The Healthcare Crisis

Healthcare is over the top in expenses. Doctors taking on to many patients. Giving it free or making it mandatory is extreme and neither will improve anything. Thanks to the wimpiest generation ever, the pharmaceutical company is making tons of money and the doctors have permanent customers. I blame the doctors. Then the idiots who believe everything the doctor says. I understand the doctors learn what they are taught but when did they roll over to simply stop questioning what they are learning? Maybe when they became greedy and big pharma offered bonuses for vaccinations. The Doctors have the power to lower costs and convince the patients there isn't anything wrong instead of cuddling them with an unnecessary prescription.

You think I'm talking out my ass? Let's see.

I care for the elderly. 99% of my clients that I care for are over 70. They all take medication for numerous ailments. This is what I am told. They take one for heart, blood pressure, water pill for starters. Then they take others to alleviate the side effects of these pills. More side effects doesn't mean changing one or eliminating another, they simply add on more pills. Each side effect they were not having previous to these medications now becomes a diagnosis to be cured.

My very first client was an elderly woman with heart disease. On one occasion as she is rushed to the hospital every week for who knows how long, the visiting nurse remarks after my clients repeated complaints about her inability to sleep that 'maybe it is caused from a lack of oxygen' The visiting nurse relays her thoughts about this and the doctor agrees ordering her oxygen. She sleeps. My question is why didn't the doctor catch this?

It did not solve her problem of heart disease and eventually she went back into the hospital. When she came out I could not believe how good she looked! She tells me that the doctor took her off the water pills. The visiting nurse returns to do her medications and sees that there are no water pills. She questions this and my clients tells her about it and which doctor cancelled them. The nurse then calls another doctor to see if he knew about it , I do not know which doctor since she has several she is bounced between. Whichever is on duty at the time. This second doctor says 'NO, she must be on them' so the nurse resumes the water pills. The nurse never described how well she looked and the doctor never questioned the first doctor as to why he decided this, the client never questioned any of them regardless of how she felt without them and everyone went along with it. I questioned it but they both resorted to 'It is what this doctor wants.' She was dead two weeks later.

Then there is the absolutely useless treatment even I, without a medical degree, knows won't work. Doctors use protocol not judgement for individual cases. I must wonder if they even see their patients are individuals anymore? Case in point 'the eye doctor' I have two clients this happened too, both received service through the VA clinic. The difference between them was that one had some eyesight but was in his 90's and the other was blind in his 70's. They bring them in for repeated visits in order to get ready for the eye operation. Removing the cataracs if I'm correct. I questioned why the 90 year old would even be considered while having a heart condition and half of his bowels removed which caused an ambulance to be called at least once a month. But the eye doctor pursued and eventually did the operation while we had to wait weeks for results. It failed. Of course it did. I knew it would. There comes a time when the eyes catch up with the age. And what he went through with drops twice a day he said felt like sandpaper was senseless. I feel the doctor should have saved him the physical discomfort and the medical insurance a great deal of money by just admitting the obvious. Your to old! They won't do that as long as there is a dollar to be made before he dies. False hope to an old man in the doctor's mind was what? Giving him something to live for? I could not understand what that doctor was thinking, recommending it to begin with. He died just over a year later. We won't even go into what the man went through to get to those doctor office visits that were in another town altogether.

The second man as I mentioned was blind in his 70's and the same clinic first gave him glasses in hopes to improve the darkness while they prepared for the same operation as the first. Since I administered his eye drops I could clearly see one eye almost looked normal but the second eye was gone, blue and again I am not the least bit medically knowledgeable but I knew in my heart of hearts they were wasting their time. All of the clients I had that went through the procedure could see something, it was just that the cataracts made it blurry. But this one was completely blind. Should have thought about this procedure when he was first losing his sight, don't ya think? Instead they play around with drops, glasses and then after blackness became his world they suggest this operation. Think it worked? We will never know because after several useless visits he died of cancer before it could be done. Think someone should have told the eye doctor that he had terminal cancer?

So here the medical insurance or VA is paying for heart conditions, bowel issues, many diabetes, liver and even eye treatment. All by different doctors who never consults one another. Everyone earns money except the poor bastards going through it all and going only closer to the grave.

Then there are those who will never change their lifestyle anyway but the doctors keep on going through procedures at the expense and irritations of the patients. Some things need to be told directly and maybe then the patient would take them more serious. I think that as long as these doctors give false hope by expressing a cure somewhere down the line these people simply wait for the cure. Case in point is another woman in her 70's on dialysis from years of alcohol abuse. Without it she will die so this is obviously necessary. I watch the woman buy vodka bottles, smoke cigarettes and barely eat. This is easy for a doctor to discover through blood tests and questions. Your blood shows that you smoke just by the dark red coloring. If she lies about this certainly she could be lying about everything. But let's say she is honest and says I'm trying to quit. I only have an occasional drink. I am not always hungry but I eat something dailey. This person is unlikely to receive a donor. In fact with other ailments and age included she won't get a new kidney. But for some reason they want her travelling a long distance to do tests to find what they need to match her later with a donor kidney. I am thinking what could they possibly do there that can not be done at the local hospital and why not tell her the truth 'until you quit smoking you won't be able to have the operation' and wait until she quits. Instead she sees it as years away and she could quit by then. Is this what the doctor is realistically hoping for while costing the insurance a great amount of money for unusable tests in the end. If she miraculously had a kidney available they would not be able to do the operation due to her health condition and lifestyle. Do they really think at the age of 70 she will change her habits, improve her health and survive what it takes during this major operation? They tell her two years until her name would come up on the list but if a 19 year old was below her what are the odds she won't be skipped. Realistically. I highly doubt a doctor takes the word of an alcoholic whose been smoking for fifty years. So why give false hope and waste everyone's time and money. A lot of money!

I think if you can help a person, save a person you are as a physician obligated to do so but be real about it if you know it will be in vein.

The way to lower costs and give quality care is by stopping the 'false hope' ideology. It isn't cruel, it is the truth. No one needs to see a doctor because a child has a cold or the flu. So why do doctors encourage it? Having a checkup once a year is almost futile because eight weeks later they could suffer a heart attack. I'm saying that if someone isn't feeling all that great have a checkup but if they say 'I feel great' what is the purpose? You can not prevent cancer, a sudden heart attack or a stroke. I've seen people have these things and are at the doctors every year without fail. The person going to see a doctor should have a reason, watch their diet, slow down bad habits. A doctor is just a educated man in a chosen field not a medical miracle who holds all the answers. I haven't even touched the mental illness area, just the physical. You can read my other blogs on that to see where big pharma, doctors and people just keep fucking it all up for a buck paid and a vacation in the Bahamas trade off.

1. No more treating everyone for a mental illness. Cut the meds!

2. Doctors start looking at cases individually

3. People start taking care of yourself and stop going to seek help for the obvious common ailments.

Remember when people only went to a doctor when something was wrong?