Globalization and World-Wide Health
By James Moor, April 2012
In today’s world
of unthinkable technological advancements, zipping global
transportation and communications, including the enormous
strides that have been taken economically there’s no doubt
that a number of worthy arguments pertaining to the benefits
of globalization exist today. Most of these arguments have
been readily promoted by governments considered to be a part
of the free world. They claim that globalization
increases prosperity and decreases the source of potential
conflict, essentially promoting world peace. Many policy
makers subscribing to this doctrine have been crusading
against international economic restrictions in order to
stimulate the interdependency of state economies. An ulterior
movement to the one explained is the contention that wealthier
countries are using globalization as a tool to exploit poor
countries by penetrating their economies and dominating their
resources. This indignation further suggests that
globalization has allowed the rich to get richer by not only
exploiting impoverished countries but also the poor within
wealthy countries creating unrest. Much can be said about all
the good globalization has provided people around the world
but there still remains much to be considered regarding the
latter perspective. And there’s no better evidence to
conceptualize that hypothesis than by evaluating the effects
globalization has had on world-wide health.
Preventable
Disease
The World Health
Organization (WHO) suggests that poverty creates ill-health
because it forces people to live in environments that make
them sick (World). In 2003 the WHO released information
pertaining to the “diseases of poverty,” which include:
tuberculosis, malaria, HIV/AIDS, measles, pneumonia, and
diarrheal disease, further adding the complications of
childbirth. They note that all six diseases can be prevented
or treated, provided that those nations suffering from such
diseases acquire minimal financial resources; meanwhile, these
diseases continue to claim the lives of 14 million people a
year (Results, 2003). As a result, the globalization of
industry has warranted access to certain poor nations based on
the understanding that they’ll bring the necessary jobs
allotting the appropriate salaries needed to purchase
treatment by those afflicted by the diseases of poverty; but
this has dispensed minimal relief due to the exploitation of
labor by multinational corporations including the demands made
by thrifty shoppers occupying wealthy nations.
One particular
multinational corporation that has benefited significantly
from the exploitation of labor in less economically developed
countries is the Philip Morris Corporation. Citizens in poor
countries spend their livelihood producing cash crops for
tobacco industries rather than producing their own food. In
return, the copious profits gained from the labor in these
territories has benefited mostly the CEO’s and shareholders of
investors living in rich countries, allowing further
provisions for persuasive marketing campaigns promoting what
has become a leading cause of preventable death in America and
the world today. Now the Philip Morris Corporation has been
deemed a super villain by global opinion, however,
there are a multitude of other multinational corporations that
apply similar tactics through the exploitation of labor in
poor countries that go unrecognized.
Globalizing
Exploitation
In addition to the
exploitation of labor that multinational corporations have
been accused of, they have also been found to use their
financial power to escape regulations protecting the
environment. Not only has the exploitation of labor restricted
the impoverished from financing their health needs but drastic
climate changes due to the misuse of environmental resources
has lead to additional threats on world-health. Over recent
decades temperature changes have been recorded to be on a
steady rise making it increasingly difficult to produce the
necessary crops for a healthy diet. Many agricultural
scientists contribute these climate changes to the burning of
fossil fuels leading to higher concentrations of greenhouse
gases and a diminishing ozone layer, which greatly reduces
crop yields, ending in what consumers have noticed as an
increase in food costs. Not only has the climate change
increased food costs but it has exposed people all around the
world to higher concentrations of ultra-violet rays that can
develop skin and eye cancers, suppression of the immune system
and an increased susceptibility to infection. This amplified
exposure to UV rays has lead many scientists to suspect a
drastic increase in these types of health issues over the next
few decades (Biello).
Another major
threat on world health is the globalization of the food
industry. Just as large corporations desire cheap labor,
consumers have an appetite for cheap foods. Furthermore, the
intricate marketing strategies for these foods has since
reshaped consumer preferences towards foods high in
carbohydrates, sugar, and a host of food preservatives. Unlike
the diseases of poverty, wealthy countries experience diseases
of dietary excess, and although many of these citizens have
the privilege of medical intervention, the scale of which,
this can be done efficiently and cost effectively is forever
dwindling. As a result many citizens from wealthy countries
are seeking alternatives to the complications faced in their
own state-run healthcare system looking abroad for cheaper and
faster services enrolling in a new trend known as “medical
tourism.”
