HJNO Jul/Aug 2022

Right to Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, and Feel at Ease The Right to Feel at Ease At a recent national conference for healthcare journalists, one of the breakout sessions addressed the condition of mental health in the U.S. The crux of the session was that there are not enough mental health providers today. The statistics given by the experts in the room were sobering. It was stated that almost every youth in America is suffering from a form of PTSD. My heart hurts for our society. In this group of talented journalists from some of the top news sources around the country, no one asked the question, “What is causing this, and how do we correct it with the short-staffed and over-burdened mental health force?” I recently had the opportunity to travel to Paris and Florence, with several stops in between. I took the train system and crossed several countries. One of the things that struck me on this trip (other than our failure for several generations to foster, train, and support those with artistic and architectural inclinations) was the calmness of the cultures I visited. Bicycles, scooters, pedestrians, and cars intertwined in roads too narrow, trains were delayed, sometimes even canceled, and the patience and flow I encountered was something I had not experienced. Eating out and taking the train was, for me, an exercise in patience and trust. I was the uptight one, masking a built-in clock that ticked at a different pace than others’ did. Being a voyager, I noticed there were no “Karens” around. They enjoyed the meal, didn’t freak out about train delays, weren’t rushed for a check or when the food or a train would arrive — it always did. I remember at one point trying to get a connecting train ticket and being told by the ticket guy it was “impossible” to get at that station. I told him that did not make sense, nor was it convenient. In broken English, he looked me in the eye and told me kindly it was going to be “okay,” but I had to go further on my journey to get the ticket. He was right, it eventually was, but his reassurance helped me sleep that night. I was, and remain, thankful to him for the sanguine approach and for taking the time to tell me that it would be okay. He didn’t have to. He could have simply called “next,” but he helped put me at ease. On the flight home, I read an article about the rebuilding of Ukraine. Although the fighting is still ongoing and the results unknown, architects are discussing how to rebuild. How to rebuild bombed out cities and make them “uniquely Ukraine.” What might that even look like? In the middle of the article, they talked about the people returning to the cities they fled, how they might suffer from lack of the “right to feel at ease.” I thought this a most enlightening phrase that expressed a touching concern for the well-being of the people. As a product of the U.S. educational system and a Daughter of the American Revolution, I have always been a fan of Jefferson’s writings: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”These words hold deep, fundamental meaning to me. I have just added the “right to feel at ease” to that mix. I wonder if this addition might somehow be a part of our mental health solution as we rebuild our lives post-pandemic. Dianne Marie Normand Hartley Chief Editor editor@healthcarejournalno.com EDITOR’S DESK 8 JUL / AUG 2022  I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF NEW ORLEANS