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We need a health care system with a strong foundation of public health that values human life

It is natural, when faced with a crisis of the current magnitude, that our instinct is to reject anything that adds to the negativity and crisis atmosphere. However, as a mental health provider currently dealing with the impact of the epidemic on my patient’s mental health, I need to speak up to my friends and my community about the reality of what our country is lacking in public health. 

The crises humans have wrestled with throughout history have either been natural disasters or man-made catastrophes. Recently the balance of these crises has been man made, and most often, public health response plays a role in mitigating or containing these catastrophes. In considering man-made disasters and public health failures, I think it's important to remain focused on those where ignorance and cruelty play a role in the course of the disaster. As a frame of reference, in this country, annually, 169,936 Americans die of injuries and traumas, including car accidents, industrial accidents, and similar events. Nearly 47,000 die of suicide and roughly 140,000 Americans die to gun related incidents. these Three categories together account for almost 400,000 American lives lost. Despite those losses, the economy continues, and health care continues to function in a diffusional way that we are all used to, and society at large accepts these deaths as normal. Add to these preventable deaths the 599,000 annual cancer fatalities, 160,000 yearly respiratory illness deaths, 50,000 losses from renal failure, 147,000 stroke fatalities, 400,000 die of heart attacks, 83,000 deaths from diabetic complications, and 56,000 American deaths from the seasonal flu. Mortality notwithstanding, the yearly health maintenance costs for these conditions exceed 6 trillion dollars in expense. 

I have always argued that public health plays a major role in the kind of slow burn health disaster represented by the more than one million annual deaths detailed above. Improving fitness, lowering cholesterol, preventing obesity, diabetes education and more, are all the responsibilities of a functional public health system. We did not have to have the Coronavirus demonstrate to us how fragile and broken our public health system is in this country. 

Minimizing obesity, healthy nutrition, increased mental and physical activities are just a few of the components of a functional public health system that are currently failing miserably in this country. The idea that we have already flattened the curve on these diseases assumes that we are now used to and accept that 56,000 seasonal flu deaths are acceptable. Flattening the curve is another way of way of saying that we accept a disease as part of our lives. 

A strong public health system is an essential part of any civilized society. When we come to live together under shared laws, we all also expect that we get the benefits of organized society and the protections of functional government and public health. We have the right and duty, as tax paying citizens, to ask why our money is not being spent on guaranteeing our own health.