- Death By Doctor
by Bouneith Inejnema
- Margaret's story is heartbreaking on many levels. Is the family to blame for her death, as they did not respect her wishes of refusing hospital care (she preferred the more natural and effective treatments of the healer who had saved her from sure death)? Is the doctor to blame for giving a frail and sick woman such powerful drugs that, while suppressing pain, also suppress the bodyıs vital functions? Is it the hospital systemıs fault for not ensuring that the doctors, nurses and patients fully know the risks associated with medications (nerve damage, thus the loss of the ability to swallow, is a risk factor for morphine)? The answer is yes to all of these questions, as each party played a role in the death of Margaret.
- Doctors, surgeons and hospitals have been elevated to a sort of divine role for people in contemporary societies, and this is perhaps the greatest health problem facing people today. We would rather entrust our lives to a newly graduated doctor than to an experienced healer, and we would rather take prescriptions that are known to be toxic to our bodies than herbal alternatives which are perhaps more effective and significantly less toxic. The system ensures our compliance to their scheme by providing us medical insurance so that we have minimal out-of-pocket expenses using their system, television and magazine propoganda (how many television shows are we exposed to that feature hospitals or the medical system, such as ER, birthing shows, etc?!) that reinforce our belief in their abilities, and basic education given to the smallest of children (call 911 or an ambulance if someone is in trouble...). The medical system is big business for hosptials, doctors, and insurance and pharmaceutical companies!
"Donıt take me to the hospital, and do not give me their medicines. If you do, they will kill me," Margaret * told her family as she was making a comeback from a serious illness with the help of a traditional healer. "Never take me back there." Unfortunately, some members of Margaretıs immediate family did not take her wishes seriously. When Margaret began feeling pain, instead of calling on the healer who rescued her from deathıs grip a week before, her family members ignored her request and gave her morphine, the intense pain reliever that the doctors had given her the last time she was in the hospital. Margaret very quickly took a dive, and her family rushed her to the hospital as she was unable to swallow, was only half awake, and was unresponsive. The doctors decided that Margaret had less than two days to live and, with the consent of the immediate family and despite the warnings to the contrary by the healer, they pulled her IV that was feeding her, leaving her to die.
The shocking truths about hospitals and the medical system are rarely, if ever, exposed to the general public. A recent study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in Rockville, Maryland, USA, found that over 32,000 Americans are killed every year not by disease, but by injuries and illnesses received at the hospital, such as post-surgical infections due to improper care and the re-opening of wounds. Dr. Chunliu Zhan, a research fellow at the agency, said that these numbers are "just the tip of the iceberg", as most hospital-related deaths were not included in this total.
One devestating error that hospitals make much too often are medication errors, which are known to be the largest single factor in patient injury and/or death. These numbers, however, were conventiently left off of the study by the decisions of Zahn and Dr. Marlene Miller (of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore). One must wonder why Zahn and Miller would opt to leave out such important information in their study, which was published in the October 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Logic tells us that the reason is that the number of deaths caused by hospitals would be overwhelming and would cause the average consumer to think twice about their faith in the medical system. We have walked into ER rooms that contained the left-overs of the previous patient (sometimes including blood, tissue and the infections that go with them!). We have been treated by doctors and nurses who do not always wash their hands when they enter the room, ignoring their lack of hygiene and possibly exposing us to a myriad of diseases. We have taken prescription medications that have left us feeling worse than before we took them... we have seen our loved ones go to the hospital for a minor issue and return in a casket... we have seen, too many times, negligant doctors who directly cause the death of a patient. Yet we continue to worship the hospital system and doctors as our saviors, and we continue to take their medications without second thought, even though we know that medication misdosages and errors are extremely common.
It is time that we wake up to reality. We must understand that, despite their high-tech gadgets and plethora of tests (most of which are unnecessary), the modern healthcare system is primitive and prone to errors, many of them fatal. It is time we took charge of our own health and lives. It is time that we leave the cult of the modern medical system.
