The Joes of this World

As I posted this morning, Joe passed away yesterday afternoon.
First of all I want to say thank you to all you guys who have commented over the past couple of days. I really appreciate your kind thoughts.

We were all very surprised by what happened. In particular Greg was shocked as Joe had seemed okay, when he visited, given his injuries and given his confusion over the whole situation. Greg, wondered for a while if there was anything more we, as a service, could have achieved for Joe prior to the accident. It is natural to ask yourself such questions.
I had to reassure Greg that we had. I honestly believe that we had. I think Greg did too when I reminded him of all he had done for Joe and for all the others.

BUT
The frustrating thing in all of this is while we in our service did all we could for Joe, especially given the resources we have as a charity, he was badly let down by our community as a whole.
Worse still, Joe is by no means unique. There are so many Joes out on the street. Our support systems here in Oz have been badly neglected for a couple of decades now and the people who pay are the helpless. And that makes me angry.

However, in this line of work dwelling on the failings of the system will only drive you to despair.

At times like these, what it is good to focus on is the individuals out there who do give a damn.

The people like Greg who works his butt off for our guys because he cares, and then beats himself up because he hadn’t done enough.

The people in the system like our RDNS nurse friend (I’ll call her Kay).
Kay is an outreach nurse for the Royal District Nursing Service. She knows how badly the system sucks, but she goes above and beyond every day to provide assistance to the people we work with. She covers huge distances on foot every day in this city of ours. She goes into derelict buildings, squats, under bridges, and many places I would never dream of going on my own, all to check that people are OK. To check that the Joes of this city are as well looked after as can be. Kay also fights like crazy against the system she works in: to get a bed for someone who can’t spend another night out; to make sure someone is given the medication they need; to demand that a bad decision on care is reversed; and to show people they should care.

And the people out in the community who: give money because they can’t do anything else; volunteer at charities like ours to help keep the doors open; and the guys like a Lawyer, I saw a couple of weeks ago, who took his own coat off to give to a total stranger (homeless) because it was raining and she was cold.

For Joe: