I want to tell a little story. A story from early 2019, from before Corona. When not so many people were interested in how many people were dying every day. And under what circumstances.
I experienced it myself. Not heard from the brother-in-law of my neighbour’s hairdresser’s cousin’s primary school sweetheart. Or something.
But here’s the story: a friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer. Lung cancer. Margret. A defiant, small, agile, red-faced septuagenarian accustomed to protest. With flashing eyes and a strong sense of justice. And corresponding, sometimes frightening, spontaneous energy. Helped a lot of the local refugees. She was the terror of the local authorities. We were bound to her in deep love.
Oh yes, a hospital story it is. I had forgotten to mention that. Or maybe it’s not a typical hospital story. Well, never mind. In any case, Margret was told at the oncology practice that if she had to go to hospital, she should definitely not go to „Matthias“. Under no circumstances should she go to „Matthias“!
– Well, apparently everything takes time – even the work of an oncology practice – and Margret’s pain at home increased. Until it became unbearable. Her husband called the emergency doctor in the evening and Margret went straight to hospital. – To Matthias… Apparently you can’t choose where the ambulance takes you….
The pain was so intense. Margret didn’t care where they were to be relieved. Whether to Matthias or to the holy noodle soup. It didn’t matter.
Pain makes you compliant. We know that. In our capitalism.
So she stayed at Matthias. She also planned to have her chemotherapy there. We advised her to change hospitals, but Margret refused. They would have her files there now.
They did, but it didn’t stop the doctors from examining Margret again – on a new bill, so to speak – and again determining the chemicals to be used against Margret’s cancer. This had already been done in the oncology practice (and it had taken a long time there), the documents had been requested by the hospital – and had also arrived there at some point (this had also taken a long time. By post. Not digitally and in seconds). But well, you can’t earn that much from a simple look at the files. So everything again. It took again – weeks. The result was the same as the one from the oncology practice.
In the meantime, quite early on, Margret did get to see the senior physician. His first official act was to change her blood pressure medication. Just like that. Margret told him that she was well adjusted and that it was not advisable to change her blood pressure medication before cancer treatment. Especially not necessary.
He was the doctor and he gave the instructions, he said, and besides, her current medication was not available in the hospital pharmacy.
No problem, said Margret coldly. Then they write a prescription. My husband goes to our pharmacy with it, gets the medicine and I can continue to take the medicine I’m on.
The senior doctor insulted her a bit more from above, but could not counter this argumentation.
Maybe every patient is put on the senior doctor’s or hospital’s favourite high-pressure drug. From the manufacturer of choice… I wonder why, I wonder why that…?
Well, later, after further examinations, Margret was once again allowed to see the senior physician in the consulting room and he succinctly told her that, according to all medical experience and prognostic ability, she would probably die soon. Full stop. Goodbye. A monster sends his regards. For Margret, this was the first blow to her neck in this hospital. The first blow that made her even weaker. Weaker in her courage, her toughness, her will.
Now, what happened next? Pain that could no longer be alleviated because Margret could hardly tolerate medication. Some doctor found a mixture of drugs that she could tolerate and that helped. Margret slept through one night. The next day, nobody knew what she had been given. Nor was it ever found out. The young residents from all nations of the Middle East changed every day and rushed through the corridors in unison with the nursing staff. Not to speak for the patients. And certainly not for the relatives and friends. And anyway: what does a doctor know about the patient he is now seeing for the first time and will have forgotten again after two days, assigned to the next ward?
Margret could no longer eat, always had to throw up, and was given liquid food by infusion at night. The infusion never went through with her. The dietician asked for a pump so that the food would be actively administered. The pump came and did not come. It was clearly written on the food bag that it had to go through and not be connected another time. Margret pointed this out to the nurse if she wanted to reconnect the bag that had not run through in the afternoon. If we do it like this, there will soon be another nurse position less! the nurse yelled at Margret. What’s the point of making a fuss about people who are about to die. Dying people meet dying people…
Margret was undernourished and debilitated. Just before chemotherapy. Before a controlled poisoning that will demand more than anything from the body.
But the first chemo came. And it was hard. It was so hard. But Margret recovered a little. Only breathing became harder and harder for her. For three days she begged to have her lungs x-rayed. She had water in her lungs, she thought. After three days, the picture was taken. The next day, no doctor knew anything about it. They would have to have a look. The process was then found the following day. Margret’s lungs were full of water….
After the second chemo she was in a bad way. She did not want any visitors. The nausea was unbearable. We waited. At some point I got a text message: I can’t take it anymore. So bad. This was followed by various signs and letters that no longer made any sense. I called her husband. He told me that Margret had – by mistake – been given an overdose of morphine.
