People end up on the street for many different reasons - leaving care or hospital, problems with debt, unemployment, mental health, family breakup - and so the help they need is varied, too.
My wife Lucy was very sick for nearly three years prior to her death. At one time, I was in the hospital with her for six months.
When I got home from hospital, and I was in a wheelchair in a plaster body cast, an aeroplane flew over. And I thought to myself, 'Well, if I can't walk, then I might as well fly.' And I was lifted into the aeroplane for the first time. And when I took the controls of the aeroplane, I knew this was something I could do. I thought, 'I can fly.'
When a hospital is very crowded, there will be a real push to make sure people get their X-rays, get their tests and, you know, 'Let's get them out in four days'.
I never complain: 'Oh, I have to go to the hospital and get platelets.' No. It's just something you have to do, so why complain about it?
I was born in the Ottawa General Hospital right after the Gray Cup Football Game in 1939. Six months later, I was backpacked into the Quebec bush. I grew up in and out of the bush, in and out of Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto.
Maybe I would have become an actor. I was a very outgoing kid, but being in the hospital - being outside of social action for so long - turned me into an observer. Actually, right after I got out of the hospital, I did start writing a novel, but the book was so transparently about me that I stopped.
'The Knick' is set in New York during the 1990s, and it takes place around a hospital called The Knickerbocker. It's about a team of surgeons and nurses who are on the cutting edge of medicine.
Have you seen these Japanese hospital droids, or humanoids, or whatever they call it? They've perfected the skin, and the skin looks so real. They have these motors between the eyes for when they smile. It's just mind-blowing.
My biggest fears aren't with my work. My biggest fears are walking through hospital doors. Once you can face that, being fearless about your work is easy.
It's hard for people sometimes to relate to me. They weren't in the military, they weren't injured overseas in Iraq, they weren't burned, they didn't go through 33 surgeries, or two and a half years in the hospital.
I worked in the NHS as a hospital orderly during my national service, and people thought it was a noble service. But over the years it's lost its humanity.
I created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation back in 1997 for the purpose of going in and improving the living conditions of my people on the African continent, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo where I came from. Out first mission was to go and build a new hospital. Our next mission was to build a school.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes I feel like playing 'Hospital'. Sometimes I feel like playing 'Pablo Picasso'. I've been playing a lot lately. I do it as long as I feel like it.
I love to bake, so I made vanilla bean and blueberry muffins for sick hospital children. Just kidding! All of that is true except the sick children part.
On 'Grey's Anatomy,' I didn't have to move too much. I think I ran through the hospital three times.
I witnessed a home birth with my sister Khloe and, after seeing it, I felt it wasn't for me. There was too much risk involved, and it wasn't as sanitary as a hospital.
Safe care saves lives and saves money. Adverse events like high levels of infection, blood clots or falls in hospital, emergency readmissions and pressure sores cost the NHS billions of pounds every year. There is a serious human cost, too, with patients ending up injured, or even dead. Most are avoidable with the right care.
We are very lucky to work in fashion and not work in a hospital or something where the biggest deal we come across is perhaps the length of a skirt.
I start phone calls at 4 A.M. to cheer people up. The housebound, people in the hospital. People who, after decades, still can't get over what happened 10 or 15 years ago.
Whether it's possible or not, being a doctor, you take an oath. To care for your patient, not to kill them. You take an oath to do things that are proper in the medical world. Not to administer something outside of a hospital setting that's not even your area.
I have the ability and to have access to and to learn more in different areas in wellness and health because I have the door open to me to any doctor, any scientist, any hospital, any study around the world. I believe it's my responsibility to share that information with others.
