An old post , if changed to another current one , could still be apt for the times .
My prayers and sympathies are with all those who suffer, sick and the dying and those who care for them ...
In times when compassion seems to be lost in the face of greed , it is hard to not go back to past thoughts and to review life's many events and what shaped us through time .
Hence i am re-posting this
Ebola on our shores
One of the books I read as a child had a title akin to" myths and legends of the land". There is a story in the book about small pox- about goddess small pox; an angry narcissistic demanding goddess,(almost like the NRA) especially wrath-ful if she is not venerated enough... So she throws her deadly garland from the sky to fall on the rational nonbeliever who repents in his delirium , is how I think the story went, or could be how I read it...
When I first saw the picture of the Ebola virus, I thought of the garland, the deadly garland., I guess the difference being whether a DNA virus or an RNA virus.
Now that the garland has fallen to us, I wonder how it is going to evolve.
There are a few scenarios that play in my mind. In the ideal world scenario, every person has a conscience and is compassionate to others. So each contact self isolates , informs their doctor( who is competent and dedicated) , who then gets the systems(also well thought out and competent) and protocols moving, and all get treated well and equally, with dignity and care despite their color , creed , gender or financial status. But this is America, not Utopia, so.... may be that explains gun toting guards and not appropriate containment measures at the origination site.......
In our multi-layered communities and in the face of the stratified health care system , there is the need for a re-adjustment of conscience and care to contain this Ebola garland. In our health care system , a wonderfully nuanced and mostly invisibly stratified one, there are various ways this will all play out, even as the media ladles out its share of fear or misplaced security , with a dash of venom here and dash of disdain there...
The invisible and at times visible stratification of care is so great that, the ' who, where and what' matters the most- who is the patient,where are you at, what is the extent of your knowledge in health matters, who decides for your care, who sitting at a phone or computer screen decides to approve or deny your care, who stands to gain(not health wise but financially -of course) etc.
I have to say one is lucky if one has a competent team caring for you and the insurance god has mercy- that is where it all depends...
So when all is divyed up and the mistakes covered up, those that is not covered up exposed and executed in public by the media, the Ebola garland would have already gifted itself to many, some through sheer incompetence, but most through lack of compassionate care in this healthcare market, where the patient is always the forgotten one (or in this case the targeted one)... May be , just may be, this will make the health system to correct itself, may be this will awken the compassion, 'the do no harm' tenet - oh just a 'may be' that I dream for ,watching waste of resources poured into the wrong end of things every day in the health care land...ah the 'may be's....
My prayers and sympathies are with all those who suffer, sick and the dying and those who care for them ...
In times when compassion seems to be lost in the face of greed , it is hard to not go back to past thoughts and to review life's many events and what shaped us through time .
Hence i am re-posting this
Ebola on our shores
One of the books I read as a child had a title akin to" myths and legends of the land". There is a story in the book about small pox- about goddess small pox; an angry narcissistic demanding goddess,(almost like the NRA) especially wrath-ful if she is not venerated enough... So she throws her deadly garland from the sky to fall on the rational nonbeliever who repents in his delirium , is how I think the story went, or could be how I read it...
When I first saw the picture of the Ebola virus, I thought of the garland, the deadly garland., I guess the difference being whether a DNA virus or an RNA virus.
Now that the garland has fallen to us, I wonder how it is going to evolve.
There are a few scenarios that play in my mind. In the ideal world scenario, every person has a conscience and is compassionate to others. So each contact self isolates , informs their doctor( who is competent and dedicated) , who then gets the systems(also well thought out and competent) and protocols moving, and all get treated well and equally, with dignity and care despite their color , creed , gender or financial status. But this is America, not Utopia, so.... may be that explains gun toting guards and not appropriate containment measures at the origination site.......
In our multi-layered communities and in the face of the stratified health care system , there is the need for a re-adjustment of conscience and care to contain this Ebola garland. In our health care system , a wonderfully nuanced and mostly invisibly stratified one, there are various ways this will all play out, even as the media ladles out its share of fear or misplaced security , with a dash of venom here and dash of disdain there...
The invisible and at times visible stratification of care is so great that, the ' who, where and what' matters the most- who is the patient,where are you at, what is the extent of your knowledge in health matters, who decides for your care, who sitting at a phone or computer screen decides to approve or deny your care, who stands to gain(not health wise but financially -of course) etc.
I have to say one is lucky if one has a competent team caring for you and the insurance god has mercy- that is where it all depends...
So when all is divyed up and the mistakes covered up, those that is not covered up exposed and executed in public by the media, the Ebola garland would have already gifted itself to many, some through sheer incompetence, but most through lack of compassionate care in this healthcare market, where the patient is always the forgotten one (or in this case the targeted one)... May be , just may be, this will make the health system to correct itself, may be this will awken the compassion, 'the do no harm' tenet - oh just a 'may be' that I dream for ,watching waste of resources poured into the wrong end of things every day in the health care land...ah the 'may be's....
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