Esmin Green

Was just reading up on the recent issue of the woman who apparently fell over on her face in a Brooklyn emergency room and lay supine and twitching for an hour, during which she quietly died and several hospital workers simply stood around waiting for her to get up on her own. The incident itself is shocking - even, if I may be so bold as to comment on a product of a society rather far removed from my personal experience, disgusting. I mean, how hard is it to approach someone to verify at least a minimal level of welfare? How hard is it to extend a bit of concern? And it is more than a little disturbing that I will be at the mercy of such a healthcare system pretty soon, a system in which proper treatment is not a right, and in which the right to life is in proportion to the size of one's chequebook. But what really got to me are the comments that are posted after the various online articles.

It does scare me that people in the US can bring themselves to say such things about and to each other. That is, of course, not to say that the thoughts that they express are not shared at least in some degree by the people here too. That is also not to say that the reasoning behind their opinions is flawed inherently (although, if I may again be so bold, there are some pretty idiotic and stupid opinions out there; there may not be a right answer, but there are without a doubt such things as wrong answers). But what they say does reveal a disturbing lack of basic compassion for their fellows. Many first reactions took the case as evidence to support various political positions on universal healthcare; on one site, a reader rightly pointed out that 14 posts were posted before anyone thought to ask what seems to me to be the obvious question, which is why people are so apathetic in the first place. And rather than questioning one's own behaviour to the people around one, most repliers seemed more concerned with questioning one's philosophical stance on the subject.

I have to say that I have never held formal politics or philosophy to be fundamentally necessary to daily life, and so I am definitely biased; but still, isn't there something wrong with people who can look at someone dying on a net video clip, and then so easily jump from the very real tragedy to an abstract theoretical position? And I wonder how many people's comments reflect their actual lifestyles. On the one hand, I hope that the people there will really not be as heartless as they seem in their comments, but then again, how many people only get worked up over words and never translate any of this into positive action? These people (and debaters, bureaucrats and politicians everywhere) seem to me to be too caught up in nuances of language and intellectual positions, without feeling any acute need to act on those positions. If that is not a symptom of apathy, if that is not a symptom of a depraved sort of self-indulgence, then I declare I don't know what is.

But of course, to be fair, probably these incidents and the replies aren't reflective of reality over in the States. I can imagine that the people who actually do something about this to help will not be bothered to come online and at all high-and-mighty amongst their peers. I hope this really is the case, I sincerely do. It would be a great blow, I think, to discover that such insensitivity, odiousness and myopia can actually pass off as normal in everyday life.