Undying scent

I always felt uncomfortable in hospitals. It was not because of the needles, doctors, or operations. It was rooted in what my mom once said: “This is the scent of dying.” I never really understood what she meant, but it triggered my fear of hospitals. Until one day, I realized what the scent was like.

I have been to a number of hospitals and medical establishments; they smell overly sanitized, but I still think it depends on whether the hospital is public or private. St. Luke’s Medical Center and Makati Medical Center, for example, scream exclusivity. You would have to call for your appointments, have a printed ticket queue, and of course, the health cards. The interiors look and smell clean because of the minimalist paintings. The elevators smell fresh because of the air purifiers and air fresheners. An ocean scent lingers — cool and light — almost like the scent of a Sunday morning breeze.

The Amang Rodriguez Memorial Medical Center and Peter Paul Medical Center, on the other hand, are so different from private hospitals. With no air conditioning, dusty electric fans ventilate the halls. Polluted air from car exhausts seep through the windows, because hospitals like these are located near busy main roads. It makes breathing almost like a chore.

Private hospitals smell like powder and flowers, and public ones like onions and vinegar.

I never had the courage to ask my mom what the scent of dying or death was like. Could it be the formalin that keeps corpses fresh, the scent of candles and huge flowers at a wake, or the scent of wet grass after a rainy night at a cemetery?

One day, around 3 p.m., I was in our room tending to my grandmother when I heard a sudden scream from the hall. I saw a woman lying on the floor crying. From the looks of it, she had just lost someone. I wondered, was there a scent of dying in the air? There was the smell of emptiness, the scent of someone’s last few seconds of breathing goodbye as they closed their eyes. It was also the scent of a person you loved slowly fading into the void as we hugged them one last time. This could be it; I think I now knew what my mom was trying to say.

Hospitals are supposed to be that one place where we’d go to have ourselves cured. But how are we going to do that if we are in competition with 100 other people begging for the chance to be attended by a nurse? Imagine a hot, busy afternoon with people lined up at the lobby, their intense odors filling the room. This inconvenience in public hospitals subject patients to a gruesome experience that surely does not help them in any way.

This is far from the experience in private hospitals, where the queues are for a cup of cappuccino at the café. Appointments are made days before a visit to a doctor. Sometimes, a queuing system is used where nurses would message the patient when they are about to have their check-up. Some private hospitals look like corporate offices because of what the people inside are wearing. You would know that patients and clients are rich, because when you pass by them, you get slapped by the scent of luxe perfume.

Hospitals aren’t all about differences; one common thing they have are prayer rooms usually adorned with fresh flowers. It’s a welcome break from the smell of chemicals, the fear of death, and the anxiety of being in a hospital. The smell of scented candles waft from the altars—that sweet scent of hope that all will be all right in time.

We shouldn’t be smelling the pungent smell of crowded wards or tightly packed hallways. Everyone should have the chance to smell the crisp air-conditioned air, vanilla-scented air purifiers, and perfectly sanitized environment of properly run hospitals. People should not go through sweaty skin-to-skin battles in dimly lit, poorly ventilated hospital lobbies just to beg for some medicine.

What comes after the faulty service of hospitals? The dead and the debts. The pile of corpses in the morgue, the pile of paperwork for those who cannot even write their names, the pile of receipts and medications, the stacks of coins from a savings jar, and the brimming bag of emotions of loved ones cheated by society.

I have been looking for the scent of dying in the wrong place. It isn’t the formalin, the bleach, or the air fresheners. The scent of dying is the rotting health care system of our country that divides its citizens into social classes and forces them to beg for their lives.

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Leyoneil Latina, 22, is an alumnus of the BA Communication Arts program of the University of the Philippines Los Baños. He is currently a Junior Project Manager in a marketing agency where he tells stories for brands.

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