Originally published August 7 2012
Medical establishment too dysfunctional to correct simple problems
by Willow Tohi
(NaturalNews) A few months ago, a simple breakdown in communication between doctors led to the death of a 12-year-old boy in New York. Approximately 100,000 people die each year as a result of errors in hospitals, according to a decade-old national panel. In addition to breakdowns in communication, patients continue to be harmed or killed by medical shortcuts and inadequate training. Germs and errors combined make going to the hospital the fourth leading cause of death in this country.
Other large industries, such as the airline industry, have come to rely on a series of safety checklists that act as a safety net. The Infallible Doctor complex has prevented the medical community from following suit. There are hundreds of cases that have been publicized of a similar nature: unfathomable mistakes (such as operating on the wrong body part) at medical facilities, resulting in ridiculously obvious solutions (identify the correct body part before starting the procedure), that are then ignored or found to be ineffective.
Communication breakdown
The New York boy was sent from the hospital with a raging infection, and neither his personal doctor nor his family were notified of his lab results. Last week, four months after his death, the medical center involved has decided to adopt new procedures in response, such as doctors should be notified immediately of abnormal lab results, and the hospital should call the patient and his doctor if he has already been sent home. Really? This is what they came up with after four months? Has the medical establishment gotten so large, so bureaucratic, that they need to form Common Sense committees and procedurize basic, common communication and human courtesies?
It's not stupidity or maliciousness that leads to the shocking problems in the medical industry. It comes from the culture of an institution. Who owns the responsibility to make sure common sense is observed, that communication happens between collaborating doctors and facilities? Are we ready to demand that doctors realize that they too are human, and need some checks and balances to protect patients, as well as themselves?
Conflict of interest
Cancer is a billion dollar industry. Almost every proposition regarding cancer put on any ballot, passes. With so much money, Big Pharma and their lobbyists in Washington have far too much control and influence on the medical system in America. And their profits depend on America's ill health. The medical industry went from merely dysfunctional to actually harmful when the Supreme Court ruled on the Citizen's Untied case, giving personhood status to corporations. Now it reflects the corporate culture of caste system privilege, enslavement to corporate product and profit, along with indifference to the lower classes. Medical mishaps are merely opportunities for more treatment.
The Hippocratic Oath, historically taken by physicians, physician assistants, and other healthcare professionals upon completion of their credentials, swears to practice medicine ethically and honestly. It says, in part, that the practitioner swears to "never do harm to anyone." It goes on to swear against "deadly medicine" and not "cutting for stone" - a.k.a. invasive surgery. How could anyone possibly keep this oath in the current system? What prescription does no harm? What invasive procedure is completely harmless?
In a world with a rich history of safe, effective, inexpensive medical alternatives, the establishment seems to think medicine isn't viable unless it is a synthetic, toxic pill made by unscrupulous pharmaceutical giants. And even with the overwhelming evidence that the medical culture has devolved to be more about money and power than curing illness, we are now required to be a part of the broken, ineffective, dysfunctional mess.
The awareness that you and you alone benefit from your own health should motivate you to self-education and exercising your right of personal choice. Medical "science" tries to convince us that there is only one treatment for any given health challenge, but that is simply untrue. But you have to be willing to stand against the authoritarian dissent of the establishment and its followers; go against the flow, and accept the personal responsibility of your own health. It's either that or get in the chute with the other sheep.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.propublica.org
http://docmalerba.com/2012/01/an-occupy-movement-for-big-medicine/
http://www.naturalnews.com
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