Tales of a health-care worker the triumph of compassion and dignity over poverty and bureaucracy As a home health therapist, Nesta Rovina has seen and heard it all: a stroke victim who learned to roll off her bed at night to avoid getting caught in the crossfire of rival gangs and drug dealers; a man who lived off grass and bugs for a week while fleeing his native Laos; a sixteen-year-old gunshot victim who was left for dead by a man targeting prostitutes; a heroin addict who after having her left hand amputated when it is infected from frequent injections begins popping on her right hand. Yet, on the good days, when Rovina s patients share their stories over home-cooked dinners, the result can be an alchemical transformation of mind, heart, and spirit. In these moments, sickness, poverty, and the chaos of the streets outside are forgotten. The bureaucracy of the health-care system is forgotten. The world-weariness and jadedness of the therapist is forgotten. These days of warmth and camaraderie keep Rovina going and give her hope for humanity. Then, Rovina s own story begins to emerge: from her upbringing in South Africa, through family tragedy in Israel, to her decision to become a health-care worker. We sympathize as she confronts America s bruised and battered health-care system; we cheer her on as she joins a union fight against county layoffs, and with her we find compassion and understanding for all her housebound clients who no matter their circumstances carry on with faith, humor, and kindness.
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
The “tree barking” diagnosis baffled Rovina, even when she saw the patient’s legs horribly swollen, gnarled, and with rotting crevasses resembling decomposing bark—the results of impeded circulation, she learned, alleviated by simple exercises. She learned much more that she reveals in her fast-moving memoir, in which present scenarios trigger memories. Growing up in South Africa under apartheid, feeling “guilty and ashamed,” at 20 Rovina studied in Tel Aviv and became a young widow in 1973, which focused her on helping others through occupational therapy. In 1992 she began work in America as a home-health therapist. Her vivid writing provides snapshots, as it were, of the likes of poor, black Sophie, whose pains from herniated discs were repeatedly dismissed by doctors until, furious and desperate, she confronted one; and newsreels of the 1990s insurance- and recession-driven budget cuts that eroded patient care and capped Medicare payments to home-health agencies. Quotas compelled therapists to leave patients untreated, and Rovina wondered why she remained. Compelling reading for those concerned about the health-care “industry.” --Whitney Scott
Review
STARRED REVIEW Rovina, Nesta. Tree Barking: A Memoir. Heyday. Apr. 2008. c.208p. ISBN 978-1-59714-081-2. pap. $14.95. HEALTH Rovina, who grew up in South Africa but moved to a kibbutz in Israel and married a fellow kibbutznik (also from South Africa), was only 26 when her young husband was killed in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Realizing then that "life is random and unfair, no one is immune from suffering," she decided to study occupational therapy at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, moved again, and then finally settled in the San Francisco Bay area, where she found employment as a home health-care therapist at the Contra Costa County home-health agency. This is the inspirational story of her encounters with homebound patients, all sufferers of old age, devastating illness, or violence. Because she was one of the agency's few home health-care therapists willing to venture into low-income and often dangerous neighborhoods, that's where she was often assigned. With skill and devotion, Rovina cared for her patients, many of whom came to appreciate and love her for it. Not many home health-care therapists have written about their experiences-fewer still with such care reflection, and skill. Highly recommended for general library collections.-Marcia Welsh, Dartmouth Coll. Libs., Hanover, NH --Library Journal, April 1, 2008
The tree barking diagnosis baffled Rovina, even when she saw the patient s legs horribly swollen, gnarled, and with rotting crevasses resembling decomposing bark the results of impeded circulation, she learned, alleviated by simple exercises. She learned much more that she reveals in her fast-moving memoir, in which present scenarios trigger memories. Growing up in South Africa under apartheid, feeling guilty and ashamed, at 20 Rovina studied in Tel Aviv and became a young widow in 1973, which focused her on helping others through occupational therapy. In 1992 she began work in America as a home-health therapist. Her vivid writing provides snapshots, as it were, of the likes of poor, black Sophie, whose pains from herniated discs were repeatedly dismissed by doctors until, furious and desperate, she confronted one; and newsreels of the 1990s insurance- and recession-driven budget cuts that eroded patient care and capped Medicare payments to home-health agencies. Quotas compelled therapists to leave patients untreated, and Rovina wondered why she remained. Compelling reading for those concerned about the health-care industry. --Booklist 3/15/08 (Vol. 104, No. 14)
The tree barking diagnosis baffled Rovina, even when she saw the patient s legs horribly swollen, gnarled, and with rotting crevasses resembling decomposing bark the results of impeded circulation, she learned, alleviated by simple exercises. She learned much more that she reveals in her fast-moving memoir, in which present scenarios trigger memories. Growing up in South Africa under apartheid, feeling guilty and ashamed, at 20 Rovina studied in Tel Aviv and became a young widow in 1973, which focused her on helping others through occupational therapy. In 1992 she began work in America as a home-health therapist. Her vivid writing provides snapshots, as it were, of the likes of poor, black Sophie, whose pains from herniated discs were repeatedly dismissed by doctors until, furious and desperate, she confronted one; and newsreels of the 1990s insurance- and recession-driven budget cuts that eroded patient care and capped Medicare payments to home-health agencies. Quotas compelled therapists to leave patients untreated, and Rovina wondered why she remained. Compelling reading for those concerned about the health-care industry. --Booklist 3/15/08 (Vol. 104, No. 14)
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A page turning book.,
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This review is from: Tree Barking: A Memoir (Paperback)
I LOVED the book. As an ex S. African, Jewish, Israeli occupational therapist (OT) I related to it on every level, so I expected to enjoy reading it, and I did - wholeheartedly! It's was a page turner for me, and deserves a reread.
I also think it's a great marketing tool for OT, the most poorly marketed profession on the planet. However, when reviewing it for others, I must try to be as objective as I can when commenting on it. The book is beautifully written; the individual stories are a look into the lives of people most of us don't have a chance to meet, let alone get to know intimately; each person in the book has clearly touched Nesta; She describes these people with humor and with caring. Thus the book leaves the reader with the difficult to describe, but overwhelmingly strong feeling of the therapist/client bond. Tree Barking reads easily, more like a collection of short stories hung together with the thread of this bond and the therapist's personality. It's a VERY worth while book to read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Eye Opener,
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This review is from: Tree Barking: A Memoir (Paperback)
This elegant and sensitive memoir tells of the author's life in three countries and of her work as an occupational therapist for Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area. Each chapter is the story of one of the patients Nesta Rovina saw during home visits. The book is both a great read and an eye opener. So very close to other populations living comfortable lives in this progressive and bountiful area are under-served immigrants, refugees, and other Americans deprived of desperately needed services due to budget cuts and staff reductions. Nesta Rovina valiantly visits them in their homes, in neighborhoods where others dare not go. Guardian angels must protect this angel of caring. The day after finishing this book, I read in an Oakland paper that a young woman had been killed in her living room by a stray bullet shot from the street outside. Tree Barking opened my eyes and made me notice this news item in a different way: A paralyzed patient in one of the chapters has learned how to roll over in her bed onto the floor on hearing gunshots.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing perspective,
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This review is from: Tree Barking: A Memoir (Paperback)
I've lived in the Bay Area all my life and have never seen it like I did through Nesta's eyes. The descriptions of people and places hiding under our noses makes this a worthwhile read. The interaction of the care-givers, "consumers" and their worlds is priceless.
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