Public Health care superior. A laugh when visiting the hospital. .

The sickness industrial complex. Profit rules. Public health care is superior.

I had to go down to the hospital today. Increasing signs of mortality burst to the surface every now and then and demand attention. But I learn a lot with each episode and I enjoy the sharing and solidarity that exists in the public hospital. There is a humane attitude amongst the staff in the public hospital which does not exist in the private for profit hospitals. This is because in the main they are not there for dollars but because they live and work for their vocation, that is to help people. And I always get the odd laugh.

The other week I was registering. As I did so I read the joke the clerk had pinned behind her desk. Mr and Mrs Johnston apparently had come the previous week to see the doctor. Mr Johnston was very ill. The doctor saw them both together. After some discussion and questions the doctor asked Mr Johnston could he leave for a few minutes so he could talk to Mrs. Johnston alone. Mr Johnston was not happy about this but he did what he was asked.

"Mrs. Johnston," the doctor said, "Your husband is very very ill. You are going to have to help him out. Whatever he wants, whatever meal he wants you will have to cook for him, whatever he wants to drink you will have to get for him, if he wants a massage you will have to give it to him, if he wants sex you will have to be there for him, whatever he wants. If you do not do this he will be dead in six months."

Now Mrs Johnston was a bit shocked. She rejoined her husband outside the doctors office. Mr Johnston could not restrain himself. "What did he say? What did he say?" Mrs Johnston did not speak for a few minutes. Her expression showed she was deep in thought. "What did he say? What did he say?" Mr Johnston said again. Mrs Johnston looked up this time and slowly gave her husband the news: "He said you will be dead in six months."

Anyway to the point. I have been in private hospitals with my chronic illness. There you are treated as a source of profit. Get you in and get you out and get as much out of your wallet as possible. If by chance you end up in their emergency room and you have no insurance they will get you out of there so fast your head will spin. I was very ill some years ago. With the help of a friend I figured out I might have Addisons disease. Without treatment this is fatal. With treatment you can live a long life.

I was having blackouts before I was diagnosed and treated. I would wake up in the emergency rooms of private for profit hospitals not knowing how I got there. Somebody would have called the paramedics. At one of these I said to the doctors I thought I might have Addisons disease. "No, No, there is no chance of that." And they put me out. A couple of weeks later I had another blackout and ended up this time in the emergency room of the public hospital. They diagnosed me with Addisons in a couple of hours and kept me in until I was stabilized and put on the proper medicine. This public hospital saved my life. I had Addisons disease and was in danger of dying. The private for profit hospital would not diagnose me because if they had they would have had to treat me and this would have cost them some of their profits. So they denied I had Addisons and put me out. So much for the profit motive in the health industrial complex. The public option was shown to be superior. It saved my life. For free pubic health care for all. Take the profit motive out of health care.

Sean