Battleangel

The U.S. Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) held its 11th European Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care a few weeks ago. I learned from initiated sources that the entire event reeked of apologists for America and praises for the allegedly wonderful health care and compassion that they offer. Far and wide accounts of how medical staff went out of their way to save lives. Pathetic. The idea that even the crème of American health care specialists are coming to Europe to educate, among others, Swedish medical staff is quite frankly ludicrous. I could see if the rest of the world made a pilgrimage to Sweden to witness the pinnacle of modern, just and effective health care, but alas, the misplaced and Hollywood-induced reverence for the U.S. is preventing people from thinking clearly it seems. What a joke. Furthermore, I can’t help but laugh when I hear sob stories about the value Americans allegedly put on a human life. Such hypocrisy! Like the campaign IHI is running right now, the 100,000 lives campaign which aims to “prevent avoidable deaths.” Since we know only American lives are worth a damn and that Americans have selective amnesia with regard to the past, I wont bother you with the number of Iraqis who have died since 2003 (it could well be a quarter of a million) or past conflicts, but here are almost 2500 deaths that were easily avoidable. What’s that? Not the same thing you say? Could that be because some lives are more equal than others?