Medical Tourism
Tourism for
medical purposes is a relatively new cultural phenomenon. This
practice of seeking care abroad benefits the financially
stable (pay-out-of-pocket) patient so much that, despite legal
restrictions, many medical insurers are making provisions to
partake in the differential costs--allowing an incredibly
lucrative business that opts to pay for medical tourist over
national healthcare where the costs for care are significantly
greater. Medical tourist flock to countries like Mexico,
India, Thailand, Brazil, South Africa, and a how slew of
additional countries relatively poor in comparison to the
United States and most European states. Not only does medical
tourism penetrate these destination hospitals
purloining medical attention from those individuals residing
in that particular country but it has encouraged a booming
black market on organ trafficking where the financially needy
in these countries offer their organs i.e. kidneys,
half-livers, corneas, skin, and blood to a relatively wealthy
medical tourist in need of this transplant operation most of
which can be attributed to environmental and lifestyle
diseases.
According to Nancy
Scheper-Hughes, a director of medical anthropology at the
University of Berkley, wealthy patients from Israel, Europe,
and the United States have been negotiating organ sales from
residents of the world’s most impoverished slums, which are
being arranged by an elaborate network of criminals who keep
most of the money themselves. The WHO estimates that one fifth
of the 70,000 kidneys transplanted worldwide every year come
from the black market and Frank Delmonico, a surgery professor
at Harvard Medical School and advisor to the WHO, suggests
that “organ selling has become a global problem” (Interlandi).
Not because wealthy patients are receiving the necessary
medical attention needed for survival but because the
“altruistic” donors from third world countries aren't
receiving the appropriate reimbursements and or medical care
when future complications occur. The lack of medical
regulation and the release of pharmaceuticals preventing organ
rejection has allowed a flourishing market on organs where the
rich are getting richer and the poor are slowly being
butchered for what little they have left.
Making Drugs for
the ‘Rich’
Similar to the
release of drugs preventing organ rejection, which has
benefited mostly richer nations, a report from Doctors without
Borders noted that between 1972 and 1997, nearly 1,450 new
drugs were commercialized most of which targeted disease
management in richer nations while only 13 of these drugs
responded to the communicable and tropical diseases that the
WHO deemed to be essential drugs for poorer nations (Trouiller).
Pharmaceutical companies invest most of their money in the
creation of drugs used to treat diseases. They show little
concern for the prevention of disease, after all, this
provides minimal revenue because disease prevention manages
long-term health prospects while chronic sickness generates
sales by removing the tyranny of disease. Regardless of the
leaps and bounds made by the labor district in third world
countries that generates huge profits for multinational
corporations, little motility has been acquired in these
regions to escape disease.
Multinational
pharmaceutical corporations and other juggernauts of business
continue to infiltrate the prospects of world-wide health
leading to unsatisfactory trends and conditions, franchising
diseases that can be requited by top dollar. From perpetual
abuse on the environment to the diseases it creates, consumers
react to these problems by desiring cheaper goods and services
just to gain leverage on the cesspool of a money-grubbing
world culture that passes down disease and transfers
up all the riches. World peace will become wrought in
poverty by advancing sickness and repressing any public
turbulence too sick to escape the environment that has
allocated ill-health. Globalization and world-health has
become a situation that provides prosperity in places where it
already exists through the exploitation of the have-not’s
decreasing any potential conflict--but the arbitrary fact
still remains--the desperate don’t always play by the rules.
Work Cited
-
Biello, David.
“Cereal Killer: Climate Change Stunts Growth of Global Crop
Yields.” Scientific American. 5 May. 2011. Web. 7 Apr.
2012.
-
Interlandi, Jeneen.
“Not Just Urban Legend.” Newsweek. 9 Jan. 2009. Web. 4
Apr. 2012.
-
Results, (2003).
“The Power to End Hunger.” World Health/Diseases of Poverty.
Web. 4 Apr. 2012.
-
Trouiller P.,
Battistella. C., Pinel, J., & Pecoul, B. (1999). “Is orphan
drug status beneficial to tropical disease control? Comparison
of the American and future European or orphan drug acts.”
