#healthcare system failure

[summerdragoness]

Dragoneer is gone.

I knew him before FA, then got to know him more when I became a moderator on FA many years ago. Dude was always someone who would go out of his way to help me when I was going through shit, he was always kind, and it wasn't just to me but to others, too.

In recent years we drifted and went our separate ways, as happens. So learning about his situation, why he is gone now when he was alive 4 hours ago, is infuriating. I am fucking furious.

[townpostin]

Pregnant Woman Left Unattended for 27 Hours at MGM Hospital

Fetus dies in womb; treatment begins after BJP leader’s intervention A pregnant woman was neglected for 27 hours at MGM Hospital, Kolhan’s largest government medical facility. JAMSHEDPUR – A pregnant woman from Turamdih faced severe neglect at MGM Hospital, lying on the maternity ward floor for 27 hours. The expectant mother arrived at MGM Hospital on Wednesday morning, only to be left without…

[quartzdecay]

I have a request for people with experience with wheelchairs, if you personally use/used them or have people in your life that do: PLEASE COMPLAIN ABOUT THEM TO ME! TELL ME ABOUT THE WAYS IN WHICH THEY CAN SUCK! IN GENERAL OR SPECIFICS!

I need this information for a project I'm doing in my design class, wherein my group is going to attempt to prototype a wheelchair with both offroad and indoor capabilities, per say, that is still reasonably light and inexpensive. I'm asking this of you all on tumblr because to begin our project, we need to familiarize ourselves with the nature of this problem. We want our solution to actually be made with the opinions of wheelchair users in mind. I would be incredibly grateful if anyone could reblog or comment with any gripes they have about wheelchairs, especially in relation to their maneuverability, but anything works! Thank you so much for your time!

[dodomingo]

I didn't know Neer but hits way too close to home

[spacedocmom]

Doctor Beverly Crusher @SpaceDocMom Your complex medical needs do not make you a burden. You don't have to apologize for them. You are not an inconvenience. Any system that makes you feel that way is problematic, and it's not your fault! emojis: black heart, blue heart, masked 1:26 PM · Jun 1, 2023

[cedarspiced]

they should invent a body that doesn't hurts

[vashti-lives]

my stepfather went to the ER tonight with chest pain and, thank god, it wasn't a heart attack but he was diagnosed with pneumonia and they like... didn't test him for covid????????????????????????

and the thing is he recently started taking a medication that a) suppresses his immune system which would make him more prone to ordinary viral pneumonia and b) has fluid in the lungs as an uncommon but known side effect. so there is a pretty high chance it's not covid but i had plans this weekend and i think i have to fucking cancel them if i can't confirm that he doesn't have covid.

i'm so mad. at this point all hospitals should have access to accurate quick turn around tests (IT'S BEEN THREE YEARS!!!) and also it should still be standard to FUCKING TEST PEOPLE WHO HAVE COVID SYMPTOMS AND MAKE SURE IT ISN'T COVID!!!

how can a person show up to the hospital with a pretty major covid symptom and not be tested?????

[timeisacephalopod]

When American politicians discuss doing universal healthcare in their country and start whining about the possibility of "medical tourism" where people would theoretically go to America to get healthcare I want to scream and shake them. That already exists- Canada is where Americans went to get their fucking insulin because their own government failed them so hard another country nearly had an insulin shortage a few times over the course of the pandemic alone.

If you want to talk about medical tourism and that """"straining""""" the American healthcare system then maybe take a look at the way Americans are consistently causing strains to Canada's healthcare!! And I assume Americans don't just travel here for healthcare either, so when American politicians act like they're Just The Best and everyone will go to America for healthcare I want to be like THE ISSUE YOURE BITCHING ABOUT EXISTS AND ITS NOT HAPPENING TO YOU ITS HAPPENING TO CANADA AND ITS BECAUSE YOU REFUSE TO ADEQUATELY SERVICE YOUR POPULATION AND MORE THAN ONCE CANADIAN DIABETICS WERE THE ONES WHO'D SUFFER FOR IT. Like you want to talk medical tourism without ever acknowledging your population using other countries healthcare, which I guess is fine because it's not America footing the bill, really?

[capitalism-is-a-psychopathy]

The profit motive can hurt more than help.

In healthcare, for-profit hospitals prioritize profits over patients. They may cut corners on care to save money, leading to worse health outcomes. In contrast, public healthcare systems aim to provide quality care for all, not just for those who can pay.

Education suffers too. For-profit colleges often charge high fees but deliver low-quality education. They focus on enrolling as many students as possible, regardless of their ability to succeed. Public universities, however, aim to educate and empower their students, not just make money from them.

In the energy sector, profit-driven companies often neglect environmental concerns. They prioritize short-term gains over long-term sustainability, leading to pollution and climate change. Collective energy systems, like public utilities, can focus on renewable energy and reducing carbon emissions for the greater good.

Transportation is another area where for-profit models fall short. Privatized transport services can be expensive and inefficient, leaving many without reliable options. Public transportation systems are designed to be affordable and accessible for everyone, reducing traffic and pollution.

Even in housing, the profit motive can be harmful. Real estate developers often build luxury properties to maximize profits, ignoring the need for affordable housing. This leads to housing shortages and homelessness. Cooperative housing models focus on providing homes for people, not just profits for developers.

The trend is clear: for-profit systems prioritize profits over people. They can be inefficient, harmful, and exclusive. Collective systems, on the other hand, aim to benefit everyone. They prioritize public good over private gain.

The choice is ours: continue down a path where profits dictate our lives, or embrace systems that prioritize people and the planet.

[mushminofwonder]

The healthcare system fails us all

I've been taking ibuprofen for swelling bacause neither of my doctors heard me ask for refills of dyclofenac for arthritis pain

No one told me the bad side effects of meloxicam

So when i got yet another med whose warning was avoid excessive exposure to sunlight i just didn't take it

Not a single doctor seemed to care that i do heavy physical labor everyday at my job

I have been uncomfortable since my early twenties

I have not had a day without physical pain since 2017

My life is nothing but partial diagnosis because i never have enough money

My mind and body are so tired

It doesn't have to be like this

[jinglejanglemornings]

sorry i went off about family-based treatment for eating disorders and medical decision making for minors, do you still think i'm hot

[super-ultra-mega-deluxe]

Simply believing in ML, or joining an ML org, will not help when the lights go out or food runs out. How can we contend with that?

Marxism-Leninism isn't an arbitrary set of beliefs for one to adopt on a whim, it is a political theory and specifically action, part of which is in fact to "help when the lights go out" or even better, to make sure they don't! communist politics- and really any politic- are what those politics do. Marx explicitly frames it as such, as an ideological formulation that is a tool for practical application. taken outside of its context and application, Marxism is an absurd nothing, as again are all politics. i could provide examples of how communists facilitate the production and distribution of goods, or otherwise manage economics at variable scale and locale, which is rather what i assume you mean to be getting at with your question. your framing is rather nonspecific however: in what economic and political context is there a communist party contending with failures in energy infrastructure and food production and distribution?

the "help when the lights go out" strikes a particular chord, as somewhat recently the socialist nation of Cuba has been forced to contend with fuel shortages; their domestic oil production can't meet the needs of the general populace, and oil imports are inconsistent due to the US embargo. the people of Cuba are, thankfully, not becoming grossly immiserated or dying en masse despite such being the intention of the embargo. they have instituted fuel rationing and rolling blackouts to further conserve fuel and maintain essential services, such as their healthcare system. this of itself is obviously only a reactive policy; the state has also been rebuilding and expanding its oil storage facilities to better handle fluctuations in supply, and more recently they have agreed to a bilateral development agreement with China to substantially expand Cuba's nascent solar power generation. paired with their newfound partnership with BRICS- a move which undermines the aforementioned embargo in a much more material way than a UN vote- Cuba is on a path to fully meet the energy needs of its people and even expand access over the next decade.

that all said, i doubt you specifically care much for Marxist-Leninist experiments as they exist, and are more concerned with the prefiguration of politics before anything like achieving state power, and more specifically within the imperial core, where denying the possibility of effecting revolutionary politics is the most prominent. there are not presently many Marxist-Leninist parties of note in the US, the imperial core, but even less principled communist parties nonetheless consider the economic realities of the workers they represent first and foremost. the old Black Panthers were perhaps the closest to a truly revolutionary socialist movement in the US, and one of the policies they are most famous for is the free breakfast program and the broader Survival Programs they ran. these programs provided food and medical care and education and transportation for many who were subject to economic insecurity; the failure of these programs was a failure of militancy and counterintelligence and scope. the modernly popular if unfortunately less coherent and less principled PSL also runs health and wellness programs, such as kitchens and exercise classes and vocational programs and so on, which is their attempt at replicating such formulations.

it is rather specifically a concern of communists to organize the proletariat to provide for their own needs outside the purview of a capitalist state, and every revolutionary of note before, during, and after seizing power emphasizes such. the ability to do so pending a revolutionary moment is necessarily limited however; you cannot build an administration of economy parallel to an extant state without coming into conflict with that state. even non-communist organizations attempt to build up community programs, but they are either dissolved or incorporated into the state apparatus or otherwise operate under its purview. the ultimate goal is then as always the destruction of the bourgeois state machine and the building of a proletarian state machine, the armies of people organized in enforcing the will of the proletariat as a class, which allows for the more concrete and pointed organization of the economy broadly.

[read-marx-and-lenin]

I’m following the DPRK debates (or trying to at least) but ultimately I’m struggling to understand how to glorify a nation that impedes so heavily on its citizen’s human rights, any insight?

Two things:

First, you shouldn't be trying to glorify anything. You should be trying to understand things and separating truth from fiction.

Second, in that vein, you should be seriously questioning what is being said about the DPRK and why. The US and its allies have a vested interest in ensuring that any socialist project fails, and when they are unable to cause a real failure, they work to make the public believe that it has failed anyway.

The two main sources of the most egregious human rights violations are defector testimony and US/ROK intelligence. If you've been following what I've posted about the DPRK on this blog then you should already know the problems with defector testimony (you can watch this short documentary if you want to know more about that and hear from a few former DPRK residents who rebut many typical defector narratives,) but suffice it to say that the ROK actively pays defectors to make false and scripted statements in the South Korean media, and those who do not go along with the ROK government narrative or who actively contradict it are censored and even face prison time.

Meanwhile, Western intelligence is inherently unverifiable. The best you're going to get is a satellite photo with a building labeled "torture facility" as if we're supposed to look at a roof and be like "uh-huh, that looks like a torture facility to me". US and ROK intelligence officials can and do say whatever they like, but at the end of the day they are the direct enemies of the DPRK and their claims cannot be trusted.

The two Korean governments are still at war; they have never signed a peace treaty. Their conduct must be viewed first and foremost in this context. Both the ROK and the DPRK block movement of people across the DMZ. Both the ROK and the DPRK prevent the dissemination of information coming from each other's nations. Both the ROK and the DPRK surveil their citizens and place controls on the media. Both the ROK and the DPRK place limits on political and cultural activity. The ROK acts to suppress anti-capitalist movements and protect the capitalist way of life, and the DPRK acts to suppress anti-socialist movements and protect the socialist way of life, as both sides view their own political and economic systems as vital to the protection of human rights. On any of these grounds, you cannot fault one side without faulting the other, which is why Western media often opts instead to focus on the more exaggerated and unverifiable claims except when explicitly advocating in favor of capitalism over socialism.

Finally, there is the issue of contradictory ideas of human rights. The capitalist West will insist time and time again that the right to private property is a basic human right, while avoiding or even denying the idea of a right to food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, etc. as a basic human right. To the West, a landlord's right to evict a tenant is inviolable. To the West, denying a person shelter is more of a human right than granting them shelter. The opposite is true in socialist nations such as the DPRK. That the DPRK holds different values as human rights does not then mean that the DPRK is some terrible oppressive violator of human rights. The right to be a capitalist should not be considered a human right. The right to be a saboteur should not be considered a human right.

The DPRK Association for Human Rights Studies, a non-governmental organization in Pyongyang, published a report in 2014 on human rights from the perspective of the DPRK, outlining their objections to US-led international human rights standards and the progress being made in the DPRK towards guaranteeing human rights. You can call it propaganda if you like, but if you do not even look at the statements coming out of the DPRK, how can you have a rounded view of the situation?

Had the DPRK not succeeded in withstanding the attacks against it, had it managed to become subjugated by the US and other imperialist forces, I do not think we could then say that human rights in North Korea would have been secured and safeguarded. The poverty and inequality that the proletariat of South Korea are afflicted with today would have become the norm across the whole peninsula. Even if you believe that human rights are violated today in the DPRK, you must at least admit that the victory of the US and its puppet government in the South cannot be a means of combating any alleged human rights violations in the North.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

Hi. I've started writing a semi-weekly TB Newsletter, if you're interested in that kind of thing. Here's the second letter--about public-private partnerships, leprosy, and my forthcoming big announcement about expanding access to tuberculosis care. You'll hear more about that on Thursday. Anyway, here's the newsletter. You can sign up here.

---

In advance of the Big Announcement this Thursday, I made a vlogbrothers video today on how we end TB–with the comprehensive care plan often known as S-T-P, which is short for “Search, Treat, and Prevent.” But one thing I didn’t discuss in that video is the downstream benefits of comprehensive TB care.

Once you’ve hired community health workers to screen for TB, it becomes much easier to screen for other illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure, and non-TB lung issues (especially lung cancer). TB is notoriously a disease of vicious cycles–a disease of malnutrition that makes malnutrition worse, a disease of poverty that makes poverty worse, and so on–but addressing TB can be a story of virtuous cycles: TB survivors become TB advocates, as I’ve seen with my friend Henry in Sierra Leone. More effective TB treatment leads to less stigmatization of the disease, as communities come to see the disease as curable and survivable rather than terrifying and deadly. And better access to TB care leads to a stronger overall healthcare system, because more community health workers are better connected to more primary healthcare clinics, which allows communities to better address all kinds of health problems.

—

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is not the only bacteria of its family that causes a lot of human suffering; there is a closely related species called mycobacterium leprae that causes the disease known as Hansen's Disease, or more commonly leprosy. There are still around 200,000 cases of leprosy diagnosed each year around the world, and while the disease is curable, it also remains–especially if not caught and treated early–a significant driver of suffering and disability in our world. 

There are many connections between TB and leprosy: Not only are the bacteria that cause these illnesses very similar, but patients have often expressed similarities in experience. TB patients who were encouraged or forced to live in sanitariums often compared themselves to lepers. One disheartening parallel between the diseases is that in both cases, those living with these illnesses are often abandoned by their families and must make new social connections within the new community of “leper” or “consumptive.” Also, both Hansen’s Disease and TB continue to exist largely because of systemic failures rather than due to a lack of knowledge or technology.

—

I really recommend Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee’s TED talk about how we ended TB in the U.S., and how we can end it using the same strategy around the world.

—

Last link from me today: I’ve been thinking a lot about the complex intersection between public and private investment (for reasons that will be clear on Thursday!) and I keep coming back to one infographic in an excellent paper (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0256883) about the public money that was poured into the creation of the GeneXpert Machine, which can quickly and accurately test for TB. The GeneXpert machine has created a lot of profit for Danaher’s shareholders, and it has also created some societal benefit, but it could create a lot more societal benefit if it created less profit for Danaher’s shareholders. This tension seems to me one of the defining features of 21st century life. Anyway, here is the infographic:

That’s the money–over $250,000,000 of it–that came from taxpayers (mostly in the U.S. and Europe) to fund the creation of the GeneXpert Machine. And yet, this tech largely funded by the public is controlled entirely by private enterprise. I’m troubled by that model of value allocation, even if I still believe that private money and private enterprise have important roles to play in fueling innovation. But taking a quarter billion dollars of public money and then claiming total ownership over a technology, and using that ownership to deny the technology to the world’s poorest people, seems like a deeply flawed system of resource distribution to me.

