He sat half hidden in shadow. Bent over and beaten.Beside him, lying on a hospital bed, Anna, his wife of 50 years. This was their third day in the Emergency Department.

They had met at the Sydney’s famous Trocadero dance hall and remained active dancers all their lives, until the result of more than 30 years of smoking desiccated her lungs. Mr Benson and Mr Hedges now sat weightily on her chest, slowly squeezing the inspiration from her life.

They lived together in a small unit. Each dependent on the other to sustain their precious independence. One of those rare elderly couples we get from time to time whose dedication to each other remains palpable.At first he was thankful for the attention. When the ambulance arrived she was quickly enmeshed in a tangle of nurses and doctors and cables and tubes.
All this was beyond him… but she did seem to improve, a little.
This was followed by even more doctors, examining, assessing, diagnosing.
After several hours it became evident that her prognosis was poor …. of course she would need to come in to hospital for treatment.
“We are very sorry but there are just no beds” we informed him. “Your wife will have to stay here tonight.” The ED nurses would give her the very best care they could. But they were stretched. The log jam of patients waiting for beds was ballooning.He leans over. One hand steadies on his cane, the other folds around the hand of his sweetheart. His is a big chunky hand, thick fingers, calloused palms. Worn rough with action and sun-bleached into the colours of the bush. Farmer’s hands, once strong as fencing wire and steady as a stump, they now tremble constantly.

Anna is bone tired. Her eyelids half closed over dull dry eyes. From time to time she raises her hand to poke at the oxygen mask rubbing the bridge of her nose. A once long slender finger, now lantana twisted, threads loosely through a worn gold wedding band.

I don’t know if they had any family. Nobody came. And so he sat there beside her, through the rest of the day and into the night. Holding her hand ‘till finally his eyes closed and he nodded back through the crowded entrance to the ‘Troc’. Swirling currents of smoke and dance. A beautiful girl catching his eye over near the stage …finally nailing his courage to the post just as the Frank Coughlan orchestra began playing Goodnight Sweetheart.

Later, she had slipped down the bed and it was a long time before there was enough staff available to lift her up and make her comfortable again. Later still, she was incontinent, and it was quite some time before the nurses were able to wash her and change her sheets.
It’s a busy place. These things happen.

Sometime during the night they were moved out into a corridor to make room for the incoming. I saw them again the next morning. There was no longer any room to sit beside her, so he stood at the foot of her bed. He was angry. “This is disgraceful” he shouted. “I’ve had top private health cover for as long as I can remember….and now I need it, I can’t even get a bloody bed for my wife!”

He sat, red faced and embarrassed at his outburst. It was all beyond him.

I lost track of him as the day wore on and he blended back into the drama of the gridlocked department. But I caught glimpses of him from time to time… up again pleading his case desperately with any doctor or nurse who would stop and listen…and later, on the phone to his GP, face red hot, eyes glistening.

By the third day he just seemed to sit slumped in resigned frustration. Looking over at him the word that sprang to mind was forlorn.

And it really got to me. That all he wanted was to be somewhere safe and quiet. Somewhere away from the abrasive noise and prying eyes and constant rush of the department. All he needed was a little space and time to hold his partner before the last dance was over.

Thinking back, it leaves an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. The staff had all given the finest care they could under the circumstances, but despite this, somehow we had missed the mark.

Denuded of his dignity he floundered in a health system that is struggling to fulfil its role. Hogtied by its own increasing complexity and starving of resources, it totters under the load.
The people ultimately accountable for all this, far too far away to hear one little old mans plea.

I saw him again in the foyer of the hospital, maybe a week later. After 54 hours in the ED a bed was finally found for Anna in the geriatric ward. It had been the only available bed. He shook his head. She had shared a four bed room with three noisy, demented ladies. And there she had died