The Tragic Reality; When healthcare conflicts with corporate progressive profit margins, patients are often left out of the equation all together, to die or do without competent care.

"The New York Times recently published an article discussing the current state of Britain's National Health Service (NHS). As the NHS turns 75, it faces one of the deepest crises in its history. The system is overwhelmed by an aging population, underfunded in terms of equipment and facilities, and understaffed with doctors and nurses. Many healthcare professionals are either striking or leaving for jobs abroad due to burnout."

Britian isn't the only country facing a healthcare crisis, think Israel and the Gaza strip where hospitals resemble war zones instead of safe places where the sick and vulnerable can go to get competent care.

And before you thank your lucky stars that you live in America where excellent healthcare is presumed to be a 'given', think again. Veterans and incarcerated individuals in the U.S. are increasingly being refused timely healthcare, if and when they're able to receive care at all. Longevity in in the United States is in a death spiral, with the average age for longevity dropping to a low not seen since the great depression, average life expectancy in the US prior to 2012 was approximately 78 years of age, today its closer to 64 years of age.

When Covid-19 hit the U.S. it offered us a unique view into a woefully inadequate healthcare system that we're currently dealing with, along with a pitifully understaffed and underfunded public health system. And the crux of what ails American hospitals was laid bare by the capitalist corporate greed that crippled timely and organized responses to the pandemic. Remember the PPE (Protective gear) debacle? Not only were hospitals unable to procure PPE, many of those that did refused to provide adequate gear to protect not only the patients but the health care professionals. I recall early on in New York City that hospital doctors and nurses were not being provided adequate PPE for their own safety, and the few brave individuals who went public with being refused adequate protections were fired from their jobs for speaking publicly about their concerns and the dangers of spreading infectious disease to themselves and their patients.

During this time as well certain New York nursing homes were being paid premium prices for offering beds to Covid patients, and several were caught throwing weak and vulnerable patients out onto the streets in order to fill those beds with the higher paying patients.

Hospitals and nursing homes aren't supposed to be war zones, they're supposed to help the vulnerable, sick, and infirm, regardless of the patients ability to pay. Yet increasingly we are seeing more and more patients getting substandard care all in the name of 'the bottom dollar'. I feel for the doctors, nurses, janitorial staff, et cetera that work in hospitals, they have difficult jobs, and often work in unsafe environments due to understaffing. Increasingly our healthcare professionals answer to insurance companies and corporate CEO's and board members who often know nothing about the nuts and bolts of running safe and sane hospitals and nursing homes. These paragons of industry have reduced people and patients to 'units of use', mere numbers on fiscal charts to dehumanize and justify non payment of claims and/or avoid providing health care to the sick and vulnerable.

In the end many in government and institutions have failed this country. If you think I'm kidding, I'll leave you with a first hand snapshot into healthcare's demise. In 2012 I was wrongfully terminated from my pharmacist job and accused of failing a workplace drug test that was never produced, not to me, nor to the Missouri Board of pharmacy, which resulted in the loss of my entire career. During that time I was instructed to see a 'random' EOP/SAP via the Federal govt Dept of Health and Human services (a psychologist to evaluate me for substance abuse and by extension look out for my well being) Upon entering the psychologists office not only was I not further evaluated, the company had lured me there for further interrogation, which was not only illegal, but a form of entrapment. Luring vulnerable individuals to bogus healthcare facilities to prey on them is against the Geneva Conventions and considered a war crime. I shudder to think how many young men and women in crisis have been lured by criminal healthcare organizations and been taken advantage of. Just think,...

what if one of your vulnerable children were interrogated or preyed upon by such an unscrupulous individual/organization? Not only was the woman unqualified to evaluate me, she wasn't even a certified therapist, I found out through my own research she was a lawyer with close ties to powerful people in D.C. working for an illegal contractor.

In the end most individuals and healthcare professionals are upstanding, caring people.

But just as the aforementioned story illustrates, perhaps we're not that far off from the all out war against hospitals and healthcare professionals in Israel and Gaza, present day.