Nobody wants to slide into the winter of their discontent with a serious health problem. But there are any number of actual circumstances that can make it all the worse. And this can often depend on where, fortuitously, you just happen to reside; and on what particular “healthcare model” the government there subscribes to.
Here in America of course it often comes down to every man, woman and child for themself. In other words, if you don’t have the bucks [or the right insurance] you can be quite out of luck. Then the horror stories begin mount up daily. And, of course, those are the ones the liberals tend to focus on.
But there are other horror stories as well. For example, those that revolve around a government that practices a “healthcare model” that revolves more around, well, the government itself. Corruption, bureaucracy, indifference and the like. And, of course, those are the ones the conservatives tend to focus on.
Mr. Lazarescu is Romanian. And this is the healthcare model in Romania: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Romania
But: Just how typical are the events here? Is this what others in Romania can expect in the same set of circumstances?
From RT:
Each doctor who examines Mr. Lazarescu arrives at a different diagnosis, and his emergency treatment is incessantly postponed. The physicians are deaf to the entreaties of the patient, and they are devoid of sympathy for the elderly Mr. Lazarescu as he again plunges into the Bucharest night.
So, obviously, it works better for some there than for others. But, just as obviously, so does the healthcare model here in America.
The bottom line being this: that, the older you get – here, there or anywhere – the more you have to endure the inevitable: that, when it comes to your health, it is always never nothing. The rest is who you happen to be and where you happen to be when that something is serious. This and the sad part that revolves around wealth and power. Around class in other words.
Oh, and just because your health is sliding down into a sinkhole doesn’t mean that all the other shit you have to endure goes away. And this too is here, there and anywhere.
Anyway, we watch this and we think that, sooner or later, this may well be us. It can reach the point where they have to operate immediately on your brain in order that you might live long enough to go home and die of cancer.
A snapshot of the human condition at its grimmest.
IMDb
[b]The ambulance attendant suspects early on that Lazarescu has colon cancer, and this is eventually confirmed. The actor playing him died of that disease several years later.
The man’s full name is Dante Remus Lazarescu. Dante wrote of the circles of hell. Remus was a co-founder of ancient Rome, killed by his twin. Lazarescu reminds us of Lazarus, who was lucky enough to find someone who could raise him from the dead. [/b]
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Mr._Lazarescu
trailer: youtu.be/OB5BktF00_Y
THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU [Moartea Domnului Lazarescu] 2005
Written in part and directed by Cristi Puiu