A Black mother’s loss explains broken US healthcare | A Question of Sex, Episode 3

Quagthistle

2022-10-20 18:36:34

Gee, we don't have mandatory paid maternity leave (my mother, for example, had permanent damage to the nerves in her legs from working too long into her pregnancy because she needed to work if she didn't want to be homeless since her husband was still a full-time college student at the time and yes, they were on birth control when they got pregnant but it failed), doctors in the US are well-known for being profit-driven rather than patient-driven (hospitals are a business, and they care about money first and your health/life ranks only as a distant after-thought, if it registers at all), people in the US who live in rural areas often have NO access to care whatsoever (house calls are NOT a thing in the US, and doctor's offices are only open during "working" hours and require transportation, both of which serve as nigh-insurmountable barriers for some), and, after the trauma of giving birth, mothers are often sent home with ridiculously enormous hospital bills they'll probably never be able to pay off (because they exceed the cost of a house!) and are left on their own to care for a baby that may cry constantly, causing severe sleep deprivation. We pile health issues, economic stressors, callous doctors who think women make up every symptom they ever have and are just "too emotional" to ever be believed, exhaustion, torture-like sleep deprivation, and societal shame for not being able to do what our ancestors did (though they had the help of a whole village and weren't left to bear these burdens alone while being profiteered off of six different ways from Sunday). Yeah, it's no surprise that our infant and mother mortality is abyssal. Our health care system is a tragedy. Our mental health care system basically doesn't exist. Doctors think they are so high and mighty that their farts don't stink and they shouldn't have to descend from their Mt. Olympus to even look upon you, let alone try to muster a microscopic particle of compassion during your $300+ 5-minute office visit. Mothers are left on their own to try to stay afloat while their employers do everything they can to capsize the Mom's rowboat like giant storm-tossed waves as the baby inadvertently pokes holes in the hull. It's little wonder many sink and many other young American women are refusing to get in that boat at all. Who can blame those in either group? The whole system is designed to ensure mothers fail. After all, now the foster care system and prisons are businesses, too...