No, it is not merely the lack of private health insurance or poverty. Since, as I think it was the prime minister of Egypt commented after the G8 summit yesterday, poverty in Western Europe is a completely different affair to that in the 3rd world. It is a question of degree and no longer that of life and death.
The difference was far more subtle. It was the absence of accompaniment in the form of family. It was in the kempt or unkempt appearance. The little things that said "I care about myself and how I am presented to the world." And there was a lack of the more obvious signs of substance abuse. Although of course they may have been there. But the facade could successfully mute their signs.
All those little things that don't divide the rich from the poor, but the poor from the middle class, for the petite bourgeois. I had plenty of time to mull on that as the doctor's office was amply provided with copies of the "Hola" magazine, that stalwart with the exploits of sundry royalty, film and TV stars, footballer's wives and other wannabes.
The end of the saga, R's cast could be removed completely. He's not delighted as he has become accustomed to it and is very nervous without it. The scan (my first - wow, that's super high tech)) confirmed that nothing was broken, so the doctor consented to removing my cast as well, after also confirming that putting it in a cast was a good move in the first place as this type of fracture could take a few weeks to reveal itself. It's still enormously painful, so he suspects a rather bad sprain and prescribed a wrist brace (which of course neither he nor the hospital provided, this being Spain not HK, so medical cross selling is still in its infancy!) which I duly got from a special orthopaedic store dedicated to the foolish and the old.
2 comments:
Is this fat buy supposed to be an example of "poverty"?
There are many articles out there now on the "rich poor." Like families in the American South who claim they cannot afford to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, but can afford fast food, because it is so much more cheap and filling.
Once, I read an article about fat homeless people in Toronto. One woman claimed that she was fat because she ate leftover Twinkies (a sweet cake) from the garbage, and not organic chicken breast.
A more recent story in the NYT, interviewed a mother and self-employed yoga teacher who suffered when all her clients quit her. She had little savings, and finally ended up on "food stamps." But she conducted her interview w/ us via her new iPhone, which she bought before the crash.
Living in Asia, where poor people are skinny because they don't have enough to eat, it's hard being sympathetic toward "poor" Western people who are fat from eating meat and potatoes, or who have iPhones.
Am I being unfeeling here?
Yes, he probably is a poor guy. Most upper middle class or wealthy people I know (except for British men, particularly in HK) take very good care of their health and weight.
I think that "Not on the Label" had an excellent chapter on the 'democratisation' of cheap crappy food and the impact it's had on the health of the western world's poor.
Your underlying perception I think is also very true - that the 'poor' in the west in part have their poverty to thank for a poor choice in priorities in how their money is spent. Who is to blame? Marketeers? Society? I think that for the time being still in most parts of asia the main priority of the poor is to feed themselves and after that to educate their children. It may just be my perception though.
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