Tropical Medicine and International Health. 4 Jan. 1999.
Web. 3 Apr. 2012
-
World Health
Organization. “Poverty and Health.” Health and development.
Web. 4 Apr. 2012.
The most common cancers in the UK are breast in women,
prostate in men, followed by lung and bowel among both sexes.
Prostate is one of very few cancers for which there is no
evidence of preventable cases. [...]
Not eating the
recommended five fruit and vegetables per day accounted for an
unexpectedly high number of cancers – 20,000 cancers each year
– closely linked to mouth, throat and oesophagus tumours. Skin
cancer, one of the fastest-growing types of melanoma, is
almost entirely preventable by avoiding sunbeds and excessive
sunbathing. Exposure to hazardous chemicals such as asbestos
and pesticides at work, as well as shift and night working,
cause more than 11,000 cancers – two thirds among men. –
Independent, December 2011
Poverty: Malnutrition in a Trickle Down Economy
By James Moor, March 2012
It
has been exactly 50 years since Americans, or at least the
non-poor among them, “discovered” poverty, thanks to Michael
Harrington’s engaging book ‘The Other America’. If this
discovery now seems a little overstated, like Christopher
Columbus’s “discovery” of America, it is because the poor,
according to Harrington, were so “hidden” and “invisible” that
it took a crusading journalist to ferret them out. -- Barbara Ehnreich
The problem of poverty in America is both old and new
but hasn’t been commonly identifiable until most recently. One
particular reason perpetuating America’s inability to
recognize poverty is the opinions trumpeted by economist,
“assuming that, economically, Americans are consistently
improving. They are producing more and incomes are increasing.
The question about poverty was not whether but when it would
be eliminated.” Such common sentiments amongst America’s
upper/middle class can be more directly associated to the
economically structured capitalist system directing America’s
way of life--assuming Adam Smith’s social philosophies that
suggest the pursuit of ones own interests frequently promotes
society more effectually than when one actually intends to
promote it. Although this philosophy might explain America’s
economic dynamism and large gross domestic product (GDP) in
relation to less economically developed countries, it does not
explain the increasing disproportion of wealth between the
rich and poor that has maintained an underclass of those
caught in the throes of poverty on a more or less permanent
basis defined by issues of chronic hunger and malnutrition,
unemployment, and substandard housing, with ramifications that
may lead to a full range of emotional and physical health
problems.
The reason Americans fail to recognize poverty is due to an
inability to properly define it, instead, most Americans
reflect on relative poverty suggesting that the quality of
life amongst America’s poor is substantially greater when
compared to the starving people in other countries, which
suggests absolute poverty--where the insufficiency is so
severe that it is life-threatening. “To be sure, many of
America’s poor have more food, more clothing, better shelter,
and so on then the poor in other nations; but the standard for
evaluating America’s poor cannot be the starving people in
other nations. Rather, poverty in the United States must be
evaluated in terms of the standard of living attained by the
majority of Americans” (Luaer). This change of direction in
evaluating poverty in the U.S. has since appealed to the
federal government to resolve poverty in terms of income
analysis by estimating a family of four’s budget on food
costs. This eventually led to an official classification of
the poverty level. “By 2007, the figures were $10,787 for an
individual under the age of 65 and $21,027 for a family of two
adults and two children under the age of 18” (DeNavas).
Developed by the Department of Agriculture for temporary or
emergency use when a family’s financial resources were minimal
was an economy food plan, that was marginally inadequate based
on the official classification of the poverty level that
neither estimated the increases on the consumer price index
nor the approximate cost for a family of four to have a
no-frills version of the “American Dream.” As a result, the
federal government uses a nutritionally inadequate food plan
that might prevent America’s poor from death by starvation but
exemplifies the traditional misguided beliefs that has
deterred most Americans from properly approaching poverty
issues within the U.S. by reflecting the same dogmatic
approach to poverty as before--they may be malnourished but at
least they’re not dying like in other parts of the world.
