This unit overall was I feel, quite enlightening. I’ve lived across the street from a nursing home for my entire life, but other than that I have rarely come in contact with terminal illness and dying. Therefore I found it intriguing to look deeper into the subject. It seems that, like most of our dominant practices, there is a downside to illness and dying. The ill are sometimes “ill” catered to and ignored. Because of the American health care system, those who need the most insurance are denied, all because of profit incentives. After watching Sicko, I was thoroughly convinced of socialized medicine as the answer to our problems, as Michael Moore intended. After reading Ben’s further research, it does seem like it would be more beneficial than our current health care system. However, I am not sure if it is molded for the controversial opinions of Americans.
Aside from the health care debate, this unit pushed towards the enjoyment of life. Reading all of the packets about death anxiety and dying in a hospital, it seemed that those who most welcomed death felt that they had lived fulfilled lives. When asked in class if we would be satisfied with our lives if we were to die at that instant, barely anyone raised their hand. Maybe it would have been nice if someone brought up that point earlier, but then again, it is not too late, we’re young. And then again, dying in a hospital seemed to bring on so much more suffering, why is that? A hospital is a place you go to get well, it would seem that if they could not make you well, they would still attempt to make your situation as comfortable as possible, but they do not. We waste so much of our money on trying to keep people alive who have no chance instead of helping those who die of curable diseases. Our country needs to sort out its priorities. Maybe if people were more accepting of death, or led more fulfilling lives, they would not feel the need for life support. They could then die comfortably at home, leaving the attention of the hospitals for those who really need it.
I liked the way you were able to connect this unit to your thoughts about certain health-related aspects of life in the future. I also really liked the way you used evidence from other peoples blogs in order to support the conclusions of your own opinions. "Our country needs to sort out its priorities." This was a very interesting line to me, because in my opinion, it seems like the country already has sorted out its priorities for health care. They just are not beneficial for most people in America.
ReplyDeleteI think you've summarized the problem areas concerning death and dying in our culture. You are definitely right that socialized medicine is a hard sell in this country, especially when the Republicans are the majority in the House of Representitives. I still hope we come around to having the government pay for health care instead of having it be a means of insurance and drug companies making huge profits. Your other big point about ideally having people feel that they have had fufilled lives so that when they reach the age of 75 or so, they are more accepting of death and their time to go. Staying alive on life support with no quality of life whatsoever is so depressing and such a waste. People should go home to die. Most of us wouldn't put a dying dog on life support. We would just make it as comfortable as possible. I hope everyone will hold me to this belief when my time comes.
ReplyDeleteAs a citizen of Sweden with one of the best social health care institution in the world i totally agree with you. As a son of the swedish social democracy I am used to tax paying of swedish citizens to keep the health care going, although as you mention it is questionable whether a people that are used to take care of themselves rather than paying for others ar willing to change.
ReplyDeleteNatalie,
ReplyDeleteMakes sense to me.
You evinced a bit more attention to language in this post, such as the little joke about "ill". Since you did that one, I hoped for a little joke about "life support" or some other shaping of the words flow so that it splashes a bit more.