Post #1847362

2026-04-24 04:31 UTC

I'm not convinced a hospital is the best place to heal the sick. Indigenous health outcomes got a lot worse after colonisation, even when Indigenous people weren't classed as fauna. A lot of Indigenous people get diagnosed with a serious illness, travel hundreds of kilometres to a hospital, and die there. Because at the hospital, they're isolated from their family, their community, their home, their country. I grew up in white culture, and I still find hospitals to be isolating places as a patient. It's gotta be way worse for someone who didn't grow up in that kind of environment. Instead, imagine a travelling doctor service where the doctor has hours to get to know you while they treat you, where you feel valued as a patient. The biopsychosocial benefits should be obvious. There's just one problem: patient volume. Fortunately, communism has some great solutions to the patient volume problem. For example: - No more tobacco companies - No more gambling companies - No more financial incentive to push hard drugs - No more financial barriers to preventative medicine - No more 80 hour workweeks to support your family - No more dangerous working conditions in the name of profit - No more fossil fuel companies - No more car pollution Capitalism makes people sick in the name of profit, and then sells them the cure. In a communist system, doctors would have more time to treat their patients like people.

Replies (2)

@LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 2026-04-24 08:55

Ehh, you're thinking too small minded to approach the topic of hospitals in a communist society. There would be far more doctors because the biggest barrier to entry is the cost of years upon years of schooling. If anyone who wanted and was capable were able to simply go to school without taking on huge debt or needing help, far more would try. On top of that, if there was no money incentive to go be a doctor in a big city, far more people would be good doctors near small towns. You would absolutely NOT have to travel thousands of miles and be away from your family, unless you had a novel disease that literally only a select few knew how to treat. You'd also still be in much better spirits knowing treatment wouldn't impoverish you.

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@TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 2026-04-24 08:46

I agree with most of that, but I think I still need to bring up the benefits of centralised health services. In simple cases, you don’t really need that, but in tricky cases you might. For example, if you need an MRI scan before surgery, you just can’t rely on travelling doctors. Those machines are expensive, so you’re only going to have those in large cities where they can be used more frequently. Surgery also benefits from being a centralised service. You can’t expect a traveling surgeon to carry all the stuff you need for keeping the whole room clean. Besides, the room itself needs special equipment. A simple scalpel and a steady hand aren’t enough to make it work.

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