In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “Of all forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most
shocking and inhumane.”
My past few articles have been on the unhealthy
infrastructure in health care today and how it adversely affects patients as
well as physicians, nurses and those who work within it to serve.
Over the past few weeks, I have seen an inordinate number of
patients who are hurting because of the way they are treated by administrative
practices within this system. The
patterns of conditioning through ‘learned helplessness’ are pervasive and
worsening as the systems continue to compete with each other for market share
out of greed.
We all comprise their ‘market’. What they forget is that money is not a
substitute for care. Care is a choice
born of intent. But when physicians and
nurses are ‘boiling frogs’, they are unable to provide the care they intended
to offer. Their care cannot be limited
to a 15 minute office visit done under pressure. When physicians take longer to problem solve,
they are reprimanded and punished as it reduces revenue and threatens quarterly
profits.
A ‘boiling frog’ is a frog who is heated in water till it
dies. The teaching point is - because
the torture is started in cold water and heat is applied slowly, the frog does
not realize it is being boiled alive. Its
senses are sensitized to greater levels of heat. As morbid as this analogy is, this is used to
describe how people adapt to abuse. This
is no different in health care.
Today’s physicians are no longer seen as healers. On the contrary, they are viewed as tools
that serve health care administration in all its extractive methods, merely
generators of revenue, likened to Pavlov’s dog.
Today’s physicians have lost heart and meaning. The mandates that grind them down demoralize and
wound them in deep ways.
I left corporate health care 15 years ago when this behavior
was escalating. I was unable to live
under patriarchal rules. Today, this
treatment is being normalized by ‘the powers that be’. For me, this is unacceptable. For others, adapting is their only hope.
It is important to lift the veil, to view the shadow beneath
the blanket of illusion projected in marketing ads, with terms like ‘health’
and ‘care’. We must wake up to what is
really happening. This is a system that purports
to serve. It offers neither health nor
care.
When patients wake up and demand authentic care, and
physicians gain the courage to speak their truth, transformation will be the
inevitable outcome.
“Health care needs to
be examined from the inside out, from the top down and the bottom up. There
must not be any stone left unturned. When physicians analyze the current system
in ways in which they were trained to analyze the body, they will be able to
identify the pathology that keeps it sick. They will have to reach deep inside
and stand in the face of criticism and rejection, with courage and heart to
transform their system that has lost its soul.”
~Becoming
Real, 2011, by Rose Kumar M.D.
Health care is in crises.
In Southeast Wisconsin, both patients and physicians are struggling to
make sense of the lack of consciousness that has taken over the health care
system. Morale is at an all-time
low.
I implore you all to awaken to what the reality of today’s
health care system. Nothing can
transform without holding the light to it, including the shadow. It is the only way to transform this system
into one that actually serves the mission of its vocation. When a critical mass of conscious consumer’s expects
real care, the system will be forced to deliver what is expected.
I believe this is the
only hope we have to transform health care.
This is also how it will ultimately recover its soul.
