Operation Death

When I heard about the simple prostate operation my brother-in-law was going to have in a hospital in Germany, I did not think much about it considering the progressive health care system in that country and its advanced technological innovations beside of the reputable surgeons’ and physicians’ care. However, I was wrong.
 I do not have much knowledge about German healthcare except the foretold assumptions. However, I have heard, seen, and experienced horrible stories related to the US Health industry. Healthcare malpractice cases have created a new line of business among attorneys. For example, a large portion of Kaiser Permanente’s budget is dedicated to the legal department. When medical practice becomes a business, patients are treated as customers. At least for the past thirty years, professions which once had been respected and honored because of their ethical and dignified status, such as health and legal practices, have turned into profiteering businesses. Lawyers and doctors can advertise their professions and convince those who have no need for medical or legal services to become their clients. Hospitals market their state of the art rooms and facilities, while their bottom line is not patients’ health, but increasing profits. In a society where privatizing is rampant, even police and jail systems become privately owned industries. Moreover, the role of the government is limited to a group of officials, along with representatives of legislative bodies, to protect benefits of corporations, while providing people with nothing but long unemployment and soup kitchen lines. The government of “corporatocracy” has to keep the war-making machine continuously functional.

We are so used to drugs that pills can be found in anybody’s house almost everywhere, not only in bathroom cabinets but also in kitchen cabinets, refrigerators, vanity mirror’s chest drawers, and even in children’s bedrooms. Pharmaceutical companies spend about 50% of their budget in advertising convincing healthy people of the need of their products. Doctors’ responsibilities have changed into promoting drugs produced by pharmaceutical companies. As long as there is this blind trust in doctors, and they are assumed to know everything, they can make any mistake without shame. In fact, we have pumped up physicians so much that they always feel above ordinary people. You can hardly find any physician devoid of arrogance, conceit, self-importance, and a considerable amount of ego. When visiting a physician and after explaining your health problem, if you make any remark about what you perceive to be a remedy to your problem, he will not acknowledge your statement and he may make a condescending remark. When one admits to an operation room, since that person’s life is in the hands of the doctor, the surgeon acts as if he is one’s creator (the angel of death). Considering that they make a healthy six figure income (except may be assembly line physicians such as those working in chain hospitals) they can afford high paid attorneys. On the other hand, for a person who has lost a loved one, going through a lengthy and painful lawsuit process is usually too much. That is why most of the cases do not end in the court and physicians are free to repeat the same error repeatedly. Of course, we are all entitled to some mistakes in our professions, but for a physician dealing with the matter of life and death of patients, all the measure must be taken to prevent any error whatsoever.

My brother-in-law was diagnosed with a malignant prostate tumor, which is very common among men. Before the operation, they forgot to make sure that his high blood pressure should have been reduced to a normal level. After the operation, he started losing blood and by pumping more blood, they apparently punctured one of his brain veins and he became paralyzed because of aneurysm or stroke. The swelling brain tissue got so big that it did not fit his skull any longer and they had to remove a portion of it to make room while the swelling continued, that has left him in a state of coma. If he wakes up, he will have lost all his memories, and although his heart will be working, the rest of his body will be non-functional. This is what the physicians are predicting. So sad that a man walks into the hospital on his own, and he is brought back on a gurney, as if he did not walk into a hospital, but into his grave.