Black People & Our Fear of Hospitals

What's good people? This week's post on HEALTH here on the blogspot tackles our lasting phobia of hospitals, emergency rooms and modern medicine. You ready? Let's Go!

Ok people; let me get focused...
  
Very few know and others lack the knowledge or the exposure necessary to living a healthy and fit lifestyle. There are many factors that impact our health; genetics, environment, health care and culture to name a few. Every ethnicity or race is plagued by particular health risks more than the others. According to a study completed by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention some of the leading causes of death amongst people of color and the African American community are; heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and HIV/AIDS. Now with all these tell tale signs running rampant in our communities, we still do not like to visit the hospitals. WHY? Even a simple check-up or an annual physical is deemed a burden or an inconvenience. Go Figure! I can attest to this because I too hate visiting hospitals and try to avoid them at all cost.  

Quick story; the other day, I had a really bad deep cut on the bottom of my heel after accidently stepping on a piece of broken glass in the bedroom. So what do you think happened next? Not once did I even consider a visit to the emergency room by calling 911. Instead, I found a way to make a call to my brother in Nigeria as he played “Dr.” via international text on BBM. LMAO! And for many others like me, unless we have lost a limb, even if I am glouting blood severely in my situation as I was, I still would rather be put to sleep like “Mr. T” on the A-Team before anyone can convince me that a trip to the hospital is in my best interest.

If you like me, then you hate sitting and waiting in the emergency room for 4 hours just to get checked-in by the front desk. Wait a minute; this is the “EMERGENCY ROOM” Right? And I have an E-MER-GEN-CY!!! Heeeeello… WTF? See if any of you can relate to this scenario:

Panko – Doc, I think I broke my hand during my fall

Doc – You just sprained your wrist

Panko – My wrist is ok, but please can you have an x-ray done on my hand

Doc – Just wrap it up and take 2 aspirins every 4 hours and ice it. And come back in 2 weeks.

SMH! How many of you all have been put through that anguish and incompetence by a Doctor before? I mean this example giving above is routineand common practice by Doctors. 

SCARY - has anyone ever noticed or experienced a doctor/nurse taking different positions on a diagnosis, treatment, etc. If this has ever happened to you, best look and find that buzzer and beep the mess out of it until you get moved to another location. There are a growing number of people who believe that more people are killed by doctors/hospitals than are killed on highways, planes, firearms, lighting. You know what; I actually think this claim is legitimate. And just because he got a white coat on don’t mean some doctors aren’t morons or idiots which is why you might be better off hoping to be “Dead on Arrival” (DOA) before anyone could ever wheel you in.

Psychologically, I believe that people of color have been scared after learning about historical government funded projects like the Tuskegee experiment and for that alone are extremely wary of modern medicine in certain circles. In late 2010, Wikileaks exposed the global drug company Pfizer who “hired investigators to find evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general to pressure him to drop a $6 billion lawsuit over fraudulent drug test on Nigerian children. Researchers did not obtain signed consent forms, and medical personnel said Pfizer did not tell parents their children were getting the experimental drug. Eleven children died, and others suffered disabling injuries including deafness, muteness, paralysis, brain damage, loss of sight and slurred speech”.

The reason is ECONOMICS! The status of African and black health worldwide is insolvent at best. Being uninsured or underinsured is easily explained by being unemployed or underemployed. Therefore; another reality is sometimes the bill for your visit hurts and creates far more pain when you receive it in the mail than when you went in for the check-up in the first place.

And then there is my Beloved Nigeria, despite having highly trained doctors and physicians, the reality about the hospitals and facilities operating in Nigeria is that they are poorly maintained and kept in substandard conditions.  The diagnostic equipment available to staff are in shambles and many medicines are overpriced or unavailable all together. Too the point that black market medicine is a big industry which creates multiple problems when unregulated. Most discouraging of all is the fact that everything in Nigeria is “Cash & Carry” business including health care so when you have limited resource and no financial means to address you health needs its pretty much a WRAP!

The truth is our human instincts often at times connects hospitals to the state of death or dying and this makes us all very uncomfortable.  

It’s Your Health - Make it a Priority