I’ll see you on Thursday. I’m nervous and excited.

DFTBA,

John

[seat-safety-switch]

One of my more accomplished friends is an MRI operator. When we first got talking about what we did for a living, I didn't get very interested. Now, don't think I'm some kind of elitist snob. My career (freelance journalist/greasy dirtbag) is a laugh-a-minute thrill ride, where you're as likely to get hunted down by friends of corrupt small government as you are to throw up in the back of a diesel-swapped Geo Metro being used to chase cows back into the paddock. It's set the bar very, very high.

By comparison, MRIs are boring healthcare stuff, meant for taking extremely high-quality pictures of people's junk all day long. Those pictures are then viewed by doctors, who will sneer at those people for not eating enough cauliflower. Just an absolute snore, which although involving a cool machine that's very loud, didn't fascinate me in the least.

That is, until they mentioned The Quench. In case you're unfamiliar, MRI machines operate on the principles of magnetism (that's the "M.") Big-ass magnets are used to send pulses throughout the machine, and those pulses are inconveniently blocked by chunks of your body standing in the way. By recording how irritated those magnets are, we can figure out what's going on inside your shit. Of course, you need big, big magnets for this, you're not running down to the grocery store and diagnosing a brain misfire using that cute little toddler-art-retainer shaped like a frog.

Sometimes, when shit really goes wrong, you need to stop the magnetism in a hurry. Maybe a patient walked in with a fully loaded firearm, and the magnets are now using it to shoot the inside of the machine. Perhaps you just decided that you would like to end your career. Either way, hitting the "quench" button douses those magnets with several hundred thousand dollars' worth of liquid helium, which makes them stop doing magnet-y things and start racking up billable hours for the MRI maintenance guy. This kind of highly expensive mechanical failure is my jam, and I asked immediately where I could get me some of those quenched-up magnets. Surely, they wouldn't reuse anything they've beaten up in this way?

My so-called friend figured out what I was up to, and clammed up almost immediately. Almost. He gave me just enough information for my inquisitive journalistic mind to figure out that they just chuck these big-ass magnets into the dumpster out back of the hospital, and someone with an enterprising enough mindset could then un-chuck them into the back of, say, a U-Haul van with the license plate removed after being careful to avoid all the security cameras along the way. Not that I would do such a thing, especially because it involves driving through a particularly weak chain-link fence near the seniors' centre.

Coincidentally, are you coming to my unveiling of my new magnetic-levitation Volare-launching system this weekend? I promise to listen very intently to whatever bullshit you say about your boring job, you'll love it. The Mayor is gonna be there, cut the ribbon and everything. Shit. Siri, remind me to get plastic scissors for The Mayor.

[anarchistcommunism]

The “choice” of this election, like all elections, presented us with no choice at all: one program of open reaction and the other friendly-faced genocide. Still, a Trump victory was far from inevitable. Presented with an opportunity to overhaul their platform, the Democratic Party instead swapped one stand-in for another without any significant change in position. This was most glaring in Biden and later Harris’s willingness to sacrifice the votes of Muslim and Arab Americans by refusing to even slow—let alone stop—US facilitation of Israel’s genocidal wars in Gaza and Lebanon. But other factors prevailed too, including the Democrats’ failure to articulate anything resembling a plan to address compounding crises around profit hungry price-gouging, the cost of living, housing, bodily autonomy, or healthcare. It is impossible now to argue that Trump is an aberration. He is as American as apple pie, a product of the system of domination that structures our society. If we are to confront a second Trump administration, we must also confront this system of domination—a task that will require organization, bravery, and commitment. So here we are. While you might be feeling fear, anger, and despair right now, it’s not a time to back down. It’s time to step up.