It was Thomas Mann who wrote that the hospital could become a way of life. This is what happens to Hans Castorp, the character in the movie “The Magic Mountain,” who travels to the tuberculosis hospital in Davos to visit his cousin and his mother. … He remains there for seven years.
Mann writes that isolation changes the soul. I would say pain. Hospitals are islands in cities with lives of their own, separate from the worries and rhythms of everyday life. They exist inland or on the periphery of urban areas, but they cannot be assimilated. As if its walls do not allow the drama unfolding inside. As if they were foreign objects introduced into the geography of our streets.
To spend a few weeks in any of them is to immerse yourself in the spectacle of human pain, fragility, or rather the cruelty of the invisible hand of fate. You learn more in the lobby of one of these centers in 24 hours than you learn from reading philosophy books for ten years.
From people dying hopelessly to the chronically ill whose needs are attended to by health workers, sometimes in extremely precarious conditions, hospitals are veritable schools of the fragility of the human condition, the dangers of vanity and the irreversible deterioration of bodies. Naked in the face of death, only doctors and nurses stand between us and the disease. They are the dam of containment that protects us when all that remains is prayer for those who have faith.
Forgive the reader for these ideas that seem essential to defending and championing public health, the crown jewel of our democracy. And to publicly thank Dr. Patricia González Tarno, the doctors and all the staff at La Princesa Hospital in Madrid for the exemplary work that allows us to save lives and comfort patients.
There are many services that private initiative can provide better than the state, but this is not the case for health care. This is because healthcare should never be a business where the end result is what is necessary. There is a clear conflict of interest between operating a hospital with profitability standards and quality patient care. Public authorities cannot and should not subcontract health services. Pain should never be a business.
We know that public health consumes a huge amount of resources and that there are sustainability problems, among other reasons, due to the aging of the population. But we must continue to invest and improve the working conditions of its employees, who are discouraged by a lack of resources and low salaries. It is a matter of life and death and a moral obligation to the professionals to whom we owe so much. Thank you.