Doctors y Hospitals and why I don't trust them

 1 I don't trust or believe in hospitals !!!

 

I don't trust or believe in hospitals. (Incidentally, this screenshot ^ is from Woah Vicky's twitter, who is also homophobic and transphobic lowkey, but I find myself relating to her twitter more than I should.)

Why don't I trust or believe in hospitals? I feel like I didn't always feel this way. When I was a kid, I kind of just trusted doctors and hospitals by default, although I don't think I ever stayed at the hospital long-term as a kid, and only ever came into contact with doctors for maybe my vaccinations as a very small kid and then for yearly check-ups growing up. 

As a kid, my dad used to subscribe to Time Magazine, and every Sunday I would read. Usually, I would just read the Arts & Culture section in the back, but one time, Time did a cover story about medical bills, which caught my interest for some reason, and I remember reading it as like a 10 or 11-year old. (I found the full article here: https://time.com/198/bitter-pill-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us/). 

I think it was written around the time that Obamacare was becoming a thing (did Obamacare ever actually become a thing?), and the whole article is basically about how hospital stays and general hospital costs (including for necessary but seemly uncostly things like needles and IV bags) are extremely expensive and exorbitant and how the average person could not afford to stay in the hospital for a few days without insurance. I don't feel like re-reading the article, but from what I remember as a 10 year old I think it said something like a cancer patient who stayed in the hospital for like three days had a medical bill of like over $100,000 and went bankrupt or summat. (Btw I get distracted super easily when I'm writing these so even though it only ends up being a few paragraphs it takes me forever to write ;_;). 

I just remember as a child that felt crazy to me, and I was like, I'm never going to go to the hospital. (Spoiler: I do end up staying in the hospital, in my 20's). That still seems crazy to me. $100,000?? For a few days? Of course, this is the cost before health insurance, and this is why health insurance is necessary, and Time is also a left-leaning liberal publication so the way the facts were presented could have been skewed and maybe influenced my young impressionable brain in ways that I couldn't have predicted, but still, I feel like that's a crazy amount. And it said the cost of needles and other miscellaneous things like that could be like $60 each, and could really add up. 

I don't exactly remember the reasoning behind why the article said these things were so expensive, but I kind of remember vaguely that they said it had something to do with the bureaucracy and system of the hospital and how the things are priced and billed within the hospital, and how the entities responsible for billing are somehow corrupted or summat, I don't really remember. But still, even if the numbers are exaggerated, I don't believe the costs of things, pre-insurance is that far off. Of course, most people have health insurance, and I think Obamacare mandated people to have health insurance (I think? Is that a thing?), so things don't actually end up costing this much for the consumer, but I think it really just makes one think--why should hospitals and doctors cost so much money, if money at all, especially in America, if the goal of the place is to cure and to manage, to rehabilitate and to heal? 

I think that's the first beef I have with doctors and hospitals. Of course, these systems and people should be paid for their labor, and there should be some system in place that maintains the quality of services for people and ensures that everything runs smoothly, but the more and more experience I've had staying at hospitals the more I feel like...just like Woah Vicky, "I don't trust or believe in hospitals !!!" 

2 My experience in hospitals over the last few years

The most recent hospital that I've been to was the Encompass Rehabilitation hospital in Las Vegas, following my s*ic*de attempt, in Las Vegas. Before that, I was in a state hospital that I couldn't exactly remember the name of, before they transported me to the Rehabilitation hospital, which incidentally also had a smoking section. Idk, Encompass was probably the most idiosyncratic and strangely positive experience of a hospital I've ever been to in my life, probably mostly because they had a smoking section, and I developed weirdly close relationships (probably due in small part to being manic from smoking a pack a day) with some of the hospital staff, but nonetheless, it was still surreal staying there for about a month, and thankfully, with my mom's insurance, the cost wasn't that high. But still, I don't think the actual monetary cost is the point here. More, ... the vibe. 

I felt like even at Encompass (the hospital with the designated smoking area), even if I can now say that I had a mostly positive experience there (I recorded an entire album in the smoking section there btw: In Loving Memory of China Chalet and All my Former crushes), while I was there I had multiple fights with the hospital staff. I remember ranting to the multiple staff about how they were unhelpful, not helping me in the way that I want. I kind of regret that behavior, but I still kind of lowkey stand by it. I probably really didn't feel like they were helping me. One of the physical therapists I think triggered me because they were checking my legs to see if I still had sensation, and one of the occupational therapists triggered me because I can't even remember why. I don't know, I felt like an animal in a cage, maybe in no small part also due to the fact that I was (and still am) confined to a wheelchair, and felt like all these people prodding and touching me and asking me questions was somehow infringing on my personal space, or even my personal rights. What did these people really know, other than following the script and protocol of what they're supposed to be doing? How can they really help me, without really knowing me or my background, even if that probably doesn't really matter in the end? I just felt like, I know these people are all getting paid in the end, so why should these people care, if they're just getting a paycheck for it in the end and are here to do their hours? 

