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machado: we can't let stories of overcrowded ers, burned out staff and doctor shortages lose their sting
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experts have said that one good thing to come out of the pandemic and its collateral damage is that we'd be better prepared for the next time. we're not.
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“you always need a ‘so what.’”
this was two years ago. i was on a zoom call with my daughter’s creative writing class. they were very excited to hear about what it’s like to work for a newspaper and walk into a newsroom every day (yeah, it’s pretty exciting). but what they wanted to know most was how to tell a story so that people will read and care about it. of course, choosing a compelling topic is a good start, though it’s not a must — even a story about an umbrella can blow someone’s mind if you can talk about it with deep feeling and describe moments of vulnerability and transformation. add in something about how the umbrella changed you as a person and, well, you may have a winner.
it’s digging for the “so what?” of your story that makes it matter: you have an umbrella. so what? it belonged to your grandfather. so what? it was the umbrella that shielded him from sharp hail as he escaped his captors during the war. and if you have it in you, you keep going until your story comes together like a tightly woven quilt, maybe there are different colours and a few eye-catching designs, until the “so whats” get harder and harder to answer, and the reader is so drawn in that they feel like they are seeing things from your eyes. stories never really end completely, but good writers get a poke in their gut that lets them know when it makes sense to wrap things up, when they have given the reader enough to be affected so that when they stop reading, they realize they need to take a moment to soak up or shake off whatever emotional drippings you left with them.
people were dying in long-term care way before the pandemic
certainly, the pandemic was primetime for these kinds of affecting stories — nothing like an unknown virus slowly creeping across the globe to drum up reader interest. throw in hundreds of long-term care deaths because of neglect and mismanagement, cancelled surgeries and locked-down doctors’ offices, and the story of carnage was impossible to look away from. of course, with the exception of covid, all of this wasn’t anything new — people had always been dying in ltc homes because of poor care, surgeries were already backlogged and it had been getting increasingly difficult to connect with a family doctor for years. still, these stories were told during covid as if the system was only just descending into chaos and mayhem, as if the inability to treat, care for and empathize with those who needed it most just suddenly came out of nowhere, a surprise that no one could have predicted.
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back then, we were asking “so what?” mostly because we were in crisis and scared, and policymakers were doing their best to both explain what the pandemic and a faltering healthcare system meant and surmise solutions, because, well, they had to.
of course, if you were already in the system, you weren’t surprised that everything was crumbling officially and in a very public way. patients waiting for tests, screening or a bed had known that it was only a matter of time that everything collapsed, just as the people who cared for them did. healthcare workers who squeezed their way down hallways lined with people in beds also knew. long-term care home administrators with their growing waitlists, dirty diapers and decreasing budgets were also all too well aware. policymakers and politicians knew too — how could they have not?
back then, the “so what?” hinged upon needing more money and resources in order to thwart a complete system collapse. the experts said that the one good thing to come out of the pandemic and its collateral damage would be that we’d be better prepared for the next time. we’re not. even worse, we have stopped asking “so what?” and that’s not good for anyone. skim any 世界杯决赛2022 story today, yesterday, last week or tomorrow and you’ll read about overflowing emergency rooms, healthcare worker burnout and doctor shortages, and the best shot at any sort of “so what?” is a limp tap on the shoulders of governments to step up and do something. anything. even the associations tasked with supporting those on the frontlines seem unable to push any harder than numbly urge the government to “prioritize.”
frequent bad news stories numbs our sense of injustice
it wouldn’t be such a big deal if we weren’t talking about health and care — the two most important things to a good life. but here we are. the risk goes up when we stop asking “so what?” and choose instead to retell the same story. first, this softens the pain of injustice. lots of research has been done on the “moral-repetition effect,” which refers to the fact that when people are repeatedly fed accounts of wrongdoing, they stop questioning it or judging the ethics behind it. think of it as a form of desensitization, which can be catastrophic when serious change needs to happen because it dulls anger and our sense of wrong, the very catalysts that drive people to push until things are made right.
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so, according to this theory, with every story we hear about people dying in emergency rooms, our rage dissipates a bit. what were once horror stories begin to feel a little less shocking, almost expected, and we start to bend around them instead of resisting. in early january, the cbc interviewed a woman who was eight-months pregnant on her thoughts on advisories from health p.e.i. about long er wait times. her only comment was that she is now more likely to stay at home with a health concern.
it’s a bit different if you have needed care for something serious, even life-threatening — show me a patient or caregiver done wrong by a disintegrating system and that will be someone with a crystal clear understanding of anger, injustice and the need for change. but not everyone is “in it,” and this is what makes telling the whole story and always asking the “so whats” so crucial — because though you may not be in it now, you will, or your kid will, or your father.
this is the “so what” that we need to be adding to all of these stories about er deaths and bed shortages and delayed screening that is robbing people of their loved ones. the very same things that decision-makers can’t seem to take a stand on. so what if there aren’t enough beds in our hospitals? well, you won’t have a bed when you need urgent life-saving surgery; you will be using your retirement and tropical holiday funds to pay for home care for your aging parents (who will be living with you, by the way); and when your child or their child develops a rare disease, not only will they not have access to the medicine that’s available everywhere else in the world, there won’t be a bed in which to treat the complications of their illness and ensure they have a decent quality of life. so what? you will likely be financially insecure, under incredible mental and emotional stress and have to take time off from work.
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certainly, this is only one hypothetical healthcare journey out of hundreds of dire possibilities. but it’s also just one answer to “so what?” that reminds us how desperate health care will be in this country if we — patients, caregivers, industry, everyone — don’t begin to hold those who should be accountable, accountable. now.
lisa machado is the executive producer of healthing’s advocacy & better health.
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