I’ve spent a significant amount of time in hospitals and at urgent care in the past week. Without disclosing too much personal information, I’ve been by the side of one of my close friends who has been dealing with an aggressive tonsil infection. I also sped to an emergency room with three other friends following a disastrous sledding incident which resulted in bumps, bruises and a broken bone.
Although I personally have not been sick or injured recently, I have had very close and personal interactions with medical care. I have always had a degree of fascination towards healthcare, and this has deepened since the start of the pandemic. The recent events that have taken place have allowed me to have insight into how things have changed in medical care and are continuing to change.
I have also witnessed room for improvement. There are many things that need to change with the way we handle healthcare nationally and also how each and every person approaches public health.
There are two significant ideas that come to the forefront of my mind.
The first improvement is an easy one: continue to wear a mask in public. I work in food service, and we have to reject customers daily for entering the store without facial coverings. I frequently see people in grocery stores shopping unmasked. Most shocking, while I was sitting in a hospital waiting area I saw people roaming the halls with masks pulled under their noses.
Masks are an easy, but life-saving, precaution. A recent study published in Health Affairs compared the growth rate of coronavirus before and after mask mandates in fifteen states and found that mask mandates led to a slowdown in daily growth. This became apparent over time; in the growth rate slowed down by .9% compared to the five days before the mandate, then at three weeks the growth rate had slowed down by 3%. The growth rate everywhere can be slowed down by simply wearing a cloth mask.
Another vital issue that needs to be addressed is the cost of healthcare. I will admit that I am young and have not been responsible for my own insurance, but even I am able to see that there are problems with our national healthcare system.
I saw this firsthand as one of the people in my life whom I mentioned earlier did not have the funds readily available for the visit for the hospital and, despite having a broken bone, faced being denied treatment. I am aware that this is not an isolated incident — there are many people who cannot receive treatment because they cannot afford it.
This is unacceptable. If people are sick, injured or in any sort of pain, they deserve the right to healthcare. I believe that this is the correct moral belief and also a Christian attitude.
I’m not necessarily saying that healthcare should be free as many would argue, but oftentimes the cost of treatment is outrageous. People who are hurting should have access to medical care without dying financially.
Whether it is wearing a mask or making healthcare more accessible, we must remember that these are ways to care for our neighbors.