Will We Choose the Love of Money Over the Care for the Patients?

 
Those manufacturing and selling MRI machines are making millions of dollars at my expense. And, at yours. The expense of using the MRI machines is so massive that hospitals have policies in place to curb the use of them.

It seems to me, though, that the diagnosis should come as quickly as possible -- and as freely and without obstruction as can be arranged. This falls in the box called providing good medical care. Do we in the United States want to have a good medical system? Then let's make MRIs more affordable and more accessable. 

The makers of the MRI machines are making big money off their products. It's a gold mine. You will not convince me the machines could not be vastly less expensive. It would require taking some money out of the pockets of the rich, but where should our concern lie here, with the rich medial industrialists or with the people needing good medical care? Which will we, as a society, choose?

I recently went to emergency and received an MRI. It took several hours for an MRI scan to become available. They were booked. The technician explained that he was the only one scheduled to do the work. To me, it seems clear the hospital should staff the position more generously. This is emergency care we are talking about. Don't skimp on personnel when lives and good health are on the line. We have great reason to believe that the money being saved by not adequately staffing our emergency rooms is going straight to the pockets of the hospital executives. 

I do not doubt that any of you, reading this, do not recall when there was a logjam for someone you know who was in need medical care. We often blame it on not enough people aspiring to take up medicine and become doctors. Just a shortage caused by us not paying them enough? I'm not buying that. I blame the hiring practices of the hospitals. Just go out and hire more people. If you do have to pay them more in order to entice them to take up the profession, do so, but staff our hospitals and medical establishments adequately and generously.

We hear much about how the medical systems in many countries do not require such long waiting periods. Can we not see that many of those systems are, well, socialistic (if I can use the term without everyone throwing their hands over their mouths and gasping)? When you have a capitalistic system, the capitalist skims all the money away. Don't try to convince me that with the hospitals being not-for-profit, that can't be the case. Just can't, you say. But consider that there still remains hospital executives living high on the hill while the patients below are screaming in need of better medical care.

The love of money is the root of all evil, someone once said. Why do we let it, then, infect our medical system so deeply?