“Spaces and encounters in Romanian hospitals make us sicker”. Romanian patients’ discourses about medical system
“Spaces and encounters in Romanian hospitals make us sicker”. Romanian patients’ discourses about medical system

Summary/Abstract: The present study aimed to identify the ways in which Romanian patients assess the last visit to the clinic or hospital as a physical “space” and as an environment of social necounters. The methodology used is a qualitative one – the auto-ethnography, an evocative and analytical form of writing which is itself an art, connects personal and cultural worlds by ”writing in” these ordinary everyday experiences. The sample was made of sixteen auto-ethnographies of the Romanian patients from Bucharest collected in the period January – July 2017. The study showed that the spaces of the hospitals’and clinics’ in Romania were perceived as unfriendly and hostile by the patients. On the other hand, the quality of social encounters within the medical spaces is very low. The discourses about spaces and encounters related to the medical act and illness were, as such, extremely negative as tone and the use of catastrophic metaphors was wide-spread. We can conclude that more researches are needed in order to change the way in which Romanian hospital and clinics were built and maintained in order to increase the patients’ satisfaction and trust.

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