It’s commonly understood that the rates of poverty are in
continual fluctuation and “the U.S. has one of the highest
rates of poverty among the rich industrial nations of the
world” no wonder some experts estimate that the majority of
Americans at some point in their lives will be affected by
poverty; figuring that 59 percent of Americans will have been
in poverty and 68 percent will have been near poverty for at
least one year before reaching the age of 75. While many
Americans manage to escape the throes of poverty by limiting
their exposure, others however, fail to acquire the same
autonomy and leverage--”people at the lower end of the
stratification system have little control over their lives and
have few, if any, opportunities compared to people at the
upper end”, resulting in choices that embody security and
inhibit change, including the frustration of powerlessness.
One particular dilemma suggesting the frustration of
powerlessness is illness. Because health problems put
additional strains on a family’s meager financial resources,
illness can be perpetuated. Poverty can generate stress that
leads to illness that intensifies the stress, and the circles
continues”.
To
further reflect on America’s poverty--it may have become more
identifiable in recent years--but America’s appeal to reverse
the problem remains fixed. Although our countries economic
dynamism has changed the lot of the nation’s poor in relation
to other countries, the poor remain malnourished, without
healthcare privileges, ensnaring them in the vicious cycle of
mental and physical illnesses. Despite the startling
statistics that suggest over a half of Americans have been
subjected to poverty at some point in their lives, many
Americans still believe strongly in the ideology of
individualism, attributing both wealth and poverty to the
qualities of individuals rather than to the social system.
Although most Americans pursue their own interests they don’t
always strive for what is best concerning their health and
body. As a result, the upper and middle class has relied
mostly on medicine, where patients and physicians share a
committed relationship viewing the human body as something
like an automobile with interchangeable parts, regular
tune-ups, and chemical treatments--a privilege the poor do not
have nor can they afford. And in a “trickle down economy” such
as the one here in America, there’s no wonder why the poor are
not dying from starvation, after all, there’s plenty of food
to go around just not the right food that promotes a
nutritional diet and good health.
As
privileged and concerned citizens, poverty is not justifiably
a matter that suggests the incapability of an individual but
rather the despotism of the entire system coupled with the
inability to escape disease. Governmental intervention has
failed miserably to provide impoverished families with the
bare necessities to maintain their health--providing minimal
leverage on social stratification. Malnutrition is an epidemic
amongst the poor and nutrient excesses appear simultaneously
amongst the non-poor, both of which readily promote an entire
slew of illnesses, which only demonstrates the crisis of
poverty including the non-poor’s excessive behavior, neither
promoting their own health including society. It may be clear
that poverty is new in terms of definition, however, much has
to be done with the public opinion surrounding health,
including an environment that promotes it; maybe then, good
medical care can become more accessible by all Americans
including those who need it the most--not the entire
nation--who is poor in health from poor eating habits.
Work Cited
-
DeNavas-walt, C., B. D. Proctor, and J.C. Smith. 2008
“Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the
United States.” Current Population Reports. Washington, DC:
Government Printing Office.
-
Ehnreich, Barbara. “Rediscovering poverty.” Dispatches From
America. Asia Times: 17 Mar, 2012. Web 17 Mar, 2012.
-
Lauer, Robert and Jeanette C. Lauer. “Social problems and
the quality of life.” New York: McGraw-Hill Learning
Solutions, 2011.
Who of us is not a couple pay checks
away from needing food assistance? People in these
situations will cut down on their meals—if you don’t pay
rent, you’re homeless, if you don’t pay utilities in the
winter, you freeze to death, if you don’t take your
medicine, you die. Often times people will cut down on food
first. There’s far too much abundance in this country for
people to be starving. I know a lot of people think that
just because people are not emaciated it’s not an issue, but
there are a lot of people who fill themselves up with cheap
food to fill a hunger spot that is not meeting their
nutritional needs, hence the obesity epidemic in this
country [USA]. –
Mandy Brajuha, August 2011
Today’s Convenience Society
By James Moor, November 28, 2011
Imagine a world free from health related ailments and a
society where you’d never have to resist a meal based on its
nutritional values. Try imagining a place where the most
convenient way to work is via bicycle. Imagine your local
super market where the hardest food to find would be junk
food--meanwhile your parking spot is situated on the opposing
side of a hundred yard dash. Imagining a world such as this
isn’t hard to do and starts by resisting the most mundane
elements of our modern world.
