Dignity

Dignity


Complaint Breakfast


I hadn't intended to wake up early that Tuesday, but the phone rang at about seven. The voice on the other end was shaky, yet deeply determined. It was Sofia; a nurse at the "Agia Filothei" hospital, a woman I had only seen twice at union meetings, always with her head down, as if she didn't want to expose herself.


"I need to show you something, Mrs. Maraki ," she said, and her breath caught for a moment. "Today. Not tomorrow. Today."


Before I could answer her, I had already risen from the bed, as if someone else were moving my arms and legs. Curiosity wasn't the only reason; it was that old, familiar feeling that came over me when a patient sat across from me and said, "Doctor, something's wrong." The phrase might have referred to a sore knee, or it might have been cancer. But the look in that moment, always, demanded attention.


We met at the “Iliostasio” café on the edge of the old market. The place still smelled of cigarettes, despite years of banning them, and the wooden floor creaked under the worn chairs. On the door, the worn-out clock showed eight past ten, but it had been stuck there for months; no one had repaired it.


Sofia was already sitting in a corner, her coat still buttoned and a blue cloth bag resting at her feet. Her fingers were playing nervously with her glass of water. Her eyes were shining, not with tears, but with tension.


"I came as you said," I told her, pulling out the chair. "What can't wait?"


She looked around first, as if to make sure the other customers were uninterested; a few elderly people reading newspapers, a taxi driver standing up drinking coffee. Then she leaned forward and opened the bag.


A thick brown envelope, with that characteristic weight of official documents. He placed it on the table between us.


"These should never have left the hospital. But if you don't see them, we'll just keep pretending we don't know."


I took the envelope carefully, as I once would take an X-ray that foreshadowed bad news. The papers inside had numbers, tables, graphs. Financial data, personnel statements, death records. On the first page, in red pen, someone had circled the word “postponement.”


“What is this?” I asked.


Sophia sighed.


"Postponement of surgeries. Officially due to a lack of supplies. In practice because the administration delays orders to make expenses appear lower in the quarter. Every time someone doesn't come into the operating room, the paper says 'postponement'. For the patient, it can mean complications, even death."


I looked at her without speaking for a while. My coffee had remained untouched.


“And why me?” I whispered. “Why not the journalists?”


"I tried," he said. "No one answered. Half of them are afraid that the clinics will cut off their advertising, the other half are too bored to bother. You... I know you write. And I know that you once struggled within the same system."


The word "once" pierced me like a needle. I bent down and read another page. Waiting statistics; emergency cases who spent fourteen hours on a stretcher; patients who died waiting for a bed.


"Sophia," I said to her, "this is heavy. Do you know what it means if we bring this up in public?"


She looked me straight in the eye. For the first time, she didn't look scared; she looked determined.


"I know. And I know I might lose my job. But I already feel like I'm losing my soul every time I turn my back. I don't want to be like those who count the numbers and forget the people."


This phrase made me silent. It was like a mirror showing me myself; how many times had I said "I can't do anything anymore"? How many times had I chosen silence instead of conflict?


A moment of embarrassment covered our table. The waiter put down the coffee, and I took a bitter sip, to buy time. At the window, the market was beginning to wake up, the first voices of merchants could be heard.