France seen as tops in health care

Carol Forsloff -Cultures of the world view pain and medical issues differently.  Studies show there are great variations in pain perceptions as well.
The lifestyle issues of pain put people at odds.

Because of lifestyle and cultural issues some people justdon't "feel your pain."Statistics reveal an increased use in prescription drugs, and much of this has to do with pain control.  There are varied uses for pain medication, for the extreme kind as well as for chronic pain.

It is chronic pain often at issue.  That's because of the questions regarding addiction as well as the culture message that says, "You've
been sick long enough.  Now get over it."  That's especially true when practitioners and medical supplies are in short supply.  Problems related to quality medical care have been increasing worldwide.

This is particularly worrisome during difficult economic times.

The crisis in medical care has been inching up the ladder to be near the top of concerns for governments in many places. It gets to the quality of human life, compassion and where each nation places its values, according to those who are now studying the problem.In some places in the world where tragedy is especially acute, such as Pakistan and Haiti, pain has become a way of life.  But it is the ignorance of pain, the turning aside from it, the cultural differences as barriers that can make a difference in how people are treated

.A few years ago a glaring example of lack of quality medical care was reflected by the response in Kuwait, where the problem was described about how doctors are responding to the problem of pain.   Kuwaiti doctors, according to the  The Kuwait Times, reported medical officials were saying, in response to complaints about medical mistakes or lack of care, “just live with it” with regard to pain.

Medical personnel are also in short supply relative to population needs in India. In this country, modern medical doctors are supplemented with indigenous or traditional care physicians.  The two main types are generally hereditary and include ayurvedic, or science of life system which deals with causes, symptoms, diagnoses and treatment based upon the life system that includes the mental, physical and spiritual.   Deepak Chopra, a well known television personality and physician of Indian origin, is a practitioner of this type of medicine. There is also the unani, which is an herbal medical practice. Still there is a struggle to reach all the people who need care, especially in rural areas, according to medical authorities.

In the United States problems with the health care system involve problems with access and cost. Some organizations have developed to address these problems, many citizen based with medical professionals providing information and documentation of some of the problems so that they may be properly addressed.

A study, entitled "Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis,"set up and carried out by a team of researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, found that the United States is last among the developed nations for quality of medical care and France is tops. To obtain these results the research examined individuals younger than age 75 who had died but whose deaths might have been prevented by
effective, quality and timely medical care.

France is seen by many as the leader in providing quality healthcare for its citizens. Michael Moore trumpets them for that leadership. Businessweek says the French system isn’t quite as sterling as Moore maintains but that it indeed is “pretty good.”

The French have the same interest in having private physicians without limitations on choice, which is something their system allows them to have. Doctors are also allowed certain freedoms on diagnosis and care. They make twice what other professionals do with equivalent experience and education, less than American doctors; but the tort system is set up so that they don’t have the high insurance premiums that doctors in the United States are required to have in order to avoid paying high legal costs for malpractice claims.

 The French government system, Sécurité Sociale, also isn’t burdened with
extra non medical personnel that can inflate costs. They don’t have a collection of over-burdened medical billing experts. Unlike England and Canada there is also no waiting list for elective procedures. France does, however, have its problems in that taxes are levied on companies for medical care. Legislators are considering transferring this burden to a broader tax base. In any case, France is seen as the most cost effective and best plan to encompass ongoing needs by many economists.

With the world looking to the United States to set examples in many areas, Barack Obama as President has helped put through a health care program, that many people fought against as socialism.

National health care, however, is the form for France.  The difference in culture and perception of pain and the need for medical care also sets the developed nations apart.

Media-made Dixie highlights how recession folks can learn from thesimple life

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NEW ORLEANS- Judith Martin - Did the sharecroppers, small farmers, and small town people of the late 19th and most of the 20th century in the South know something we 21st century American moderns could learn from?


Jack Temple Kirby, in his 1979 book Media-Made Dixie: The South in the American Imagination (LSU Press), seems to  believe so as he dissects the history of the media representations of post-Civil War life in The South in the United States of America. Put simply, his main thesis (in 1979) was that everyone from D. W. Griffith "Birth of A Nation" to Alex Haley "Roots", consistently overlooked a whole swath of Southern society.

To summarize: The media persisted in rehashing the myths about the South, of the benign plantation on one side, and sleazy nymphomaniacs and mental  cases on the other.

Kirby pointed out abundantly that what the media failed to acknowledge was that a lot of the population of The South was made up of sharecroppers (of all races), small farmers, and small town people.

It was not until the 1960s and 1970s, wrote Kirby, that the media discovered rural and small town America. TV programs like "The Andy Griffith Show" and "The Waltons" set out to examine the way people "out in the country" could cope with problems, and usually succeed in solving them.

What the TV producers discovered was one of the main strengths of sharecroppers, small farmers, and small town people was a sense of family among themselves -- that extended out into the surrounding community. The upholding of the family was of prime importance, and even routines like calling "Good night" to each other in one household made for very strong ties. If there was a  problem, the family usually faced it together.

More "surprising" was that rural people had a sense of "place". They identified themselves with their farm, their town, their county, as the hub of their existence. These were the places they cared about most, and respected as a part of each individual's identity.

What was sometimes hard for the media to come to grips with was the fact that these folks embraced a simplicity of life with which they were perfectly happy.

Unlike "big city folk" who seemed always to be out buying more showy and expensive clothes, houses, cars, and the like, the country folks were content with being comfortable, even if that meant once in a while looking "down at the heel". But everyone was "family", from the sheriff's office to the folks who lived up on "Spencer's Mountain".

Kirby closed his analysis of Media-Made Dixie by saying that Americans as a whole were losing touch with that part of their culture that values family (immediate and community), place (home), and comfort, rather than pretense and show. But once that is gone, overwhelmed by strip shopping malls and fast food outlets, and highways that bypass a slower pace of life, it may be next to impossible to regain it.

And that is the lesson we American moderns can certainly learn: To treasure and respect the basic, good things in life that really no money can buy:  Family, home, and the simple life.