Heroes Not Zombies

I read a lot of messages online about overwhelmed doctors and other NHS staff, and about patients struggling to access services.

It seems pretty clear there aren’t enough doctors, aren’t enough staffed beds, aren’t enough anything really. There are also similar problems in Social Care which are impacting on the Health Service, but I’ve got another question…..

…..why is there such increased “demand”, which is another way of saying, why are so many people sick?

It’s not just a Covid issue, although that surely has made the situation worse, and will continue to do so through Long Covid and cardiovascular inflammation. The population was getting sicker before Covid. More people are living with more incurable chronic diseases.

Covid reinforced something we’ve long since known…..it hit hardest amongst the poor, those living in inadequate housing, the elderly and what the French call the “precariat” (those living the most precarious lives).

The answer to the question, why are so many people sick, lies in the social, economic and political sectors. Ok, not the whole answer because there are clearly problems with the current Medical Model, of treating diseases more than patients and trying to find “a pill for every ill”.

If we want to tackle the health crisis, we have to tackle what often seems to recede so far into the background that it becomes invisible – the circumstances, the environments, in which people are trying to live.