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Sailors Share Medical Horror Stories, part 2

Symptoms of a Navy under Capitalism

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From the Potemkin uprising in the Russian Navy in 1905 to the mutiny on the USS Kitty Hawk during the Vietnam War, sailors have played an important role in the struggle of the working class.

You have Herpes. Actually, that's just a fungus.
A sailor spotted a growth on his scrotum and after some time went to see a Navy doctor. The doctor diagnosed it as herpes and prescribed a medication. The medication didn't solve the problem so he returned to medical. Another doctor diagnosed the problem as herpes and prescribed the same medication that didn't help previously.
This sailor, believing the doctors that he contracted herpes, decided to adjust his lifestyle to accommodate his new difficulty. So he registered onto a dating website for people who have STD's. He began chatting with a woman who also had herpes and was working on setting up a date.
Since the second regime of medication was as ineffective as the first, this sailor was seen by a civilian doctor. He explained how he had been through two courses of medication for herpes and the growth still remained. At this point the growth had lingered for months. This doctor took one look and said that the growth was not herpes at all, but a fungus.
The doctor prescribed an anti-fungal cream and the fungus went away in days. Luckily, the sailor did not sexually interact with anyone who actually did have herpes. The multiple mistaken diagnoses of Navy doctors led this sailor to change his life in a way that almost gave him herpes.

Sailors receive more privacy and better treatment at Planned Parenthood
A ship's tight-knit community sometimes leads to problems with privacy. Especially when coworkers, such as corpsmen, have access to and are in charge of filing medical records of their shipmates. There is a general lack of trust that private medical information on ships will remain confidential. So, many female sailors who work on ships use Planned Parenthood for any of their STD tests, pap smears, day-after pills, birth control, etc.
One top of the lack of privacy, there is a lack of trust in the qualification of the ship's doctor. Whereas in hospitals there are specialists in particular fields, the ship has one doctor who is expected to be an expert in all fields.
In one case, the ship's doctor was actually a nurse who specialized in a field remotely related to gynecology. Apparently, this doctor took a short seminar in gynecological issues, which is supposed to qualify him to make important decisions about women's health. This ship is moored to a pier in the US. It's not going anywhere. So why not refer sailors to medical facilities on shore that have doctors who can offer better examinations and advice?

The bigger picture
There seems to be a lot of advertising about how the military provides full-coverage health insurance. But what they don't tell you is that there is constant pressure not to go see the doctor and also a justified worry that Navy medicine will do more harm than good. The "macho culture" in the military also contributes to the pressure not to see the doctor when a sailor actually should.
The truth of the matter is, despite whether or not a military policymaker cares about the health of sailors, national interests (read as American capitalist interests) always come first in deciding policy. If the bosses have to sacrifice the well-being and even the lives of sailors to preserve the domination of American capitalism over competing capitalists, then, no questions asked, sailors will be collateral damage.
A sailor might respond that it's better that we fight for American capitalism than for the Chinese capitalists (note: China is only communist in its title). But we don't have to fight for any of the capitalists. They don't fight for us, and we shouldn't fight for them, regardless of their nationality.
We are workers and our families and friends are workers. We need to protect ourselves from the threats of capitalists, foreign and domestic. That means we unite with Chinese sailors to fight together against capitalism and its exploitation of our class. We fight to replace it with a communist system that meets the needs of all workers, soldiers and sailors everywhere in the world.
Civilian workers receive similar treatment. Their employment and health insurance is only justified when the bosses find ways to turn a profit from it. Our problems in the navy and the problems civilian workers face share a common descent from capitalism. We need to recognize our common interests and organize to gain our collective strength. Build ICWP and fight for communism.

 

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