“If you have to be terminal, this is the place to come,” said Harriet Boyle, as the sun poured into her room through huge windows.
Sitting in a bed with floral sheets and a patterned comforter, the grandmother with the carefully applied makeup put down her large-print book and described life at Rosary Hill Home, a free palliative care facility run by the Dominican Sisters Congregation of St. Rose of Lima in Hawthorne, north of New York City.
“It’s the most unusual place I’ve ever been. You’re not conscious of people being ill here. We all have cancer and we’re all terminal, but it’s serene and there are lots of moments of fun and laughter,” she said.
Beats Obama-care!
Of course it does Dr Joan, just as it beats most types of health care, but we both know that isn’t the point. Facilities like these are never going to be available to more than a minority because – even with the upturn in traditionalist religious vocations – demand will always outstrip supply.
It’s fair enough to argue in the case of recent health care reforms that the cure may be worse than the disease, but it’s disingenuous to imply that everyone promoting such reforms has no interest in the health and well-being of the sick.
It’s as wrong, frankly, as arguing that everyone promoting fiscal retrenchment today is more concerned with tax breaks for the rich than the sufferings of the poor.