Funnyman Oscar Steiner started
volunteering at the Montreal General's orthopedic
clinic at the suggestion of his son, a psychiatrist
there. "He promised me free drugs," jokes Mr Steiner.
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Long wait times are a frustration
for all physicians. For patients waiting for medical
attention, they can be close to intolerable. Enter spry
74-year-old self-styled funnyman, Oscar Steiner, with
a partial cure: Laughter. "You're a little excited because
you have to wait?" he tells an overflowing room at the
Montreal General's orthopedic clinic, working the crowd
like a standup comic. "Want to move to the head of the
line? No problem. I can be bribed. I prefer cash but
I'll settle for a smoked meat sandwich from Schwartz's
(the town's popular deli)!"
As a volunteer, Mr Steiner does
a variety of tasks at the clinic, but most appreciated
is his ability to calm impatient patients with his jokes
and witty anecdotes. His toughest audiences are those
who have been waiting for hours only to have the doctor
called away at the last moment. "Sometimes they look
like they're ready to riot," he says. To distract them
he launches into a routine: "The doctors in this hospital
are the most wonderful human beings on the planet. They're
warm, they're friendly. And they're so well brought
up. Trust me. I know. My son's a doctor here! (Ba-da
bing, Ba-da boom.)"
If he has no medical quip at the
ready he tries one of his other routines. Like the one
on what it was like to grow up poor in Montreal St.
Urban area, the same neighbourhood writer Mordecai Richler
mined for his best selling books.
"Now it's 'le Plateau,'
back then it was 'le Slum'," Mr Steiner quips. "When
we found out that there were rats in other parts of
town and none in ours, we knew we were poor. But my
schooling made up for everything," he goes on. "I graduated
summa cum laude from Martin's Emporium of Billiards
at the age of 13 and then went on to the world of industry."
His 51 years of marriage to a woman
he clearly loves is a great source of comfort to him
— and a great source of jokes. "Early on I wasn't
so sure about this wedded bliss stuff. I have my mother
in law to thank that we stayed married at all. To get
me to stick it out, she bribed me with small appliances.
First, she offered me an electric kettle, then a toaster.
When that didn't work, she pulled out the big guns.
She gave us a rotisserie — I hadn't realized you
could stick a wire up a chicken's rectum and cook it
— that thing saved our marriage."
His wife Bernice (whom he claims
he married because she "had good teeth and $400") delights
in the thought of her husband's volunteer work. "When
we were newlyweds, Oscar used to go green at the sight
of a hospital," she says. "Once, he had a stone in his
kidney so I forced him to go the hospital. He drove
that poor doctor crazy! Of course they became fast friends."
Mrs Steiner is so enthused by her husband's work at
the hospital that she's planning to sign up herself
— though in the clerical, not humour, department.
Oscar Steiner wows the waiting
room crowd |
DISTINGUISHED
COMPANY
Oscar Steiner had been a real estate developer with
interests in Quebec, Alberta and Texas. After he retired
he got bored and decided to start an electronics company
that specialized in "those big round satellite dishes
that let you get dirty movies from outer space."
It was during this time —
the early to mid-1980s — that he ended up a neighbour
of the Prime Minister, who provided Mr Steiner with
a treasure trove of anecdotes. "Pierre Elliot Trudeau
and I became as thick as thieves," he recalls.
He had purchased property adjacent
to Mr Trudeau's Montreal mansion. Mr Steiner had a permit
to build a tall condominium, prompting Mr Trudeau to
take him to court over fears that a sniper could pick
him off from one of the high windows. "Being a good
citizen, I acquiesced to my Prime Minister," says Mr
Steiner. After that the two became good friends.
"Those were dangerous times," he
says, referring to an era when anti-Trudeau sentiment
ran high in Quebec. "I'll never forget the time he said
to me 'Oscar, would you like to go to Mountain Street
and get a hot dog?' — I said, 'I wouldn't go out
with you, Pierre. You're a nice person, but you're a
dangerous guy!'"
DEFENDING
THE SYSTEM
Meanwhile back at the General, Mr Steiner waxes lyrical
about his fellow caregivers. "We at the Montreal General
fifth floor have the best — and nicest looking
— doctors," he proclaims. Prior to volunteering
in the orthopedic department, he was on the hectic emergency
beat. "Very lucrative," he jokes. "Lots of wallets full
of money. But I wasn't greedy, I'd always leave the
patients enough of their cash to get a cab home."
He feels strongly about volunteers'
role in this system. By now I'm waiting for the bada-bing,
but Mr Steiner gets a little maudlin instead, saying
since he grew up poor he has extra esteem for Canada's
universal healthcare. "Our system works and I will defend
it until I die," he says. The bottom line: "volunteers
save money." And they do things that the staff sometimes
doesn't have time to do. Apart from keeping patients
company and acting as chief raconteur, Mr Steiner does
little extras like feeding patients. He admits he wasn't
too keen on putting their dentures in for them at first,
but he found once he got feet — or rather fingers
— wet, it was a cinch.
Mr Steiner became a volunteer a
few years ago at the behest of his psychiatrist son,
Dr Warren Steiner, who's Director of Outpatient and
Community Psychiatry at the General. "He promised me
free drugs," he jokes. "But seriously, I'd never thought
of volunteering until he asked me."
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