From self-care to self-healing

2022-01-14T14:46:53.169Z

The most dangerous thing is that we end up treating ourselves with video tutorials in a 'do it yourself' framework that will soon be available.

An exhausted doctor, overwhelmed by the workload and who decides to hang up his gown, is a serious symptom of the state of health of the health system.

Being like his a highly vocational trade, the fact that so many professionals are considering leaving it should set off all the alarms.

The current pandemic situation, moreover, seems to be the culmination of a long process of wear and tear on this pillar of the welfare state, which has been said for a long time that it works great but little attention is paid to the demands of those who support it.

Proof of this is that there are so many health workers emigrating to other countries where they are better treated.

A sick doctor is a sick neighborhood, a town, a sick society. They attend to symptoms and prescribe medications, refer specialists and order tests, but for many patients they represent a real lifeline, others find relief from their unwanted loneliness when they open the door of the office. They are a point of support and give the security that everything else does not: work or ties. Public health means that, no matter how bad things go for you, if you fall, if you get sick, there will be some hands receiving your pain that will try to alleviate it. Because doctors are there and listen even though they have to do it with a stopwatch in hand, refining their knowledge and intuition to give the best possible response in a time they do not have. Face-to-face visits have nothing to do with sending an email or calling by phone.The doctor-patient relationship is a bastion of humanity that is endangered when it is virtualized or distorted due to excessive workload.

I read “self-care” everywhere and wonder what trap this new word holds.

I dare to predict that if we do the antigen tests, they will soon go on to ask us to diagnose any other ailment.

And even more dangerous: that we also treat ourselves with tutorial videos of a

do-it-yourself

healthcare that will soon be available.

And whoever doesn't know, to pay on their own.

But we will continue to say that we have the best health system in the world even though doctors are few, sick and exhausted and being a patient becomes a luxury within the reach of those who can afford it or who can no longer lose health.

Then we will remember those applause at eight in the evening.

More information

Ayuso, in his annual balance: "Madrid has the best healthcare in Spain"