Health Care

Decent Health Care Requires Dignified Attention To Each Patient

August 19, 2022 Richard Pithouse, People's Dispatch. Strategize! Dignity, Health Care, Poverty, South Africa

Many of the people that I spoke to in the shacklands of Johannesburg and Durban said something that resonated with what I hear from the poor in Indian villages. When I asked why they didn’t go to the public hospital next door and instead chose to go to a private clinic, they would say they don’t feel respected in the public hospital and do not get dignified attention. This is exactly what I hear from the poor in India, who would often take loans they can’t easily repay to be able to visit a private clinic when they could have received the same drugs from a doctor in a public hospital. The questions of respect and dignity are often overlooked but they are fundamental. Struggling for this crucial aspect of quality of healthcare in our public facilities is a key challenge for health rights activists.

Clinicians Strike Against ‘Separate And Unequal’ Mental Health Care

August 17, 2022 Cal Winslow, Labor Notes. Resist! Health Care, Kaiser Permanente, Strike, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

California - Thousands of Northern California Kaiser Permanente mental health clinicians, members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), are on strike. Their goal is to compel Kaiser to put an end to the gaping disparity in the care it provides for physical vs. mental health conditions. Patients are forced to wait months before they can start therapy. The union reports that psychologists, therapists, and social workers are quitting in frustration. Kaiser has been fined by state regulators and sued by local prosecutors for its lack of mental health care. It is now facing a new state investigation following a sharp rise in patient complaints last year. Kaiser also has failed to comply with a new state law requiring follow-up mental health therapy appointments be provided within 10 business days.

Monkeypox Is A Workers’ Rights Issue

August 17, 2022 S. E. Smith , In These Times. Educate! Health Care, Monkeypox, Worker Rights and Jobs

As of early this week, over 11,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The virus that causes the disease, which many cities and towns have now declared a public health emergency, spreads through close personal contact, but in certain cases it can reportedly also transmit through contact with surfaces infected people have touched. As of early this week, over 11,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The virus that causes the disease, which many cities and towns have now declared a public health emergency, spreads through close personal contact, but in certain cases it can reportedly also transmit through contact with surfaces infected people have touched. While there are still many unanswered questions regarding monkeypox, some troubling dynamics are already coming into clear view: The recommended quarantine period for those infected is far longer than that of Covid-19 cases, meaning those who contract the virus will either have to take substantial time off the job — often not a viable option for those without paid sick leave — or risk going to work while infected.

Brazil’s Health Workers Vow To Save Public Healthcare In The Country

August 17, 2022 Thalita Pires, People's Dispatch. Resist! Brazil, Health Care, Healthcare workers

Hundreds of health activists participated at the Free, Democratic and Popular Health Conference, organized by Frente pela Vida (Front for Life) on August 5 in São Paulo. Health workers, managers, social and political leaders, researchers and public health experts from various parts of the country discussed a health agenda for Brazil. The nation is currently facing challenges including the lack of funding for the Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde, SUS) and accumulated problems due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was attended by former president and current presidential candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In his speech, Lula reaffirmed that he intends to revoke the spending cap in the federal budget, which has been in force in Brazil since 2016. “Between 2018 and 2022, the spending cap—which takes from the poor to give to the rich—has already taken R$36.9 billion (approximately USD$7.2 billion) from the federal health budget.

The Stealth Plan For Medicare For All

August 14, 2022 Rick Staggenborg, OpEd News. Educate! Congress, Health Care, Medicare for all

Some advocates of a publicly funded universal health care system have predicted that its creation is inevitable because of the "death spiral" of insurance costs. This term refers to the fact that as costs of insurance rise, fewer people can afford it, leading to a new round of rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs. If this cycle were allowed to continue indefinitely, it would be only a matter of time before the medical insurance industry priced its product out of existence. In a rational world, this simple fact would lead Congress to do what every other industrialized nation has done; create a publicly funded system of universal health care either through a government-run system such as Medicare for All, or through a tightly regulated system of non-profit insurers that offer a defined benefit package specified by the government, as in Germany.

