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Note: This was first published in the June 11, 2003 issue of Metro, Philadelphia's excellent new daily newspaper distributed free.
©2003, F. Alexander Brejcha.
"Your Health care sucks"
They were harsh – and very American – words that made me smile, coming as they did from my Russian wife, whose language is often tinged with the precision and intonation of her British-trained instructors of English. But she is used to an annual round of visits to a range of specialists for checkups and tests that confirm and document her current health; and more importantly, can catch any potential problems before they reach dangerous – and expensive levels. Seems to me that it would be wise here!
Like me, she also has M.S., but is in better shape because -- from 1990 to 2000 -- she received annual rounds of plasmaphoresis treatments – something seemingly unheard of for M.S. -- here in "the most medically sophisticated" country in the world. A country also frightened by a powerful "moral" lobby unwilling to allow the stem cell research that could potentially cure or help millions with a range of expensive and disabling conditions. Personally, I am sick of life in a wheelchair (18 years now), though I thank God that I have a good job at Graduate Hospital where my multiple disabilities are irrelevant.
But now my wife is also paying the price of American medical "care". Admittedly, few Russians can still take advantage of what used to be a more common practice, but fortunately my father-in-law still has connections and could make sure that if she goes home to visit, she would be seen by Russian doctors who will take time to direct her care. Unlike here where she waits weeks for appointments, pays deductibles, and – if lucky – gets rushed ten minute inspections by harried doctors. And to add insult to injury, examination tables here are inevitably cookie-cutter Himalayan peaks inaccessible to wheelchair users and many senior citizens.
I blame "managed" care and its assembly-line mentality that hurts doctors as much as patients. How can I argue with my wife's statement, when her M.S. has gotten worse since coming here to America? Finding a neurologist fully familiar with M.S. is difficult enough, and when appointments finally come, they often wind up as nothing more than glossy drug company marketing pitches for medicines that have been on the market for years and work primarily to help less advanced relapsing/remitting cases, or for chemotherapy with potentially dangerous side-effects (my wife is very sensitive to side-effects). Here she has been unable to get a simple and safe procedure which for a decade kept her stable. Where is she to go? Back to Russia, thousands of miles (and airfare dollars) away again? Where is the medical care of old? And where is the dynamic research for cures which should be the "American way"?
Parkinson's, Alzheimers, A.L.S., M.S. and spinal injuries afflict millions, but no one seems to care about REAL treatment, as long as millions of dollars are being made from marginal medicines and adaptive technologies which do keep many alive and productive - but hardly "living" as we would like to.
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