Anger

I got angry yesterday.

It doesn’t happen often but yesterday Aretha pissed me off.

Many years ago when she first came to work for Union Mission, Aretha was the golden child. She first grabbed my attention when she was the only person to pass a Health Department required test. No one at the Health Department passed. It was hard to not be impressed.

We went on to work together for well over a decade. She continued to excel and garnish promotions. She now runs the J. C. Lewis Health Center which Archie Davis, Ben Barnes, Bob Colvin and I started. The United States has the best health care in the world but the worst access to it. The primary entry point for most people is a hospital emergency room. So people go to the emergency room and costs goes up for everyone else and an aspirin cost $78. It’s just a terrible screwed up system.

So we built a better mouse trap.

I’ve always been a big believer that people should have access to what they need; even if they can’t afford it. If they choose not to take advantage of it, I have no control over that. But we should all have the choice.

And very few things make me angry. If a mother is yelling at her kid in Wall Mart and hurting her, I have no problems walking up and saying “What in the hell are you doing to your child? She’s a baby for God’s sake. Are you an adult?”
I’ve done that many times.

Or in Congress, once the door is closed, and the cute little intern is taking notes, while the pompous Senator drips promises he has no intention of keeping … the same one I got drunk with years ago … I never mind asking, “Really? You expect me to believe that shit?”

Or when a waitress in a bar is crying standing in front of me. We embrace as tears roll from her cheeks onto my shoulder because the J. C. Lewis Health Center says that they can’t help with her gall bladder. She should just go to the emergency room and eventually it’ll be fixed.

Assuming she doesn’t die.

So I text Aretha, who responds: “the patient is being cared for appropriately.”

Really?

Now I understand that Union Mission is not what it was when I left. It’s Union Mission Lite. Watered down!

Hell, the J. C. Lewis Health Center isn’t even a part of Union Mission anymore. They gave it away for fearful and silly reasons.

But none of that makes me angry.

What does is a waitress with no health insurance, sobbing and getting my shoulder wet because the place that was built to take of people like her … no longer does.

It pisses me off.

But in the world of health care, the patient is being cared for appropriately.

Meaning she’s passed off.

And that just makes it worse for everybody.