Simple Things/ Lang Kenneth Haynes
Health care
Health care
It’s hard to escape talk about health care these days. We trip over it on the local and national news while flipping channels in search of our
favorite shows. We see mention of health care splashed on the front pages of newspapers and magazines beside or just below photos of Michael
Jackson. We hear a little about health care as we change stations on the radio dial in search of oldies, top 40 tunes or a little jazz. We put health
care on the list with things we tell ourselves don’t really matter or things we really can’t do anything about. Things like North Korea; global
warming; debris floating around in outer space; wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the apparent demise of the American auto industry and loss of
thousands of jobs; worsening economic news; increases in foreclosures, bankruptcies and the unemployment rate; and other woes.
But health care does matter. It matters to all of us. Those who have it might have the luxury of believing that it doesn’t matter. Until they lose
it. Those who have never had it or lost it with the job that disappeared unexpectedly mourn its absence.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m covered through my wife’s health insurance plan. It would be very difficult to pay for it on my retirement salary.
I’ve been lucky enough to have health insurance for most of my adult life because the bulk of my jobs were for local units of government or the
state and health insurance was one of the benefits. But I haven’t always been so lucky and I know plenty of people who don’t go to doctors
unless they are very sick. I can relate.
Hospitals were places to be avoided. The last resort. The place to go when the fevers wouldn’t give in to Vick’s Vapor Rub plastered on my
chest, neck and upper lip; swallowed like clumps of peanut butter and hissing from vaporizers all night long. These high-fever, sweaty, sleepless
nights were followed by trips to the Bellevue emergency room the following morning. My poem, Personal Care Physician, describes the
experience:
Personal Care Physician
Pants pulled down
Around seventeen sets of knees
While the other
Fifty kids and their mothers
Some black
Some white
All poor
Slithered over each other
Like giant worms
Packed in a dirty white carton
Only made
To hold one dozen
Two worn partitions failed
To provide even
The illusion of privacy
While frightened urchins
Of the new projects and old buildings
Confronted the abject
Awareness of their nakedness
Seventeen butts
Sunny side up
On mothers’ laps
Like hot-cross buns
With birthday candles
Wedged in the creases
Collective temperature — boiling
Prognosis — mercurial
Personal care physician?
Please!
Never saw the same intern twice
White smocks
Wire-rimmed glasses
Mouths that only knew to say
Penicillin
Broken arm?
Penicillin
Croup cough?
Penicillin
Sore throat?
Penicillin
Desperation?
Penicillin
No
I do not need to know your name
NEXT!
In 1958 my mother got a scary telephone call. Her father had just had a stroke and the ambulance was on the way. Papa — my grandfather,
my grandmother and aunt lived in Harlem and I lived, with my mother and father, in downtown Manhattan. We jumped in our 1950 Packard and
raced uptown. We got to 151st Street and Convent Avenue and trekked up the seemingly endless staircase to my grandfather and grandmother’s
apartment on the 5th floor. The door was partially open — a dramatic departure from the usual high-security entrance that consisted a heavy metal
bar (that wedged diagonally between the door and floor — commonly called a police bar) and four locks that made the apartment about as secure
as most prisons. Ambulance attendants were busily trying to strap Papa into a dining room chair, to carry him down the long maze of stairs,
because a stretcher couldn’t negotiate the turns. My grandmother and aunt stood helpless and watching. Papa was in his long Johns. Very
undignified. I had never seen him in other than a suit and tie before. He looked strait ahead as they tied him to the kitchen chair. His eyes —
framed by round wire-rimmed glasses — tried to speak but the only messages they emitted were of frustration and fear.
The sad little entourage finally made it to street level. Even though each flight of stairs was identical, each somehow managed to present
unique challenges. The ambulance attendants almost dropped Papa on several occasions. Papa was loaded onto the ambulance and transferred
onto a stretcher. The red light and siren were on but they didn’t look or sound urgent. We stopped at one hospital at the insistence of my mother
and grandmother. They didn’t want Papa to go to the one hospital where Black people were expected to go because it was common knowledge
that that hospital was a place of death and the likelihood of ever leaving the place was very slim. The ambulance attendants went in one hospital
emergency room then another. Each time they returned to the ambulance and our waiting car shrugging their shoulders as they told us that Papa
would not be admitted. Maybe it was because he was Black. Maybe it was because he didn’t have money. It was likely the combination of the
two plus other reasons. All we knew was that the only hospital that would admit Papa was the one hospital where my mother and grandmother
did not want him to go. That’s where he ended up. That’s where he was admitted. That’s where all the awful stories about the place came true.
Bed linen was not changed with any regularity. The doctors were apathetic. The place reeked of hopelessness and death. Papa’s condition
deteriorated there. He was moved to a better, more cheerful, better equipped, better staffed hospital a couple of weeks before he died. At least he
died clean.
I’m sure that there are thousands of hospital horror stories out there. Particularly for those who consider emergency rooms to be their
primary physicians. Those for whom the concept of preventive medicine is just that — a vague concept without much relevance in the real world.
