These people who take on emergency medicine are the guardians of the populace, often working 12 to 36 hour shifts with only scattered breaks and downtimes. The healthcare crisis has seeped into this most vital section of medicine as well, dealing terrible damage to provider as well as recipient. The worst part is that is such dramas go on behind closed doors, and are well hidden within confusing medical jargon in reams of paperwork and digital files.
Where did it go wrong? When did we stop being healers? And what have we become, instead? In times past, the healer was an integral part of the community. A neighbor, a relative, a friend, the root of an archetype – these people were not some exalted personality to be paid grand sums for their interventions. Healing was a lifelong quest, sometimes handed down through families, sometimes a matter of a child chosen for early aptitudes shown. This archetype has worn many faces, from medicine man in tribal society to the “granny women of the American South. These individuals all had in common a very real dedication to their art, a formidable knowledge base of local herbs and treatments - genuine skill practiced with care, and often carried out hand in hand with religious practice. Healing was a working of the soul, a means to better those around them. At some point in the more recent past, medicine became a more organized and regulated affair, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it did set the stage for the departure from an informal healing to what would later evolve into detached “treatment”. But the imagery of the healer archetype in its various incarnations is alive and well in marketing tactics worldwide. The imagery of the sort of one-on-one care that really isn’t available is projected on billboards and television ads daily, and is so ubiquitous despite the obvious mislead that it goes unnoticed. That said, there are still doctors who make house calls these days, servicing patients who are too sick or disabled to travel to offices, but not sick or disabled enough to require 24-7 care in a nursing facility. They generally don’t operate as a private practice, however. Most are part of a homecare specialty service. The face of the healer is but a mask, behind which usually lurks corporate interests of one sort or another. Medicine is big money, whether or not the patient survives the treatment.
Patients have changed too. Most emergency room and doctor’s office visits aren’t a simple treat and release affair, such as a sore throat or broken limb, but more often; chronic complaints such as respiratory issues, mental disorders, and various body pain secondary to other disease processes. Many of these “frequent fliers” do not follow the medication and treatment guidelines suggested by the doctors that see them, nor do they follow up with their own doctor after a visit to the emergency room. When the complaint resurfaces, they return to the emergency room again rather than make an appointment with their own doctor. It becomes a continuous cycle. And there are several reasons that may weigh into the decision to return to the emergency room rather than make the appointment with the primary care doctor. Often, the primary care doctor cannot schedule an appointment right away. This is a deal breaker for the patient who has run out of pain medication. They are most likely to not bother to try and schedule an appointment at all the next time they run out. It’s easier to sit in the emergency room’s waiting area for a few hours than a few weeks. Also, patients are not required to shell out a co-pay to be seen at an emergency room, unlike the doctor’s office – and that might be a greater incentive to forgo that appointment altogether. In recent years, emergency room traffic nationwide has seen record numbers, and most facilities have become overcrowded with extended wait times, hospitals are now becoming run by corporations, cutting staff and amenities to counter losses – putting patients with genuinely critical conditions at increased risk, sometimes with grievous outcomes. But is the medical industry really addressing this? A better question to ask might be, “Is it in their financial interest to do so?”
No, it isn’t. Patients that get well and return to their normal routines do not return and spend thousands more on diagnostic testing and treatment, prescription medications, surgeries, or outpatient procedures. When corporations run hospitals and clinics based on financial planners, the bottom line is billing. That kind of business world mentality is not new to medical care – it is the same sort of machinery that has taken over many, if not all extended care facilities and nursing homes. Prices are increased, staffing is cut, supplies and equipment are minimally stocked and replaced, even food services are delegated to the lowest bidder, without regard to quality. It reads like a morning “to do” list. Years ago, regulatory agencies were created to enforce minimum standards for care at such facilities, as well as hospitals and clinics. Many of these still exist, but given the opportunity to observe the same lapses repeatedly, one begins to wonder to what degree they are interested in enforcing legal standards. Especially when complaints are dismissed without investigation. I can tell you of several such complaints…
I’ve always been making things. I’ve never been drawn to a single medium – anything I could get my hands on has always been fair game. Somewhat reserved, I have a cartoonish running commentary going on in my head at all times. Perhaps it’s a coping mechanism. I decided to become a paramedic in 1997, after losing faith in the hope that I could make a living doing art. I’d spent 8 years in the Halloween industry, designing and prototyping masks and props. I loved the genre, and loved the work. But the industry fell apart in the late 1990’s, as US manufacturers were increasingly unable to keep up with cheap merchandise being produced in other parts of the world. I had hoped to do “something that mattered”, if not art. My artwork was and is fused with my sense of identity, healthy or not – and stepping away from that required a replacement that I could reinvent an identity that I could live with. It was a job that paid regularly, and made me hireable anywhere. I had such grand plans.
After fifteen years, I’ve seen horrors and miracles. I’ve tried to intervene when I saw abuse, when I could. I’m leaving the EMS world a different person, a jaded, angry person who feels betrayed by the ideals I did my best to uphold. I saw numerous failures in the system, and have been outraged to find that contacting the agencies charged with protecting against such failures refused to act, shifted the responsibility, did not respond, or in a few cases, threatened legal action if the complaint was pursued further. I’m not willing to sigh and “let it slide”.
The spoken word almost feels like a second language to me. Vaguely foreign, never comfortable, limited to those who understand its specific dialect. Image comes easier, and transcends boundaries of language, age, and more. My work will be such a form of storytelling, using stop motion animation, live footage, still image, and voiceover.
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Bibliography:
The Animation Survival Guide – Richard Williams
99 Ways to Tell A Story – Matt Madden
The Animation Book – Kit Leybourn
Ray Harryhausen’s Fantasy Scrapbook – Ray Harryhausen, Tony Dalton.
The Art Of Ray Harryhausen – Ray Harryhausen