Just think about it! (7/27/07)

I am a newcomer to the Athens medical community, so my perceptions and facts may be inaccurate, but I see something happening that because of my “newness”, I feel relatively detached from and may qualify as a fairly objective observer.

After living in Honduras, my political and social perspective has changed; so greatly at times that it almost scares me!  I am becoming increasingly disenchanted with capitalism, although I can’t offer a reasonable alternative, apart from the Kingdom of Christ.

 

I have become acutely aware of the tremendous waste of resources that capitalism has created via its duplication of services in the process of competition and pursuit of wealth.  Let me illustrate with the situation as I see it here in Athens, Ohio.  Remember, I am a newcomer, and these are my perceptions based on limited facts.

 

For years there was one hospital in town serving the needs of the community.  Then it became “the thing” for surgeons to build surgery centers.  Why?  $$$:  so they could get a bigger piece of the pie, make more profit, rather than let the hospital get it all.  So, the hospital, cutting its losses, saw it was a better deal to partner in the surgery center than to compete with it.  Services, space, equipment, etc. were then duplicated.  Neither the hospital nor the surgery center now has a full schedule.  Both employ more employees than would likely be needed if the facilities were combined. Certainly there is a loss to the hospital, the community, and society in the duplication!  

Why?

 

Now, even though the community is shrinking, and more health care is being delivered out of the area as people head for Columbus for the high tech medicine that is not available locally, another player has entered the scene!  Holzer clinic is triplicating services!  Another surgery center, another set of imaging equipment.  More offices, etc. 

Why?  

$$$!

 

But what is the real cost?  Is there really a benefit to the community?  Does the competition offer better services?  What if all those resources, all the money spent on duplication was channeled another direction?  Could we all better benefit from a different allocation of resources?

 

This situation is replicated all over the country and the western world, not only in health care, but in all sorts of goods and services.  Look at all the empty office buildings, factories, shopping centers, restaurants and strip malls!  More were built than were needed; more than could be sustained and maintained. Competition led to survival of the fittest, and the death of the weak.  Our cities and towns are battlegrounds of capitalism, littered with the remains of the casualties of the crusade for materialism.

 

As I mentioned earlier, my time in Honduras has changed my world view significantly.  Having lived most of my life in the land of the plenty, and seven years in a land of poverty, I can’t help but wonder, compare, ponder.  What does God think?  What will His world look like when the Kingdom becomes visible?  Is that not what He desires from us in the present?What is my role as one individual?  What is my responsibility?

 

Just think about it!