Universal health care. It makes sense. It’s only fair. We all deserve decent chances to live healthy lives. To educate yourself about this
complicated and vital issue, just type health care into any search engine on any computer that is tied to the Internet. Each public library has
several such computers. To make things even easier, ABC for Health is a local organization with a website that has a wealth of links to health-
related information. Their website can be found at: www.safetyweb.org.
favorite shows. We see mention of health care splashed on the front pages of newspapers and magazines beside or just below photos of Michael
Jackson. We hear a little about health care as we change stations on the radio dial in search of oldies, top 40 tunes or a little jazz. We put health
care on the list with things we tell ourselves don’t really matter or things we really can’t do anything about. Things like North Korea; global
warming; debris floating around in outer space; wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the apparent demise of the American auto industry and loss of
thousands of jobs; worsening economic news; increases in foreclosures, bankruptcies and the unemployment rate; and other woes.
But health care does matter. It matters to all of us. Those who have it might have the luxury of believing that it doesn’t matter. Until they lose
it. Those who have never had it or lost it with the job that disappeared unexpectedly mourn its absence.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m covered through my wife’s health insurance plan. It would be very difficult to pay for it on my retirement salary.
I’ve been lucky enough to have health insurance for most of my adult life because the bulk of my jobs were for local units of government or the
state and health insurance was one of the benefits. But I haven’t always been so lucky and I know plenty of people who don’t go to doctors
unless they are very sick. I can relate.
Hospitals were places to be avoided. The last resort. The place to go when the fevers wouldn’t give in to Vick’s Vapor Rub plastered on my
chest, neck and upper lip; swallowed like clumps of peanut butter and hissing from vaporizers all night long. These high-fever, sweaty, sleepless
nights were followed by trips to the Bellevue emergency room the following morning. My poem, Personal Care Physician, describes the
experience:
Personal Care Physician
Pants pulled down
Around seventeen sets of knees
While the other
Fifty kids and their mothers
Some black
Some white
All poor
Slithered over each other
Like giant worms
Packed in a dirty white carton
Only made
To hold one dozen
Two worn partitions failed
To provide even
The illusion of privacy
While frightened urchins
Of the new projects and old buildings
Confronted the abject
Awareness of their nakedness
Seventeen butts
Sunny side up
On mothers’ laps
Like hot-cross buns
With birthday candles
Wedged in the creases
Collective temperature — boiling
Prognosis — mercurial
Personal care physician?
Please!
Never saw the same intern twice
White smocks
Wire-rimmed glasses
Mouths that only knew to say
Penicillin
Broken arm?
Penicillin
Croup cough?
Penicillin
Sore throat?
Penicillin
Desperation?
Penicillin
No
I do not need to know your name
NEXT!
In 1958 my mother got a scary telephone call. Her father had just had a stroke and the ambulance was on the way. Papa — my grandfather,
my grandmother and aunt lived in Harlem and I lived, with my mother and father, in downtown Manhattan. We jumped in our 1950 Packard and
raced uptown. We got to 151st Street and Convent Avenue and trekked up the seemingly endless staircase to my grandfather and grandmother’s
apartment on the 5th floor. The door was partially open — a dramatic departure from the usual high-security entrance that consisted a heavy metal
bar (that wedged diagonally between the door and floor — commonly called a police bar) and four locks that made the apartment about as secure
as most prisons. Ambulance attendants were busily trying to strap Papa into a dining room chair, to carry him down the long maze of stairs,
because a stretcher couldn’t negotiate the turns. My grandmother and aunt stood helpless and watching. Papa was in his long Johns. Very
undignified. I had never seen him in other than a suit and tie before. He looked strait ahead as they tied him to the kitchen chair. His eyes —
framed by round wire-rimmed glasses — tried to speak but the only messages they emitted were of frustration and fear.
The sad little entourage finally made it to street level. Even though each flight of stairs was identical, each somehow managed to present
unique challenges. The ambulance attendants almost dropped Papa on several occasions. Papa was loaded onto the ambulance and transferred
onto a stretcher. The red light and siren were on but they didn’t look or sound urgent. We stopped at one hospital at the insistence of my mother
and grandmother. They didn’t want Papa to go to the one hospital where Black people were expected to go because it was common knowledge
that that hospital was a place of death and the likelihood of ever leaving the place was very slim. The ambulance attendants went in one hospital
emergency room then another. Each time they returned to the ambulance and our waiting car shrugging their shoulders as they told us that Papa
would not be admitted. Maybe it was because he was Black. Maybe it was because he didn’t have money. It was likely the combination of the
two plus other reasons. All we knew was that the only hospital that would admit Papa was the one hospital where my mother and grandmother
did not want him to go. That’s where he ended up. That’s where he was admitted. That’s where all the awful stories about the place came true.
Bed linen was not changed with any regularity. The doctors were apathetic. The place reeked of hopelessness and death. Papa’s condition
deteriorated there. He was moved to a better, more cheerful, better equipped, better staffed hospital a couple of weeks before he died. At least he
died clean.
I’m sure that there are thousands of hospital horror stories out there. Particularly for those who consider emergency rooms to be their
primary physicians. Those for whom the concept of preventive medicine is just that — a vague concept without much relevance in the real world.
Universal health care. It makes sense. It’s only fair. We all deserve decent chances to live healthy lives. To educate yourself about this
complicated and vital issue, just type health care into any search engine on any computer that is tied to the Internet. Each public library has
several such computers. To make things even easier, ABC for Health is a local organization with a website that has a wealth of links to health-
related information. Their website can be found at: www.safetyweb.org.