Of course, this is a really cynical view of things, and I feel like I've matured a bit between the time that I was in Las Vegas and the time now. The way I look at it now, I feel like the healing process is sort of a collaborative effort between the patient and the doctor (or therapists or whatever). I'm seeing a therapist right now, and for the first time (I've had two other therapists), I feel like it's helping, and I think that's because I have a positive attitude towards the therapy sessions, and I'm really trying to work with my therapist, rather than work against him, which I feel like is what I was doing before. When I was at Encompass, I had one physical therapist (shoutout to Fred!) who I really liked and who I felt was actually trying to help me. Idk, it might have also just been because he came at the right time, or I was in the right mood when I first met him, but I just felt like we clicked when we worked and did therapy together. Sometimes you just click with certain people and don't vibe with others. But still, I felt like that was a serendipitous moment, and doesn't necessarily say much about the system as a whole. But I feel like that's what it's like existing under #capitalism lol, it's all in the special relationships you build with individuals that count, finding those moments where it seems like something is actually real amidst all the transactional-ity, idkk. There was also an occupational therapist I really liked. I forgot his name but he was Taiwanese and kind of small. He was super nice, and he helped me draw out a plan to help me quit smoking cigarettes. (Edit: his name was Craig...)

3 BureauCRAZY and existing under #capitalism. 

I wanted to go back to what I said about bureaucracy and how existing under capitalism is finding those people and moments where you feel like something real is happening. I liked what I said there lol, and I feel like it's true. I feel like, more than the monetary profit that occurs in hospitals, which is probably mostly at the administrative level and not really the doctors/therapists (who probably do make a decent amount of money, but their labor is probably being compensated the right amount (except for certain doctors, don't get me wrong, who seem to be just being paid for their experience)), it's the system and bureaucracy of the whole hospital that gets to me. When I was at the state hospital, which was the first (and hopefully last) hospital where I had a significant amount of bedrest, I felt like all the doctors and nurses were passing me by, while I just laid there in bed, and it felt like the entire system of the hospital was revolving in and out of the door. There were doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, who all came in at a set schedule and all seemed to be somehow connected to each other. 

I might have been just a little bit paranoid because I was coming off w*ed, but there especially (the state hospital) I really felt like the psychologists and especially the psychologist interns were treating me like a lower being, like they were looking down at me summat for being in a bed and for just coming out of a psychotic state. I really didn't feel like they had any sympathy or care for me, but had a sort of clinical observational quality that was super cold and almost kind of creepy. Those were some of the creepiest times of my life, idk I'm not going to Las Vegas alone and without a plan ever again, if I do end up in Vegas again. 

Not that I expected those psychologist interns to be my mom, but they just seemed really weird to me, even if I was coming off of w*ed I still feel uneasy to this day about them. It seemed really exploitative, the way they were asking me questions about how I felt on the medication, my mental state, my experience jumping off the freeway overpass in downtown L*s V*gas. I also felt like they were concubines to the main male psychologist/psychiatrist who wasn't an intern and actually worked at the hospital. Idk, maybe in my off state I also was kind of lowkey trying to hit that. Jk. It was all just really weird, and plus I couldn't see without my glasses, so everyone seemed kind of spectral and fading in and out, plus me fading in and out of consciousness all the time. I will say, out of all the people, the nurses were real ones, and one of the older Korean nurses even offered me her phone for me to call my ex, and when I refused to call him, she laughed and said "See? It's your fault" or summat like that. I felt that out of all the people, the nurses, who were largely Philipinx, were really helpful, and seemed to be there out of genuine interest. Idk, I feel like I could write an entire blogpost about my experience in Las Vegas, but then again I feel like I've covered most of what I want to cover. I also remember I was blabbing about my ex-boyfriend a lot to all the physical and occupational therapists at Encompass at the smoking section there lol. Tbh that smoking section was iconic and I lowkey miss smoking. (Don't tell my mom: Mom, if you're reading this, I promise I can explain). 

Edit: I have been informed that there is a word for the type of alienation I described in this post: Reification