I worked on the oncology floor of a hospital in Toronto for a couple of years.
One time, we had a patient who liked to walk around the floor a lot. It wasn’t unusual for some patients to do this; it helped keep their mind active and distracted from their illness.
Then, something strange happened—his brother started visiting.
At first, everything seemed fine, but soon things got weird. The brother began showing up in other patients’ rooms, and this happened several times. Word started spreading around.
Some people might have thought it was something inappropriate, but what I know for sure is that patients started complaining about their things going missing. Naturally, nurses were blamed because we were the ones in charge.
Eventually, the brother was told to stay in his own brother’s room and stop visiting other patients. But the brother would always say something like, “What’s the problem? I’m just giving them prayers and flowers!”
At this point, I was still trying to see the good in people. But there was one nurse who had more experience, and she knew exactly what was happening. The brother wasn’t just giving out flowers—he was stealing from the patients.
He did bring flowers, and he said he wanted to give them to others, but the real reason was that he was using this as a cover to steal from vulnerable people, many of whom were already struggling with cancer.
Why would anyone want to deal with a thief while they were already fighting for their lives on an oncology floor?
Sometimes I think there are just bad people, and then there are those who are truly evil.
This is just one of the many stories I have from my time working in hospitals.
