Concerned Citizen X: “Not one of them died from Cancer”
(twitter.com)
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Beautiful find, CymruBro. Sad, horrific, infuriating. But so important.
The entire system of medical documentation exists to create codes for billing and "causes of death" to sustain medical/Pharma narratives. It is entirely driven by profit and legal protection incentives, and whatever interpretive/recording algorithms are handed down from on high by hospital/HMO/etc. management.
There is absolutely no place in the patient's STORY where the patient, or family, or friends have a say in the sickness/treatment narrative.
It is the most grotesquely one-sided and powerful controlling narratives/texts, up there with religious scripture, in terms of being regarded as the word of the Almighty powers.
And every time a Pharma/HMO/hospital/etc. practitioner adds their bit to it, knowing that they are twisting or lying or whatever, they contribute to truly demonic corruption of the truth.
Including the powerful, generally unrecognized, and low paid "medical coding/billing" agents.
https://spscc.edu/healthcare/medical-coding-billing
(That's a community college certificate program. Not unlike the kind of certificate program you can get for being a car mechanic, arc welder, or daycare provider.)
This is such a big issue. Thank you for being aware of it. Many of us have intermeshing stories of this sort, and nowhere to tell them.
I'd argue that the narrative is power and control in itself, and even more important than the money. The distinction doesn't matter to the victims, but it does matter to those who judge the perpetrators.
YES.
In pomo literary/cultural circles, they will pontificate endlessly about "textual authority" and "discursive hegemony" and such...but they will never look at the power relationships in "health" "care" narratives.
The body of medical documentation at this point is nothing but lies. But it gets used not only to make, document, and justify life-and-death decisions (in line with medical errors/malpractice being the leading cause of death in the US). It also gets used as a knowledge base for all sorts of medical and policy research, as though it records phenomena transparently and truthfully.
And yes, as you say, maintaining that control/sustaining and expanding that power is very much a currency/goal in itself. Well observed. Thanks.
Thanks, lil yellow bird.