After that it was over with her. She had not recovered from it. A nurse friend advised her to be transferred to the palliative ward. There would be more rest, more care, more opportunity for recovery. That also worked and it was really nice there. But Margret was at the end. Sometimes lucid, sometimes not lucid. The overdose had broken her. So one of us or her sisters always spent the night with her. Because the nights were terrible. That’s how she died one morning in March. She was no longer conscious.
Her husband is a quiet, very reserved person. He put up with all this. There was nothing he could do. The nurse in the palliative care ward had some time to talk. She said it was all about numbers. The staff member and the patient no longer played a role. Said she…..
Mind you: BEFORE Corona, that was all.
Hospitals are profit centres. Just like a slaughterhouse or a Mc Donalds branch. The purpose of a capitalist-run hospital is to make a profit. That means: to get as much money as possible from the health insurance companies in the most legal way possible and with the lowest possible personnel, material and operating costs. To achieve this, the burden on operating resources must be increased as much as possible and operating times must be extended as much as possible. Until it cracks.
Dignity,… Solidarity,… Humanity…. are terms that do not appear there. Whether slaughterhouse, Mc Donalds or hospital. All obey the dictates of soulless capitalism. The hospitals were already bleeding to death before Corona. Nothing was done before, nothing was done after the first wave and nothing has been done now in the fourth wave. Simply because more staff, more equipment, more capacity costs MONEY. It reduces the PROFIT. None of the responsible decision-makers is in solidarity with the hospital staff. None of the responsible decision-makers are in solidarity with the population. It is a joke. A mass hypnosis. It is about MONEY.
The health system should be able to take care of the corona cases. Because it is the right of these unvaccinated tax and health insurance contribution paying German citizens a) to be unvaccinated and b) to be cared for. They are not to blame. It is the profit motive and the living against and side by side that has been and is promoted by our capitalist rulers that is to blame. The promotion of the empathy-less, egoistic high performers who walk over corpses for their profit. And that this most destructive madness imaginable is thus accepted by the deluded population as an existing law of nature.
The whole world is a profit centre. Why is the word humanity not used by anyone? Because whoever says humanity is nailed down, because he cannot talk his way out of it, because this word is absolute and has an absolute meaning that everyone can measure and be measured by. And it is the ONLY word that counts among human beings. That is why it is being eradicated from the vernacular by inhuman capitalism.
PS: It seems to me that with the nurses and also the senior doctor, Margret was already a corpse. An annoying, irritating corpse who talked about her rights and didn’t realise that soon, very soon – like everyone before her – she will scream her way into agony and then into the morgue in a morphine haze.
And after her come the next ones and the senior doctor stays and the nurse stays and so a perpetual flow repeats itself for her from the talking dead to the silent dead. From the warm dead to the cold dead. What is the point of all this humanity? The dead are already dead. The dead are always dead. Everyone is always dead. What is the point of humanity… And so it is in the soulless system of materialism. Each of us has his or her own profit centre to which he or she must serve as a resource. And the best thing is to remain silent. And it is best to simply let him dispose of himself. Because dead… it is dead for materialism from beginning to end… What need is there for humanity? The dead machine is the dead machine, what can it know of meaning-filled, security-giving, holding, warm, soft, embracing humanity? For the dead machine, everything is dead machine.
Man knows that he will die! That is something that distinguishes him from the animal. He is in a state of shock because of it. Maddened in his despair because he knows that he is actually already dead, that he was born dead! And he has no way out of it. Materialism blocks the way to his healing. He knows about eternity. That is why eternal death terrifies him. But he knows nothing more – must know nothing more – of his soulfulness. Of his resting precisely in this eternity. If he were allowed to experience this knowledge again, he would no longer be afraid of death. He would not have to maintain a machine system, he could be truly – human. He would know of the meaning and would create paradise on earth!
PPS: And in April Charlotte brought Karina home one day. And her dog Wall-E. Named after ‚Wall-E cleans up the earth.‘ The film. A word joke. Karina’s last name is Müll-er. Garbage-er. The one who is rubbish. And Wall-E cleans up the rubbish on the ground. That’s how she saw it. Karina was a homeless person. She was one of the most honest, sincere, selfless and trusting and creative people I have ever known. And she was deeply trapped in a psychosis. Always on the run from imaginary pursuers on her bicycle. Failed in society, which has no idea and no interest in how such a person could be reintegrated in a healing and salutary way (Integrated into what? This madness? I’m asking myself.).
She showed me photos. From earlier. When jogging. At final exams. She did yoga once. And shopped at the health food store. A special person. Unfortunately failed and put in the trash….
But that’s another story. Sometimes even a bit funny. If it weren’t for the fact that it makes you cry… But maybe that’s for another time….