Graham Matrix
Today at work I arrived early, changed my shirt, tied my hair. I ate an apple in the break room before handover at four o’clock. It’s time to go, three of us carers on this shift. In the nurses’ station we get a list and a walkie talkie.
Then we’re off and running. Nurse reminds me not to leave towels in the sluice room. That’s fine – I can definitely not do that. I go up the No.2 Wing, get my bearings for the shift ahead, reminding everyone to come to dinner at five o’clock, pulling curtains and closing doors.
After almost thirty years as a doctor, I have started writing fiction. I have recently completed a collection of short stories called Admissions which includes tales of eight different women working in the same crumbling public hospital in the far south of Aotearoa. Sounds familiar? For those of us who have worked at the coal-face of clinical medicine, my stories may not surprise or shock, but I hope they are tales of our common humanity and shared experiences. Perhaps this is the main reason I write: I want to tell stories which unite us.
(Read the first part of Carolyn McCurdie’s reflections on this topic 
At a time when communities are being fragmented, human relationships increasingly commodified and people alienated from the political system, signs of resistance are springing up, often in unexpected places. In Dunedin, and particularly in North East Valley, close to where I live, community gardens and self-help groups are burgeoning.
On Thursday 5 April, New Zealanders will be encouraged to think about, talk about, and plan for their future and end-of-life care.