In
the last century the western world has gone through a rapid
growth spurt due to industrialization and as a result, has
managed to expunge many health related issues that stem from
nutrient deficiencies associated to many developing countries.
However, diseases that correspond to nutrient excesses still
pose a major health threat to developed countries. Such a
threat is not due to a lack of nutrition based knowledge but
rather, a misconception from much of our convenience society
that makes life less rewarding through the promotion of
idleness and irresponsibly in applying this education.
Corresponding to this shift in consciousness, nutritional
research on developed countries no longer focuses on nutrient
deficiencies (related to developing countries) but rather,
energy and nutrient excesses that have lead to an epidemic of
chronic diseases--”contributing to three out of five deaths
worldwide”.
Despite the rapid spread of knowledge and the slower than
ideal rate of nutritional growth throughout society; knowledge
pertaining to the relationship between diet and disease has
significantly decreased the death rates of heart disease,
cancers, and strokes while the “death rates for diabetes--a
chronic disease closely associated with obesity has
increased”. The leading cause for this epidemic is because we
eat too much, particularly at fast-food restaurants. The more
we choose to eat out the greater the likelihood we’ll be
subjected to eating larger portion sizes accompanied by
sweetened beverages and more energy-dense, nutrient poor
foods. Despite the frequency of our meals, we eat more and
move less and as a result, our energy intake has risen and we
compromise energy expenditure by not remaining physically
active. As a result, we increase our odds at becoming
overweight and obese, a repercussion that greatly influences
our health.
When considering the trends in nutrition and how developed
countries have relapsed from diseases related to nutrient
deficiencies to today’s diseases that are more closely
associated to nutrient excesses, the indoctrination of
nutrition appears to be most successful at putting society in
remission. The major issue being, minimal changes to our
environment have occurred. Society flocks to
“foods that are
easily accessible, quick and easy to prepare, and within
financial means” (Rolfes).
An
environment that cultivates convenience attracts consumer
tendencies to gravitate towards restaurants, frozen meals, and
other easily prepared dishes that often lack the daily
recommended values for consumers. Moreover, the act of
adopting today's diet can be linked to the less physically
active and most conveniently inclined methods of acquisition.
And after considering consumer emphasis on convenience and an
environment that propagates a conveniently unhealthy diet you
might consider the drive-through or the delivery boy more
hostile to your existence than you may have thought before.
The environment we have allowed to foster can be attributed to
good business. From large food industries to small town
distributors their main concern--profit. Just as consumers
don’t always make the wisest of decisions related to
nutrition, businesses aren't even concerned by it; the choices
they make are reflected on the growth and well-being of the
company and little consideration is taken into account for the
well-being of the consumer. Regard the Phillip Morris
corporation, the largest distributor of cigarettes worldwide,
who lobbied with the film industry for publicity, and has
since contributed to the leading cause of deaths in the United
States today due to tobacco use. Interestingly enough, this
startling statistic might worry most people but not the
Phillip Morris corporation nor some developed governments. In
2007 the Phillip Morris company settled complaints with the
Czech Republic about their increasing healthcare cost due to
tobacco usage after reassuring the Czechs that there was
actually a net “health-care cost savings due to early
mortality” and the resulting savings on pensions and elderly
(Myers). Furthermore, the national death rate associated with
tobacco is at a soaring 18% while poor diet and inactivity
falls short by just 2%, yet remains the second leading factor
contributing to 15% of the United States annual death rate (Rolfes).
And just like the tobacco industry the food industry presents
similar shortcomings. “Research shows that for the additional
67 cents a fast food restaurant will charge to upsize a meal,
consumers receive an extra: 400 calories, 36 grams of body
fat, and a supplementary one to seven dollars in health-care
cost” (Myers). What's so bewildering about this information is
the difficulty people still have in resisting the temptation.
In
defense of big businesses, our society has maintained a free
market whereabouts an individual has a much better chance at
marketing a product and creating a thriving business. The
freedoms given to large corporations within the marketplace is
no different than a consumers freedom of choice. Big
business’s will often argue that supply is based off of
demand, and it’s the consumer that decides what products enter
the marketplace. After all “eating a banana or a candy bar may
be equally convenient, but the fruit provides more vitamins
and minerals and less sugar and fat” yet consumers generally
gravitate towards the candy bar. In recompense, recent
attempts to sell bananas by the cash register, as a
replacement to candy bars, has showed significant success,
just ask Starbucks, who usually sells out by mid-afternoon.
