Hospitals only care about money??

timewerx said:

It becomes a problem when making money becomes the primary motivation or goal. We get less than the best.

You can look at countries where they've managed to greatly reduce the income gap between its citizens, they have virtually eliminated poverty, corruption, and crime rates are very low, women are valued and respected, and no one seems eager to get rich. One such country is Iceland, Denmark, you get the idea.

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They are also limited populations...and very small...with very homogeneous demographics. Where countries like the US are very large (like many cities are larger than Denmark). I probably have a larger racial demographics represented by the nursing staff on my floor in the hospital that in all of Denmark. (Albanian, Ukrainean, Caldean, Philipino, South African, Liberia, Nigeria, African American blacks, Pakistani, Indian, El Salvadorean, etc .. plus Christianity in many flavors, atheist, Orthodox Jewish, Muslim, and many more that I have no idea of what they believe or where their lovely accents are from). Trying to mesh cultures, religious beliefs, socio-economic brackets, and even genetics unique to certain ethnicities means that our medical system is much more complicated.

The healthcare industry, like any other business, is consumer driven. If people take better care of their health medical costs as well as insurance costs would plummet. It seems that people like being sick, and broke.

timewerx said:

We do! It's likely going to be the last line of treatments we will attempt.

The alternative is chemotherapy which we tried and did not work - nearly killed our patient and doctors still happily recommend it to us knowing it will kill our patient

That pretty much shows, they care more about money than saving lives They didn't care if you lived or died with their treatments as long as you give them lots of money.

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The point of chemo is to kill the cancer cells before the chemo kills the normal healthy cells. If we had a safer way to do it, we definitely wouldn't opt to recommend chemo. Since cancer cells are just normal cells that have changed into rapidly reproducing abnormal cells, it is hard to find things that can tell the different.

The reasons that doctors recommend it is because people want to be treated.......cancer isn't an "easy" disease that can be cured with non-toxic treatments. The point is to kill cells.

timewerx said:

Interesting argument which is sensible!

So why are many Christians still think that God commands us to fill the Earth even right now? Perhaps, unknowingly or lack of foresight that the increasing population will further strain our resources, leading to greater difficulty acquiring basic needs.

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I don't know of any Christian groups that are telling people to have as many children as they physically can. I only know of several groups that tell families to leave conception to God. It isn't like every act of marriage creates a baby.

And since everyone will die, the fact that people will die is not a reason to stop having kids. I know that as much as I grieve my husband who died of cancer, I am very much glad he lived and was part of my life.

timewerx said:

Interesting argument which is sensible!

So why are many Christians still think that God commands us to fill the Earth even right now? Perhaps, unknowingly or lack of foresight that the increasing population will further strain our resources, leading to greater difficulty acquiring basic needs.

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World population didn't rocket up until modern medicine made it possible to treat and prevent deadly diseases and better care for the elderly.

timewerx said:

If speaking globally, modern medicine only cares for the richest demography.

Go to the poor/developing countries where majority of world population are and you'll see.

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That doesn't account for how modern medicine disseminated to the poor in what are now first world countries. Modern sewage and sanitation, vaccinations, and drugs have prolonged countless lives across all classes. The poor are still worse off than the rich, but they are much better off than they were 300 years ago. Life expectancy lengthened, and infant/child mortality dropped.

timewerx said:

Most of the world population live in developing / poor countries.

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Which have benefited from modern medicine, though there is a ways to go.

timewerx said:

I'm speaking in global terms since I live outside of USA. And first world countries deny immigration to anyone from poor countries, except for those deemed able to contribute to the economy - those possessing commercially valuable set of skills or have thriving businesses overseas.

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I don't have a problem with showing preference to the skilled over the unskilled in the context of immigration - import poor, unskilled workers, and businesses will hire them for less money (paid under the table) than they will for poor, unskilled native workers.

timewerx said:

It's all about the love of money - the root of all evil.... The love of money is why the poor are regarded as less important (denied many things). How you treat the poor is how you treat the Lord.....If you love money, you will hate the Lord - Luke 16:13. You cannot serve two masters.

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I don't think we can simplify it that much. It's not just money, it's the decisions that people make. Many poor are uneducated, or under-educated. In my country, there is mandatory public education, but in the poor areas it isn't very good because many teachers and administrators in those poor districts do not care. There are teachers in these places that come to school drunk or high, and others that go on month-long vacations during the school year. And ironically, these education systems and the city politics that control them are overwhelmingly controlled by the political left, and have been for decades. As far as I can tell, it's failure by design, and you can't fix it by merely throwing more money at it.

timewerx said:

I don't live in the USA. Perhaps, it's only my part of the world where the doctors and hospitals are rotten?

It's a poor country. Healthcare / welfare system is a joke at best so most are forced to shelve out money.

Despite our poor country, doctors here are very rich in relative terms... They enjoy upper middle class life in a poor country. And that's upper middle class by 1st world Western country standard.

We have some of the highest pharmaceutical prices in the region despite the 3rd world conditions. Something's awfully wrong where I am.

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Doctors live an upper middle class lifestyle because they worked hard, sacrificed, and made good decisions early on, and reap those rewards now. It's not about anything but that. Besides, nothing should be free, people only value what they work, and sacrifice for.

timewerx said:

If speaking globally, modern medicine only cares for the richest demography.