Inside Nicaragua’s Free Socialized Health-Care System

August 13, 2022 Becca Mohally Renk, Multipolarista. Create! Health Care, Nicaragua, Sandinista Revolution, Socialism

We’re settling in to our daughter Orla’s sixth night in the hospital. Visiting hours are over and only 10 of the beds in our 32-bed pediatric ward are occupied tonight, down from 20 a few nights ago. The patients – mostly young teens in our room – are tucked in under mosquito nets. Their caretakers – mainly grandmas, aunts and moms – are slouched in chairs or curled around their patients on the beds. A few of us stretch out on unoccupied beds to get some rest before the nurse turns on the lights for the next regular blood pressure and temp check. Our 14 year-old was admitted to the pediatric ward with dengue fever on July 19th, Revolution Day in Nicaragua. Poor Orla sobbed in disappointment that she wouldn’t be able to celebrate the holiday.

Black Women Will Face The Brunt Of Abortion Bans

August 10, 2022 Princella Talley, In These Times. Organize! Abortion, Black America, Black Women, Health Care

On July 29, Louisiana reinstated a controversial abortion ban, which led to the immediate cancellation of procedures in the state. Following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in late June, a number of states across the country have moved to outlaw abortion, and in Louisiana, women in poverty will bear the worst burdens of the newly reinstated ban. These women are the true experts regarding the fatal risks of taking away reproductive freedom in the state — not anti-abortion politicians. The politicians gutting abortion rights likely don’t understand the pain of holding a friend as she sobs on the bathroom floor, assuming it’s the worst menstrual cycle of her life, only to discover that she is experiencing a missed miscarriage and her life is at stake. But I do.

Inequities In Access To COVID-19 Medical Products Continue

August 6, 2022 People's Health Dispatch. Educate! COVID-19, Health Care, Medicines, Vaccine apartheid

COVID-19 cases persist all over the world, causing special concern in regions where vaccination rates are low due to inequities in access to vaccines. As the pandemic continues, analyses of the global response continue to point out the dangers of the predominant multi-stakeholder driven campaigns. One of the latest in line of such analyses is a report published by Transnational Institute and Friends of the Earth International in July. It zooms into how transnational corporations (TNCs) seized the opportunity to gain more power over international institutions and expand markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the launch of the report, Lauren Paremoer from the People’s Health Movement underlined that the capture of the multilateral system by TNCs and private philanthropies was already underway before the pandemic, but the extraordinary circumstances led to an unanticipated expansion.

Fighting For Healthcare Means Fighting For Socialism

August 6, 2022 Mike Pappas, Left Voice. Resist! Capitalism, Democrats, Health Care, Medicare for all

On July 30 activists marched and rallied in Washington, DC, calling for a more humane healthcare system. Physician and Left Voice member Mike Pappas spoke at the rally about how capitalism and health aren’t compatible. Below is the text from his speech. Hi, everyone. My name is Mike, and I’m a healthcare worker in New York City. I work at the nation’s first overdose-prevention center and at a psychedelic-medicine clinic. Before this, I worked in both a federally qualified health center and a hospital in New York. I’m also a member of Left Voice, a revolutionary socialist group with a publication that is part of an international network of news sites. To start out — and this should be no surprise to anyone — but just in case, I’m going to be really blunt and make things real clear: our healthcare system is a piece of shit that doesn’t remotely foster health or well-being.

Protest Demands Biden Administration Terminate Medicare Privatization

August 5, 2022 Tim Wheeler, People's World. Resist! Health Care, Medicare, Privatization, Washington

Seattle, Washington - Approximately 75 spirited protesters celebrated the 57th anniversary of the enactment of Medicare here on Friday, July 29, with a picket line and rally outside the Columbia Center chanting, “Whose Medicare? Our Medicare!” and “Medicare is not for profit! Keep your corporate hands off it!” The Columbia Center is where the Northwest Regional Director of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Ingrid Ulrey, has offices, along with other staff of HHS, including the Division Director of the Center for Medicare Services (CMS). The protesters demanded that President Joe Biden and Congress terminate ACO REACH, which stands for Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health. It’s an impressive sounding name, but it amounts to letting a profit-seeking third party like an insurance company or private equity-backed firm step in and get paid by Medicare to manage the care patients receive.

