Compassion in healthcare and its imagery in postage stamps

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Empathy and compassion are integral to healthcare. Most patients seek care when they have discomfort, infirmity or incapacitation. Compassion is a concern for another person’s discomfort. It is not possible to provide care, without concern. However people have different concern-reactions. For some it is a mere obligation, to listen and to abruptly close the conversation with an apology. Others may be more sympathetic, and perform some acts of kindness. Healthcare providers cannot afford either of these reactions. They rather need to assess, understand and act. While sympathy is related to sorrow or pity, empathy relates to sensitivity and understanding. Degree of compassion in healthcare is expected to be empathetic.

Early postage stamps had stern faces. These were monarchs, who had to look authoritative and hence stern. Later some scientists and physicians also found their space on postage stamps. (See a previous blog on first healthcare stamps) These and many other personalities, like their royal counterparts, carried a serious expression. In contrast, compassion has a tender note. One of the first set of postage stamps that broke this monotony was issued by Luxembourg in 1925. Empathy imagery was now on a stamp with a healing touch.

Images of compassion in healthcare

Images of compassion in healthcare include a caring touch, a gentle smile, and often a forward bend. Healthcare provider in these stamps is usually a nurse, and often taking care of small children, or injured soldiers. Compassion also served a political purpose. While Germany was waging war across Europe, its postage stamps from 1942 and 1944 carried images of care and compassion. Probably these were for placating its own populace, or to project an external image.

Compassion imagery is consistent with social perceptions of care. Nursing, a century old profession (see a previous blog on evolution of nursing) was well established in the post-war world. While doctors and scientists continued to wear a stern look, nursing was soft and caring.

While many of these images are of joy, hospitals are otherwise sad. They mostly have anxious patients, saddened caregivers and stoic physicians and nurses. In 1954 Austria issued a set of six stamps on health-care, and probably joy was hard to come by, in as many as five of the six images.

On the other hand another 1954 set of six stamps from Hungary, chose to depict scenes of happiness and joy. These in-hospital images have a doting health-care professional, serving with a smile. Again, in 1954 Hungary was in political turmoil. After loosing territory, human lives and its economy in the post-world war years, it had an unpopular government. Images of compassion may have conveyed stability. This was also a soccer world cup year, and Hungarian team was a favourite. However later that year, it lost in the finals.

A demographic shift

Across the developed world, population was becoming older. We had more older individuals to care for. This demographic shift was also affecting postage stamps. Images of compassionate health-care had older individuals.

A healing touch

Imagery for compassion may not always need a human face. Actions are sometimes more powerful. In 1998, Great Britain issued a four stamp set on 50 years of National Health Service. A feel of a pulse, an arm cradle, a child holding a hand and hands shaped like heart are all images of compassionate care. This indeed is a powerful image, of care.

Other national health systems also have their postage stamps. While a stamp from Norway also exploits hand-holding to depict compassion, a three-stamp set from Portugal has heart shaped and normal balloons, and boxes shaped like a chair to embody care.

A set of four postage stamps from Bermuda celebrates 100 years of hospital care in the country, with beautiful images. A person who is being helped on a wheelchair, a person being wheeled in, a lady on a dialysis machine and a mother with a newborn. There is an unmistakable healing touch in these stamps.

Hospitals are a busy place

Hong-Kong issued a miniature sheet and a set of four stamps in 2023, as a tribute to healthcare workers. Much needed after the COVID years of 2020-22. Multiple in-hospital transactions are depicted on a single miniature sheet. Eye-test, CT scan, physical therapy, surgery, tooth-extraction, doctors rounds as well as nursing care are all in a single miniature sheet. This miniature sheet and accompanying set shows all that happens in a busy hospital.

Despite all images of compassion, patients often find hospitals to be cold and rude. It is often debated, if healthcare has become just another transaction. While compassion is a projected stero-type, it must also be perceptible. With more gadgets, monitoring devices, and a lack of human touch, care-perceptions are getting affected. Further, there exists a real as well as perceived dichotomy between nurses and doctors. While too much emotion is looked down upon within medical profession, there is a real need to find a balance.

Postage stamps reflect popular perceptions and desired behaviours. Being empathetic is a key expectant behaviour. Hope these postage stamps will reinforce empathy, however busy a workplace gets.