(Dr Harold Shipman was convicted in 2000 of
murdering several
patients)
That pirate Shipman
greedy for wealth, complacent in his power,
pushed his captives off the narrow plank
supporting their tenuous lives into a fog
of diamorphine. Perhaps they felt no pain:
apart from needlings of puzzled apprehension
deepening into fear. Those left behind
are raw from the rips of anger and injustice;
their eyeballs ache from a grief unprepared for.
The legacy
of his calculated over-prescribing punished
those dying in hospitals, as doctors
squared their shoulders against a professional crime
of too much morphine, thus committing the sin
of letting legal heads chill feeling hearts:
so they under-prescribed, jacketing patients
in plunging lives, refusing to let them sink
softly under, free from struggle and pain.
Alter course:
fly before the gale of common sense
to the destination chosen by your patients.
You are indeed the captain of your soul,
but not of theirs. Jettison all the baggage
of a bitter past. Use the unfathomed power
that you have won wisely, warily:
salt it with understanding and compassion.
It is an ill wind that blows no one to good.