Major Mask Maker 3M Found To Have Harmed 200,000 Troops

August 4, 2022 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. Resistance Report COVID-19, Health Care, US military

Once upon a time there was a company called 3M. You might recall that name because everybody loved them when they made a billion face masks during the pandemic. Remember at the beginning everybody was like, “Where are we gonna get enough face masks?! We need roughly a quadrillion and the entire US only has... seven. What are we gonna do?” So people were wearing all kinds of weird shit on their faces. And then a few companies like 3M said, “We got it. We’re national heroes. We’re like the dudes who landed on the moon.” And I was like, “No you aren’t! You’re fuckin’ making a boatload of cash. You’re not sacrificing your life, running into enemy fire with a knife between your teeth. No, you saw that you could make a trillion dollars by pumping out face masks. Stop acting like you cured polio with a third grade chemistry set.

Kaiser Permanente Therapists To Strike

August 3, 2022 Jessica Goodheart, Capital and Main. Resist! California, Health Care, Kaiser Permanente, mental health, Walkout, Worker Rights and Jobs

California - Mental health workers at Kaiser Permanente announced plans Tuesday for an open-ended strike that could lead as many as 2,000 Northern California mental health workers to curtail appointments beginning on Aug. 15. The announcement came in response to frustration with the level of service provided to patients at the nation’s largest nonprofit HMO, which Capital & Main reported on in a recent story. As a result of understaffing, patients who should receive weekly therapy are waiting months to start treatment and as long as two months between appointments in violation of clinical guidelines, according to a statement released by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which represents the workers. (Disclosure: NUHW is a financial supporter of this website.)

COVID Ignites Long Fight For Health Care In California Prisons

July 31, 2022 Olivia Campbell, Convergence. Resist! California, COVID-19, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Health Care

California - The COVID pandemic has thrown a harsh light on long-running medical neglect of incarcerated people and exposed the hold that the prison-industrial complex has on California politics. But even as it has done so, it has made openings for activism by and on behalf of the nearly 100,000 people in the state’s prisons, among whom people of color are dramatically overrepresented. California’s state prisons are once again in the midst of a COVID-19 crisis. In Winter 2020, cumulative infections among the incarcerated population topped 45,000, and cases reached over 10,000 in a single day. One year later, the highly contagious omicron variant swept through all the institutions, with cases topping 6,000 in a single day. No sooner had that outbreak subsided than a new wave of cases hit.

Healthcare Profits: Montefiore Hospital Closes Bronx Center

July 30, 2022 Mike Pappas , Left Voice. Resist! Corporatism, Health Care, Healthcare workers, New York (NY)

Montefiore Hospital System is set to close its Family Health Center (FHC) at 1 Fordham Plaza which has provided primary care to a community in the Bronx for over 30 years. At the same time, Montefiore is slated to open a large, upscale primary care clinic for wealthy patients living around Hudson Yards. This is healthcare under capitalism: shut down primary care in poor areas serving patients of color and instead open more profitable centers in wealthy areas serving predominantly white patients. The FHC has been providing primary care services to over tens of thousands of low-income residents in the surrounding community, most of whom are Black and Brown/Latinx. The center also is one of the primary training locations of the Family Medicine department’s Family and Social Medicine Residency outpatient training program.

Junior Doctors In The UK Protest Government Disregard

July 29, 2022 People's Dispatch. Resist! Health Care, National Health System, United Kingdom (UK), Worker Rights and Jobs

On Monday, July 25, junior doctors in London organized a protest march in the city demanding a pay rise. Under the banner of the Doctors Vote campaign, they took out a march from the Department of Health and Social Care Office to Downing Street. The doctors warned of more actions, including strikes, unless their long pending demand for pay restoration is met. Doctors from the British Medical Association (BMA), Doctors’ Association UK, and trade unionists and activists from Unite the union, Unison, Socialist Party, and others also took part in the protest march in solidarity with the junior doctors. Working class sections across the UK, including medical staff, have been facing an acute cost of living crisis marked by skyrocketing fuel and food prices.

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