Reflections on a falling wall
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The 9th of November this year marked the 31st anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I can still remember watching in excited incredulity as the TV news showed pictures of jubilant Berliners hacking at the concrete structure with hammers and pick axes, and friends and family members from both sides joyfully embracing as the confused East German guards looked on in passive discomfort. It became one of the iconic moments of the 20th Century, ushering in what was (in hindsight over optimistically) called the ‘New World Order’. At least for a while, the old order of things seemed to be swept away, as Communism folded across Eastern Europe and many opportunities for peaceful new relationships opened up.
It was as a direct consequence of this momentous event that PRIME was born. Because the opening of Eastern Europe allowed travel to and from many formerly isolated countries with few restrictions, Romanian health care professionals were able to travel to the UK to participate in ‘Doctor’s Dilemmas’ courses run by those who would go on to become the founding fathers of PRIME. It was the Romanian colleagues asking ‘why don’t you come to Romania to run courses like this?’ that led to the PRIME mission of teaching holistic, compassionate, Christian values based health care in a way that is acceptable to those of all faiths and none, all over the world.
It is strikingly appropriate that the falling of a wall should have led to the birth of PRIME, because the PRIME vision is all about the removing of the walls and barriers that we as health care professionals perhaps unconsciously raise inside ourselves, seeing patients, juniors, students, different categories of health professionals as ‘others’ and somehow different from ourselves, so not worthy of the same consideration and respect. This problem of ‘othering’ is of course a deep-seated tendency in all human beings and what leads to the inappropriate building of walls in the first place. PRIME’s message, following the example and teaching of Jesus, is that there is no ‘other’ – we all bear the image of God our creator and He loves us unconditionally, no matter what walls we may try to build to separate us from Him and other human beings. It is this wall destroying message that PRIME seeks to impart to all health professionals, hopefully leading by deed as well as word.
It was the imagination and determination of the people in East Germany, (the overcoming of the walls inside themselves that said this couldn’t happen, in which Christian churches with their non-violent demonstrations and prayer played no small part), that led to the ultimate fall of the actual concrete wall that contained them, and enabled them to gain their freedom. So, we as health professionals today can play our part in overcoming the barriers that separate us from ‘others’ by showing that all people are the same in God’s sight by how we treat them. Who knows what more concrete walls may fall around our divided world if we all play our part in this way?
Huw Morgan is a retired GP, Training Programme Director and Medical Missionary, and PRIME Management Team member. PRIME, a close partner of ICMDA, is an international network of professional healthcare educators, committed to integrating rigorous science and compassionate care for the whole person. This article first appeared in the PRIME newsletter and is republished here by kind permission of PRIME.
