non-professionals, such as family, friends, faith community, neighbours.

Here’s an example: You know someone who is not well and you want to help them. You know you can do this, too, because you are a good person. You have your religious faith and morals and ethics, and you are a compassionate person, thinking of others and making the world a better place.

Is being a good person with good intentions enough, though?

It may surprise you to learn that this in itself is not enough! Being a good person who wants to help is the first step, an essential foundation, but actual skills are needed. There are dynamics involved between you and the ill person that must be understood and accepted, and enacted.

In fact, if your only impetus for providing care is that you believe yourself to be a good person or been told you are a good person, you may also believe that what you are doing must also be good. You may have been told that helping others is a good deed and that doing this good deed will put you in good stead with your faith, or with God. The truth is, though, that you may do more harm than good, and you may be drawn to this post because you have already found that out and want to do better and have some skills.

It is important first of all, to sort out in your mind whose needs you are serving: yours or the ill person’s. This may sound astonishing at first, but if you take a moment to look within, you can find the answer.

I suggest this because helping others well can only be accomplished by listening to what they tell you they need, and not vice versa. An example would be offering a patient a ride home from the hospital, but then burdening the sick person with restricting the ride to when and how it is convenient for you, e.g. making them walk on their own to the entrance to meet you at the curb on your way to errands, and then dropping them off at their door withut escorting them inside if they are having trouble ambulating. Or offloading your offer onto a stranger who may or may not show up, because you are too busy. Imagine, well person, that you have just had surgery and are weak and in pain, and have to get yourself to the hospital lobby and wait until your ride home arrives, ambulate to their idling car at the curb, make your way into your home after being dropped off, put yourself in bed wishing you had the energy to make a cup of tea or a bite to eat. Imagine that. Putting yourself in the patient’s shoes as you offer help can be a good idea.

Once you have taken this step, you are released to turn your intentions towards attending to the ill person.

A corollary to making poor arrangement is ‘Don’t offer help unless you are willing to listen to the needs of the patient and follow them’. If you cannot, let the patient find someone who can. Sometimes, when ill, it is hard to ask for help, and it is easy to feel shame for turning down help that is offered but inappropriate: when ill, we are vulnerable, already in pain and suffering. Torah tells us in Leviticus 19:14 not to place barriers before someone who is dis-abled.

I just provided some basic general rules. There are more specific ones as well, here is a source of study for Jewish traditions in Bikur Holim

People are all different, so you may not know that offering to pray for healing is less important than doing their dishes and laundry. Patients can and often do, pray on their own. Ask what needs to be done rather than making assumptions, unless the person is unable to speak. Another example would be dropping off a packaged kosher meal for Shabbat for the patient to eat alone. Was this food really needed? Will leaving this this packaged food to be eaten alone on Shabbat count as a good deed? Alternatively, ask, “do you need food for Shabbat” or better, “do you want company for Shabbat?”

In every case, the common thread is: ask. If the sick person declines your offer to bring food they don’t need, or a ride that will not fit with discharge planning, gracefully accept their honesty wth you. When ill, energy is being expended on healing, leaving little for resisting pressure to make agreements that aren’t appropriate or are creating guilt for not helping the helper feel good. We have all heard the saying, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions”! Good intentions require good skills to create good outcomes.

Patients, you can help yourselves by doing a few things as well, too.

Create lists of specific things you want and share them. This way, you will reduce the guesswork or uninvited offers aimed your way, and you have more control over your care.

Set boundaries, for example: tell visitors not to sit on your bed, list what you can and cannot eat, list dates and times that you need transportation, and be assertive and stand firm when someone wants to put their needs over yours.

We think of elders and dis-abled people as being weak or timid. Not true! Bette Davis is known to have said, “Getting old ain’t for sissies”. The same can be said about being ill. As Paul Caune says is his film, ‘Hope is Not a Plan‘, “When you have a disability, you have to be tough to survive.”

One of my favourite films depicting the plight of a hapless patient in the hospital being visited by a well-meaning, self-fulfilling friend, is this 1932 Laurel and Hardy classic film, “County Hospital“. Study this film and drink in all the ways that this visit goes wrong!

In Judaism, we have full texts on Bikur Holim, or Visiting the Sick. If you want to learn more about this important duty, let me know. It will be my pleasure to study this topic with you, or a group of others who are interested.

Thank you for reading, and may you bless and be blessed by those who are in need.