Doctors' strike
in Health ·
Joseph Hughes said:Why all the drama? Nobody actually died because of the doctors' strike, they aren't canceling ER visits, emergency surgeries, or life-saving treatments for people with critical illnesses.
I wouldn't be so definitive about that... my sister’s friend’s mother passed away... she asked her sister to call a doctor because her mom was feeling terrible, only for the sister to snap back that the doctor was on strike and she just had to wait. Now that woman lives with the guilt, thinking it's her fault for taking her mother to that hospital.
A bit of experience from my own home... my sister had some bleeding during her pregnancy one evening and called Petrov—well, the local clinic where they live—to ask for advice on what to do or if she should come in. The person on the line just yelled at her, saying there were no doctors available, and hung up. After that, we went over to the Mayo Clinic, and everyone there was perfectly polite; she just waited for the doctor to step out of the delivery room, got checked out, received some Tylenol, and that was that.
So, look, not every single doctor is lazy or ungrateful scum—they really aren't—but the way they're trying to push their agenda just isn't right. Personally, I'm all for offering $17 performance-based bonuses... much like how managers at big corporations like Google or ExxonMobil get paid... based on results... but I don't mean rushing through 100 patients in a single shift just to check a box; I mean rewarding how quickly they react, or how effectively they run tests to reach a diagnosis... rather than having a patient shuffled from one unfriendly face to another, waiting months for tests while their condition gets worse.