Tupeak Hope

A is for Access to Affordable Healthcare

Accessible healthcare has been in the news a lot lately. This is just one story of a recent challenge of accessing appropriate healthcare that I am choosing to share. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, should ever have to choose between food/shelter and healthcare. This is not an acceptable definition of accessible healthcare!

Approximately five weeks ago, my neurosurgeon decided I could finally return to physical (and other) therapies, after three months of post-operative healing time, following multiple simultaneous neurosurgical interventions in my cervical spine (neck). Alas, I had no way to get there, so it took me all this time to figure out how I would get there and to save the money to ensure I could get there and back three times a week, at a minimum. So two weeks ago, I finally scheduled the first of the three therapy evaluation appointments.

On November 19, 2016 I shared an article on the importance of preventing, recognizing, and appropriately treating the effects of ICU delirium in patients. The article I will reference now pertains to delirium, but not in the typical sense. It addresses the same topic of delirium, but in a different light. In this article the author, who is also a physician, discusses in-depth the potential for delirium in an inpatient setting, which he himself experienced.

The following article is a well thought out and articulated approach to the shifting of demands on the practitioner to that of the patient. It also addresses the fact that patients labeled as non-compliant often may simply be overwhelmed. The stigma attached to the concept of noncompliance often infers that the patient is willingly making a conscious choice to be noncompliant. Where in reality, the patient may simply not have the knowledge, expertise, or resources to manage what has been thrust upon them.