“Save your surgical masks and reuse them”
This the unofficial policy being passed around at my medium-sized hospital in Texas. As the Coronavirus surges, hospitals and clinics nationwide are having a hard time keeping surgical and respiratory masks in stock. This is an example of why profit-based healthcare is unsafe and cannot keep up with the dynamic healthcare needs of the population.
The drive to maximize profit creates an overproduction in expensive, new medications and devices. While older, necessary medications and equipment that no longer generate high profit margins are under produced and supplied by only a few companies in the world. At our hospital, we are often forced to “improvise” in order to put our patients to sleep for surgery because vital anesthesia medications are frequently on backorder.
At the same time, important medications that were not used are destroyed in mass quantities every month because of FDA mandated expiration dates. This just highlights how for-profit medicine consistently falls short of effectively treating patients.
Stockpiling vital lifesaving medication and maintaining an ample supply of necessary medical equipment serves no purpose under a capitalist society if it’s not profitable.
In a communist healthcare system, medications and equipment would be produced based on need and stockpiled to prepare for viral outbreaks or increased demand.
Instead of destroying medications, we would simply ship these unused medications to a part of the world where they would be useful before they expire. With individual capitalist borders, this type of reallocation of resources isn’t a reality if the shipping costs are greater than the projected profit, even if it would help millions.
It’s apparent that many people notice the contradiction in a profit-based healthcare system as the discussion about health insurance becomes a hot-button issue in this country.
I find it important to point out to my coworkers that any type of medical system under capitalism will always be driven by the bottom line: money. The only safe and effective way to provide healthcare to billions of workers is to create a system based on need.
—Texas Healthcare Worker
Boeing Workers Discuss Internal Contradictions and the Coronavirus
SEATTLE (USA), March 6–While discussing the weakness of the capitalist economy, we thought of other examples that prove that internal contradictions are primary. Not surprisingly, the 19 (or more) deaths from COVID-19 in the Seattle area came up. The coronavirus has rampaged through the population undetected for the past 7 weeks. Those who study the spread of disease are now estimating hundreds, maybe over a thousand, have been infected locally.
Most people who die from COVID-19 suffer from a weakness in their internal immune system caused by age and/or other underlying health issues. The battle for survival takes place within our bodies. In fact, the treatment so far is to keep the patient alive, so their immune system has time to beat the virus.
In addition to over 3,000 deaths from the coronavirus, hundreds of thousands die each year from the seasonal flu. It’s estimated that half a million poor elderly and children die unnecessarily from the flu around the world because they don’t have access to even basic healthcare.
Beyond the flu, the Lancet Global Health Commission reported in 2019 that 5.7 million die in low- and middle-income countries every year from poor-quality healthcare. Another 2.9 million die from lack of access to any care.
Communist health care will end this “everyday” carnage of capitalism.
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