Go to the poor/developing countries where majority of world population are and you'll see.

Doctor telling us to sell our stuff to have money for medication, we lose all our family's life savings. The chance of survival less than 40% and he's talking with a smile. They never tasted poverty. No heart, no empathy. All he cares about is getting our money.

We've ran out of options. Doctors here are worse than thieves. Maybe in other parts of the world, there are good doctors who are not greedy and not corrupt but not here.

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What do you want of the doctor? To give the medication and care away for free? And does he give it to everyone who can't afford treatment that isn't likely to help? This is how he makes his living. You have already said your family member has a poor prognosis and didn't do well under the previous treatment? Would you rather the doctor had cried or frowned? And most of the money likely doesn't go to him but everyone involved in the treatment as well as the medications. Medical people are trained to smile...smile all the time. Here in the US, our hospitals are even graded on smiles (as well as other things).

I am sorry that you are dealing with cancer. I did too and no amount of money or treatment saved his life. Take time to spend with this person and make memories. Make her last time on earth count. Save what little money you have and save it for pain meds in case that is an issue at some point.

And hugs...you will survive this....you may change but that is okay because there are things in our lives that change us. God will carry you through this all.

timewerx said:

As I've said so many times, I don't live in the USA.

Perhaps, I'm ranting about the conditions of the medical industry in my poor country.

Empathy is lacking where I'm at. Everyone is sad in the room and a doctor comes joking around and smiles all over.

No one else is smiling nor laughing. Being a creep is one more thing.

NO, I don't expect medical services to become free but we have one of the most expensive services in the region, relative to per capita income.

And doctors in this poor country are rich. They have Western upper middle class standard of living in this poor country which is absurd!

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What do you want the doctors in your country to do? If they gave away their income and lived the lifestyle around them, how far would that go? ... and how long until it was completely gone?

Would someone want to become a doctor with all it's stresses both of holding someone's life in their hands as well as go to school to become a doctor (accountants or engineers are not expected to perform 24 hours a day even without sleep like medical students are).

How many rooms of poor people with poor prognoses can a person face on a daily basis if you are empathetic with each one? Remember that empathy means you literally feel their angst and pain. I can't imagine that a human can do that day in and day out with giving up on life completely and becoming suicidal. You are left with the doctors who can survive this without being killed by empathy. They still need to leave the hospital and be present and happy for their families and children.

I think you are expecting too much of human doctors...many whom I doubt are Christians so they don't even have the hope of Jesus. You have never identified where you live so I am just making a guess, so if I am wrong, I apologize. The doctors (and nurses) are just plain humans. And even if you were in the US, the prognosis still means that your family member would have suffered through a treatment in hopes of beating it with still no guarantee of survival or even quality of life.

The US has the problem of continuing to treat to the point that there is no quality of life when it is time to say good bye. My husband couldn't make it through the kids opening presents at his last Christmas...because of the treatment, not the cancer. There is something to be said when you are given the gift of being told "no more treatment" when your loved one can still participate in life. Take this gift..this gift of having a glimpse that death is present and build last memories, listen to their memories and stories about their life (and record them or write them down), ask about their childhood and their memories of their parents and just "be present" so you get the gift of actually saying "good-bye" and "I love you" while they are still present enough to hear it.

We all die physically. That is from God and it is the gift that frees us from this world of sin. Your loved one will no longer be in pain...or poor...when he/she crosses over to be in Jesus' presence. Wanting them to stay here is a selfish desire...because we don't want to be separated from them...but honestly, they are the lucky ones who are with Jesus a little faster than ourselves. And yes, remember I have gone through this to the point that breathing was almost something I'd have to force myself to do. I know your pain and your sorrow and your fears. I knew my husband would most likely die even with the treatments...so getting the treatments won't provide the relief or comfort that you believe it will. I remember sitting at my big strong young husbands feet and seeing the agony that putting his socks on each day caused him. We may have been given the "luxury" of being able to treat...but that didn't change the outcome and I do wonder if he would have suffered less if he didn't choice for treatment.

Forgive the doctors for having money and not being the empathetic people you wish they were. Forgive them for not being God. Then turn to God with your fears and sorrow and ask him to minimize the pain and to extend the quality of life for as long as possible. Then spent every moment you can with that person ... not mourning them or feeling bitter at life, but celebrating them and learning about them. I have so many questions that I never asked my husband because I thought I'd have forever to ask him. I go through his photo album and see people I have no idea of who they are or how they fit in my husband's life. I wish I had taken time to learn what he put in his fish breading mix so I could fry catfish like he did. I have no idea of how to fry backstrap either...a staple in his family. He was in charge of cooking all wildlife and I never learned how so he couldn't start it and leave me to finish. Now I don't know and his mother and I don't get along for me to ask her.

I wish we had talked more openly about the potential of him actually dying. The couple conversations we had are precious. I am also haunted by the fact that I wonder if I allowed him the freedom to talk about his fears of dying and just was there for his emotional needs.

God can heal anyone...doctors & medicine or not. Count each day precious and don't waste any being bitter. I am sorry for your grief but do your best to save it until the proper time. Life the days where life is still here.

I am sorry for your pain though.