3/16/2006

civilization & barbarism, illness & wellbeing ...

When I was in the senior high school, there were 4 of us very good friends, one of us immigrated to the US after one year in our school. I still remember that the rest, 3, of us were reading Pam's letters from US, Pam said that she was going to be more "civilized" to fit in in the US. We never really knew what did she mean by being "more civilized". I still don't know. Now that I myself have been in the US for almost 8 years, I still don't know what does that mean, it is more "civilized" here ?

I'm recently being physically ill for a while, and the whole experience makes me wonder what is civilized. I am a biologist working at a top hospital; there might be the best, newest technologies in the US, but the whole health system makes none of these is public available or accessible. Any basic medical assistance needs to be considered if it is covered by the insurance policy. Patients need to do everything by themselves, check with the insurance companies, make all the appointments, get tests done and get medications ... and in between, there is lots of waiting time, basically, patients will be dead or cured before any meaningful and effective diagnoses and treatments arrived. Literally I've been culture-shock everyday by the barbaric civilization of the medical system in the US. I think it's beyond my imagination -ly brutal and barbaric, I can't imagine being seriously sick and being here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

台灣的健保是個大黑洞,不過便利度比較起來好像還是比國外許多先進國家好。
像我們是設籍台北市的市民,小孩半夜掛急診,在公立醫院是一毛錢也不用出。前些時候我婆婆肺積水,從嘉義轉到林口長庚,轉病房的時候在急診等了一下病床,嗯,一天就等到,一個星期內就開刀了。算幾來真的方便許多。
馬嘉你一個人隻身在外,要好好保重自己喔!身體健康是最重要的!