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An oppressive winter has finally given way to the happiness of spring. Pretty flowers are in bloom and the bare trees promise to be in leaf again. As I walk into the weekend round, I feel happy for my patients who might be discharged, or simply set foot outdoors.
“You can go home!”, I congratulate my first patient.
“Don’t rush, love”, he replies, and I think after two weeks as an inpatient, he is joking. Who likes hospitals?
Then I remember. He is the widower with the always busy daughter. He talks about her loyally, but also with a finality. “She is not the type to drop by.”
What will I write in the notes? Loneliness as a cause of failed discharge? Disengaged family? He makes up my mind by developing a panic attack. I prescribe an anxiolytic. The daughter has already made it clear that he is not her “business”.