It
appears as though big business and consumers maintain a
committed relationship with some major issues. The occurrence
of supply and demand presents a debacle that is otherwise
difficult to resolve in response to the equal distribution of
success between the corporation and the consumer. Although
society believes in education as a solution to health related
issues, corporations have reworked much of our education on
nutrition into marketing schemes that are solicited through a
variety of sources. “Consumers get most of their information
from internet sites, television news, and magazine articles,
which often times have heightened awareness of diet
influences, yet little understanding on the development of
diseases”. Most of these “groundbreaking” discoveries revolve
around an easy, more convenient (temporary) change in diet and
nutrition. Meanwhile, “consumers benefit most when they learn
to make lifestyle changes” that involve long-term health
prospects that are associated with maintaining a well balanced
diet--not some miracle cure that contributes short term
revenue to businesses (Rolfes).
After recognizing the steady jostle between corporate
maltreatment and the social uprising that desires a healthier
lifestyle, some entrepreneurs have found opportunity where
it’s allowed. Take the up and coming “bikeshare” business for
example. While mimicking European companies, this bike share
business has sprung up in some of North America’s major cities
including: Washington D.C., Montreal, San Antonio, and Des
Moines, with similar programs underway in New York City, San
Francisco, and Chattanooga that promotes a healthier lifestyle
through the use of bicycles for commuting purposes. Meanwhile
this rising capital, based on sharing bicycles, carries
similar aphorisms to large corporations who supply convenience
based products--”make it easy and they will come”--a
philosophy that every thriving business has adopted
(Vanderbilt).
So
after deciding to live a healthier lifestyle, the environment
we have allowed to develop can appear more daunting at times
then not. It’s a maze stocked (at perfect eye level) with the
more lustful and unhealthy foods, whereby the most direct
route to navigate is via elevators, escalators, automobiles,
and other non-physically demanding modes of transportation. It
is a place where the stairs are considered a “fire exit” and
the most desirable place to park your car is right in front of
the gym. And just like most mazes, the more direct course to
take usually results in a dead end. But there is a way out of
this rat maze of ours. Finding your way to a healthier
lifestyle can be just as obvious but a whole lot less
convenient in today's day and age.
Works Cited
-
Myers, David. “Psychology Ninth Edition.” New York, NY:
Worth Publishers, 2010.
-
Rolfes, Sharon Rady. Whitney, Ellie. “Understanding
Nutrition Twelfth Edition.” Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cencage
Learning, 2008.
-
Vanderbilt, Tom. “Outside, Where to Live Now” Outside
Online, October edition, 2011.
"Nearly half of the [U.S.] nation’s 6 million-plus pregnancies
each year are unintended.”
Hospital Care - a Purchased Privilege?
Charity or
Purchased Privilege?
By James Moor, August 24, 2011
With offers of
special treatment, hospitals across the country have proposed
public displays of “special benefits” and “V.I.P.” programs in
pursuit of charity from potential contributors. In response,
an ambitious student, on his own personal trek to become a
medical doctor, James Moor, shares personal experiences, along
with those of his colleagues, about the privileges hospitals
give to just a select few and how such acts affect healthcare
ethics and medical practices everywhere.
Acts of human
kindness and philanthropy have always played a crucial role in
American history. Many individuals with private initiatives
have focused on the public good and its quality of life
through acts of compassion for humanity; in recompense, these
men and women have taken a substantial part in establishing
many of today’s hospitals and universities. Men such as John
Hopkins, William Penn, Thomas Jefferson, and William Cooper,
to name a few, are individuals whom we owe our thanks. With
their munificent gifts, they have given humanity just a few of
America’s best hospitals and medical schools; out of respect,
those same institutions can be recognized today as they carry
on their legacy.
The same truth
still exists, if you give enough money to a hospital, they’ll
name it after you--sounds fair enough. But with diminishing
governmental funding and the sudden crunch on insurance
reimbursements due to healthcare reform, what kind of position
have we placed our hospitals in that they have to attract
those same kindred spirits of old, in order to give again
today?
