Paying for medical care:
As Michael Moore has made clear to us in Sicko, taking care of your health is more then just going to the doctor when you are sick. It may lead to you getting better faster, but it will cause more financial problems down the road. In America we have a system where the health care companies want to make money off of us by denying our care when we really need it. As nearly 45 million citizens of the mighty United States, can we really say we care for our people? Dr. Paul Farmer ran a clinic in Haiti, mostly for free. "My local hospital in Massachusetts was treating about 175,00 patients a year and had an annual operating budget of $60 million. In 1999 Zanmi Lasante had treated roughly the same number of people, at the medical complex and out in the communities, and spent about $1.5 million, half of that in the form of donated drugs." (p.22). He proved that quality health care can be provided for much cheaper then it is at this current moment. It is more about making money here then it is healing the sick.
Facing Terminal Illness:
It is overwhelming to find out that all you have known now has a timeline. It puts everything into priority. When you find out that in six months everything you had and worked for your entire life will be what people will remember you by, you feel like you need more. You want to surround yourself with the people you love. Beth Burnett shared her story of how she watched her husband die of metastatic kidney cancer. He went from "Movie star handsome to skin and bones," as she said. What was even worse was that when her children needed a strong male role model, they had a father who couldn't walk or talk. It wasn't his fault, but he dying. But he was able to die with dignity in his home. According to And A Time To Die by Sharon Kaufman 1/4Th of all hospitalized patients die in the ICU or cardiac care. It takes away from the process of dying. To have to listen to your heart beat slowly fade on a beeping machine seems inhumane. But these people who come to the hospital for help with their terminal illness end up dying there because they can't be taken off of the machine.
The Process of Dying:
Is there such a thing as dying with dignity? You either die young and for some stupid reason, or old and hooked up to some machine. I have only heard of one story of a man who died a dignified death. He went about his day as normal, went to be with a book, read it, put it aside turned off the lights, fell asleep and then died in his sleep, completely peaceful. In Near Death, the Film, there are doctors who change a man's medication so that he looks better for his family for when they come to visit him. There are doctors who are 25-30 who are pronouncing a woman dead, but leave her body there for when her family get there, so they can see her. According to And A Time To Die by Sharon Kaufman more Americans die in hospitals then anywhere else. So where is the line between dying in peace and dying attached to a machine while being scrutinized by doctors. Well it seems pretty clear now. I can't say I can speak from experience but why would people subject themselves to this kind of torture if it is only for a few more days or weeks of life, but it is attached to a machine? It just doesn't feel natural to me.
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