I decided today was the day. I'm sitting in my office with no patients due to and losing patience with the MTA Strike. I need something to do, other than my mountain of paperwork. So I'll start plaguing the world with my musings.
I have decided that this will not be a very personal space, but more a philosophical one. I have been working the the past six months as a social worker in a NYC hospital and have become overwhelmed by the injustice that I see here and that I read about in the world. I need an outlet. So here it is.
The people I work with here, as it is a city hospital, are the poorest of the poor. They are those most failed by our society's supposed safety nets. They were allowed to pass through school learning nothing more than how to write their names, if even that. They are taught to be ashamed that they cannot read and are thus pushed further into the margins of society. They are forgotten there. They are plagued by addiction and disease and mental illness, and left to deal with loads that those of us with mountains of education would crumble under. And they are expected to be grateful when I find a way to offer them a substandard home, and substandard food, and a substandard life that I myself could never even imagine. And this is not right.
We live in the richest country in the world and yet we give less than anyone. We have excess in all things and yet we do not have enough. We spend millions of dollars trying to out-research each other in medical science, while millions of people perish because they don't have have access to the most basic of medications. I am outraged and guilty and tearful and tortured by the things I see everyday, both in my work life and in my personal life. And I have no answers. Only questions.
I have decided that this will not be a very personal space, but more a philosophical one. I have been working the the past six months as a social worker in a NYC hospital and have become overwhelmed by the injustice that I see here and that I read about in the world. I need an outlet. So here it is.
The people I work with here, as it is a city hospital, are the poorest of the poor. They are those most failed by our society's supposed safety nets. They were allowed to pass through school learning nothing more than how to write their names, if even that. They are taught to be ashamed that they cannot read and are thus pushed further into the margins of society. They are forgotten there. They are plagued by addiction and disease and mental illness, and left to deal with loads that those of us with mountains of education would crumble under. And they are expected to be grateful when I find a way to offer them a substandard home, and substandard food, and a substandard life that I myself could never even imagine. And this is not right.
We live in the richest country in the world and yet we give less than anyone. We have excess in all things and yet we do not have enough. We spend millions of dollars trying to out-research each other in medical science, while millions of people perish because they don't have have access to the most basic of medications. I am outraged and guilty and tearful and tortured by the things I see everyday, both in my work life and in my personal life. And I have no answers. Only questions.
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