Healthcare--service delivery, insurance, portability, coverage--is serious business. However, even in the face of life-and-death decisions, occasionally a beam of levity emerges. Often, it seems even funnier because of the extremem alternative. Here are some examples:
1. Check out the Summer 2009 Lahey Clinic magazine (they didn't print a URL in the issue, so you will have to root around on the Internet). In New England, the Lahey Clinic is one of the top medical empires, rivaling even esteemed Mass General Hospital. But, in the article entitled, "New Wing To Open This Summer", white-haired white men in suits are pictured as the drivers behind the project. But, the hilarious--if pathetic--photos attest to the lack of understanding these senior executives have about the needs--and interests--of their patient base.
There are five non-people photos. The first shows the building. This is, of course, an example of the navel-gazing vision of 19th-century New England mill owners; the edifice complex. In a way, they want to show their tomb, as they believe it is something that will outlive them, and that succeeding generations will remember THEM because of the building they caused to be built; a.k.a. paid for.
This pales in comedic comparison to three of the four other shots, depicting (a) The Sophia Gordon Cancer Center, The Pain Center, and Opthalmology's State-of-the-Art (SOTA) Clinic. Well, let me rephrase that description. Pictured are NOT the cancer treatment facility, or pain center treatment rooms, or cutting-edge (no pun intended) eye treatment equipment. What the pictures do show are--wait for it--WAITING ROOMS!!! That's right. They're giving patients--people in pain, fear, and medical need--better, more modern, roomier places in which to WAIT FOR TREATMENT!! The fourth picture, of the new Emergency Room, shows not SOTA treatment rooms, but a pristine, well-lighted carefully constructed sign-in desk and filing cabinet (no doubt for paper files, which are SO 20th century).
You can't make this stuff up! But wait, there is more!
2. Read "The Immortalists", an article in the July 26 Boston Globe Sunday magazine by a freelance writer (and boomer) Jennifer Graham. The lead sentence reads: "The baby boomers are the first generation that will-let's be honest-actually live too long." While she doesn't mention the word "euthanasia", that is exactly what she means. I won't quote other parts of the article here, but I will mention how she justifies expressing this opinion: "Meanwhile, maybe they could lighten up on the All Bran and hit the trans fat. Just sayin'. For posterity's sake." Well, when it comes to being made into Soylent Green, Jennifer Graham can have my place in line.
That's the current phrase that's being used by all manner of people to justify their loony, loopy opinions: "Just sayin'." I think the Globe printed this article because the author does make an attempt to take a tongue-in-cheek tone, but she totally fails. I'm just sayin'.
3. Like The Wall Street Journal? Who doesn't? It's a non-stop source of comedic content. Take, for example, the Friday, August 7th, front-page article headlined, "France Fights Universal Care's High Cost". The lead example provided by the author, David Gauthier-Villars, of the collapse of the French system--widely acknowledged as the finest health care delivery system in the world--is that a woman named Laure Cuccarolo went into early labor and had to call the local fire brigade to take her to hospital 30 miles away! C'est horrible!! In the United States, these things happen all the time. Thousands of moms have given birth in taxi cabs, subways, apartment bathrooms, etc. Mostly, they're just victims of circumstances, traffic jams, and poor planning. Years later, I bet their kids get a kick out of being told their godfather is a Russian taxi driver.
The real reason, of course, that the Journal printed this story is not because it has any real news or even feature story value, but because propaganda theory demands such an approach. After all, if you can't attack the best example from the opposition of why its approach makes sense, then you try to tear that example down. Some people will believe it to be true. And, for the propagandist, that's the key: Not whether something is true or false, but whether it is believable.
I am sure you can add to the list of examples I've provided--and, I wish you would. There is a tinge of gallows humor about all these citations, because we realize instinctively the insidious intent of the authors. Still, it is good to step back and laugh in the face of so much seriousness.
I'm just sayin'.
Let me know your thoughts.