Now a days,
hospitals are stipulated into offering “special benefits”
packages in order to attract certain wealthy benefactors to
their charitable organization. This information can be
accessed on almost any hospital website. The benefits differ
from hospital to hospital, some small, while others rather
large in scale. Some can even resemble that of a La Bec Fin
menu, with high priced choices and a series of courses that
include: free parking permits, lunches, tax-deductions and a
better income, invitations to VIP receptions, and even dinner
with the president of the institution at a distinctive
location, none of which is offered to the volunteer staff
who’ve sacrificed their time and labor. But how far can this
VIP status take you, how can it affect your stay at a
hospital, and how does it affect everyone else?
For starters, many
of you haven’t had the privilege to know what really goes on
in a hospital. Due to confidentiality, internal practices are
able to hide behind a curtain of laws called HIPPA, imposed by
our federal government. You’ll never be given the chance to
hear about how a chronically ill patient is denied admittance
and sent to another hospital because the only space available
is that of a VIP patient’s room who refuses to share with
another individual. Some hospitals have found an answer to
such a dilemma and built private presidential suites held
exclusively for the hospitals VIP members. In some cases, the
hospital will even claim its full; not admitting/transferring
any outside patients, all while these presidential suites are
held vacant. Of course, actions such as these depend entirely
upon the hospitals integrity and even more so its private
funding.
Many hospitals
have designed a number of methods that their staff might
recognize and better treat the hospitals contributors.
Although news travels fastest by word of mouth amongst medical
personnel (especially upon the arrival of a VIP), some
hospitals have created notifications by dubbing medical
transcripts including: patient dossiers, identification
bracelets, and collective scheduling, with similar terms to
that of “presidential” status, notifying all supporting
personnel of the importance of this particular patient that
they might better cater to his or her personal needs.
Residents and Fellow doctors aren't allowed near these
patients, while depending upon the circumstances, all other
patients have no other choice than to be assessed by these
student doctors. Meanwhile, VIPs are greeted by the most
welcoming of staff i.e. nurses, attendings, and chairmen of
the hospital, along with warm blankets and hand towels,
special beverages and food options, and any other simple
demands the hospital staff might be able to meet.
Some hospitals
even cater their schedules around such VIP patients. Magically
opening the more desirable appointments by either bumping
patients, scheduling over staff lunch breaks, opening
departments before normal operating times and/or on weekends
when the department would normally be closed. There have even
been times when patients are taken out of order, made to wait,
even though they were scheduled months in advance, because a
VIP decided to show up earlier than his/her own scheduled
appointment. Such acts, demonstrate the hospitals worthiness
of VIP proceeds. Otherwise, without such prestigious services,
these wealthy benefactors would take their endorsements
elsewhere.
So can we really
blame hospitals and medical practices alike for committing
acts such as these? After all, many hospitals depend on these
donors as their large proceeds help fund: research and other
forms of practice, treat the growing number of critically ill
patients without insurance or those refused insurance due to a
pre-existing condition, along with the basic infrastructure of
the hospital as a whole, making a stay at the hospital much
more pleasant for patients and their families. So when you
realize how these donations affect hospitals, you might
conclude that pampering VIPs is understandable and in some
cases, acceptable.
But how deep does
the rabbit hole go? Well that depends--how deep can we afford
it to go? As long as our country’s finest hospitals hurt for
financing and look to provide charitable givers with
privileges, than there will always be private donators who
expect such treatment. But how will this affect the future of
our nation’s healthcare? We have decided to give better
healthcare to those able to afford it, while the rest of us
receive unequal treatment and in so doing, we’ve lost our
goals for humanity that our medical system originally had
strived for.
Be sure to ask
your doctor about trying VIP status at your next family
visit...
When Health is a Business
04.02.11 Relentless and targeted commercial
marketing of unhealthy food products increases obesity,
diabetes and sickness, but generates big profits for business.
Then corporations make billions of dollars selling drugs to
treat the symptoms of lifestyle diseases.
