Money in the Bank

This week, President Obama spoke before the AMA holding their annual convention in Chicago. The AMA represents only about a third of the practicing doctors in the United States. Most of this third are liberal democrats, medical school faculty members, and those who have for many years promoted the idea of social medical care, rather than personal medical care. The esteem with which most doctors are held by the public results from the grandeur of personal medical care. A care which has given the profession gratuity of the public, bordering on righteousness. In fact, some doctors have been treated like god to the extent that they believe they are god. The problem is that all this self adornment in no way relieves suffering.

It was not until I opened my practice, and I did practice for a while, in spite of my military disability, because with that...as with everything else in my life... I had the determination that I could accomplish things beyond the realm of possibility. When it reached the place that it was necessary for a nurse to stand over me constantly and watch everything I did, just in case I made a wrong move, I knew it was time to “hang up the shingle” and do other things. I had a large practice, and have already forgotten more than most doctors know. For a period of time, I was just there training others to do the work, while giving these patients who had built this large practice, the assurance that I was around.

One young doctor practicing with me said one time, “I wish these people thought as much of me as they do of you.” I said, “When you have been as good to them as I have been, they will think the sun rises in your backyard also.” Eighty percent of health care is psychological, and your attitude, your genuineness in each regardless of their station in life always is a predictor of progress. I am sorry to report to you that most of the stability of love between doctor and patient has disappeared in this time of assembly line care. When the entire system revolves around seeing as many, as quickly as possible, and depending mostly on technicians to do the actual work. I am sorry to report to you that the Veteran's Administration is the most inept health care system in the nation, and if the socialized health care system is built on the model of the VA system, there will be more problems than one can even imagine.

I am sorry to report to you that most government agencies and commissions responsible for health care are negligent and unreliable. I speak from a variety of experiences, both as a practitioner and as a patient. For instance, as a totally blind, 100% disabled service-connected veteran of the Korean Conflict for over forty years, I challenge anyone to prove that the North Carolina State Commission for the Blind has ever been to my house, but once, and has never done anything for me as of this date. On talk radio, I have offered one thousand dollars to anyone who can show that this commission, or any church, any civic club, any veteran's group, has ever done anything for this veteran.

After thirty years, at a VA hospital, I was given a “talking watch.” (Julia Roberts, not the movie star, a representative for the blind was amazed that I did not have such a utilitarian help or a security system including fire control for my house) For thirty years, I had placed cement blocks at the exit doors of my house to assist the locks, in case of break-ins. This would at least give me time to get help by phone. Now, if the VA, the Blind Commission, Social Services, Lion's Club, or any of these other “do-gooder” organizations had made any attempt to assist this one citizen, such would have been discovered.

If iron rusts what do you expect gold to do? If these highly paid bureaucrats and political appointees to these commissions are not capable of such care for a ranking officer and one of my profession, what happens to those who are more “meek”? Many blind and disabled, having heard me on national radio talk shows as an advocate of veterans and the disabled, have told me that they resist making any complaint because they and their family depend on the small pension and other aid given, and are afraid such will be cut off, and they will be left even more destitute.

For eight years, as a struggling,poor university student from the depths of poverty, I not only worked at night while in school, but sold books door-to-door in the summer, covering all of eastern North Carolina. I have written about these experiences (The Life of a Bible Salesman) in many publications. The education I received in learning to deal with God's greatest creation, the “salt-of-the-earth” people in their homes, and in their fields.

In Bladen County, near White Lake, the very area where John Henry White, black republican Congressmen who represented this area of eastern NC in Washington until 1900, was born on a turpentine plantation. I came upon a small white house with the usual front porch and on the porch was a black man who I learned was a WW2 veteran bilaterally paralyzed (one side totally paralyzed). The wounds received in battle, the paralytic condition, had led to blindness in one eye and because of the “sympathizing disease” crossed into the other, had become totally blind...both paralyzed and blind.

As he told me, his wife had deserted him for another man during the war, leaving his mother, with whom he now lived, with two daughters. The two daughters were now in the child-bearing age, and indeed several children were playing around the yard (his grandchildren). He said, “I get a VA disability check every month, but I never see any of the money because my mother and two daughters live off the money, and they feel I am 'blessed just to have a roof over my head', and whatever 'crumbs' they will feed me. My mother and two daughters do not work at all, except some housekeeping jobs at White Lake during the summer. It is my disability check which keeps them in food, “booze”, and puts gasoline in their cars. When I get so sick I am almost dead, they may take me to the VA hospital in Fayetteville. I sit here on the porch day after day, just praying for death knowing that my country has deserted me even though I was willing to defend it.”

Years later, having become more acquainted with warfare, veteran's activity, government responsibilities, and even being a victim of such myself, I wrote to Judge Cathey, Chairman of the State Blind Commission, whom I had met at one time, remembering this man on that porch in that county. I do not know whether anything was done about the condition or not. Some years ago, I brought these same conditions, as well as my personal experience, and the conditions of the blind and veterans to the attention of a current Commission Chairman, a man by the name of Deluca, who is reportedly a lawyer.

He became quite irate that I would challenge him about the work of the Commission and the fact that I had written many letters to legislators. I am sad to report to you that my letters to members of the legislature, my attempts to clarify and rectify problems affecting the blind and the disabled in this state have not been well-received. To the best of my knowledge, nothing has improved. The question is, a tremendous amount of money is appropriated, but what happens to it?

Some years ago on the radio, a woman, Cathryn Vasalou, now dead, blind from birth, spending her early life at the School for the Blind in Raleigh, told about the blind children from the Black School for the Blind, located in Garner. They would be taken to the White School for the Blind to rake the leaves on the grounds and do the cleaning around the school, instead of the white blind children doing their own. The hostess for the radio talk show could not believe these words, but a blind lady (Katie) who I understand is a retired school teacher called and said that she was a blind student at the Garner facility at the time and that the situation was certainly true.

In the American Experience, next to slavery, the greatest shame of this nation is its treatment of disabled veterans and handicapped citizens.

Supposedly, THE MONEY HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN THE BANK FOR THIS GREAT NATION to pay the social workers, veteran's administration (particularly the Blind Veteran's Administration) the State Commission for the Blind, charities such as civic clubs (Lions, whose mission is blindness), churches, philanthropists, and even concerned citizens to make life a little easier or at least livable for those who in most instances from no fault of their own find themselves, chosen of God, “to share in the fellowship of His suffering.” (Philippians 3:10)