Government does little or nothing to mitigate
this corporate racket because the billionaires can spend a
token amount to rent shills and political representatives,
while corrupting official oversight bodies. This is the
inevitable result of treating a universal human need as a
commodity to be exploited for private profit.
|
Doctor Dollars |
 |
Beware the Campaign Against Social Benefits
11.04.10 When you consider the fact that
the TV news, magazines and newspapers that reach most of
America represent the attitudes and values of the owners, many
things fall into place clarified. This same mass-media
machine is continually focused on the budget and how social
security and other ‘entitlements’ like Medicare are going to
bankrupt the nation. Yet, even if this was true (it’s not) one
has to consider the alternative of no social security
or minimal health care funding for those that can’t afford it
– mass sickness, injuries that go untreated, mass poverty,
crime and desperation – and that’s a far worse situation for
the country than paying something to take care of the public,
citizens of the country after all. And at the same time
this diversion of national dialogue conveniently ignores the
other drains on the national budget that can easily be changed
– like the billions spent on suicidal wars being waged around
the world. But the mass media, owned by the wealthy, makes no
fuss about war because they can make a fortune owning the
companies selling weapons and services to the government. Or
what about
the insurance companies that act as superfluous middle-men,
making profits by denying health care to those that need it
while fleecing those that don't? Once again, don't expect to
encounter any real criticism of that problem in the
mass media.
The rich don’t want to pay for social security
and similar public benefits; even though it’s a small amount
of money to them they feel cheated of their earnings having to
pay for something they don’t need. With millions of dollars in
the bank they can always afford to buy the best healthcare
when they need it and they don’t have to worry about having
enough cash to pay for food and shelter when they’re retired.
But everyone else needs social health and welfare benefits,
particularly after being regressively impoverished over three
decades through declining wages and inflation of the money
supply. This pathetic situation is largely a result of too
many people believing the bogus arguments of the corporate
ruling class that are being trumpeted constantly in the
mass-media echo chamber.
These social benefits, like social security,
are charged on everyone that works, it’s fair; it affects all
equally, the definition of justice – equal and fair treatment
for all. And even if you don’t want to pay for them, you have
to consider the full-extent of the alternative before you make
your decision. In a country where individual human value is
determined by how much money you have,
and with only a few tenuous efforts to even the playing field
(under constant attack),
your life may well depend on having access to the public
benefits
that you don't want to pay for today.
But
hey, I don’t want to be narrow-minded or anything. We do have
a choice here; we can rip up the social contract and just
screw this civil-society crap. We can descend to the level of
the ruling rich and play by the same perverted rules they use
to prey upon everyone else, and then it will be every man,
woman and infant for themselves! In this realm of convenient
excuses and situational ethics you’re not entitled to
anything, unless you already have it or can steal it. In this
case, where the only things we get in life are the ones we
take, then we’ll just have to start taking from the ones that
have the most.
|
The Walking Rebel |
July
2004 |
What does
it say about our society when we have to resist even the
most mundane elements of our modern world, like
hamburgers and elevators, just to be healthy?
|
Obesity
The U.S. has
serious obesity problem, as a new study focused on children in
Southern California confirms, but this obesity is not evenly
distributed.
Two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese and a
third of children are obese, increasing the risk of heart
disease, diabetes and other chronic illnesses, and adding
about $150 billion a year to U.S. health care costs.
[T]he
heaviest children were black teenage girls and Hispanic
teenage boys. Asian-Pacific Islanders and white children had
the lowest percentage of extreme obesity.
"Without major lifestyle changes, these kids face a 10 to 20
years shorter life span and will develop health problems in
their 20s that we typically see in 40-to-60-year-olds."
From:
U.S. child obesity problem worse than thought,
Reuters, March 18, 2010.
|
Convenience Rebel |
July
2004 |
The idea
of being a rebel, not in the stereotypical sense of
flamboyant revolutionary, but simply in small, subtle
ways seems really profound; it’s the concept of being a
rebel out of self-respect rather than grandiose ideals.
|
The Problem of Public Healthcare
30.06.07
Healthcare is being rationed everywhere that demand outstrips
supply, including the United States. The difference is that
U.S. healthcare is rationed based on cash while in
countries with nationalized healthcare programs the
medical services are being rationed based on time.
Under both systems people fail to receive the medical care
they need, often with drastic results, in the U.S. (and China
for a similar example) because they lack the money to pay, and
under socialized medicine because they lack the time to wait.
|
The Cure is the Disease |
November
2003 |
