"Diagnosis: golden rush" novel by Krystyna Knypl, chapter 4
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- Nadrzędna kategoria: ROOT
- Kategoria: Artykuły redaktor naczelnej
- Opublikowano: czwartek, 23.03.2023, 04:39
- Odsłony: 1737
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Krystyna Knypl
CHAPTER 4. AN UNEXPECTED INVITATION
As expected, it was not difficult to convince the decision-makers of the Union of Independent Realand Republics to introduce the profession of preceptorship and test the idea in Sarmaland. Without much trouble, it was able to be introduced into the country’s list of licensed health professions. The matter required some investment, but the prospects looked interesting. Costs in health care were expected to be reduced by about 14% within the first year after the introduction of the new profession.
Any change in any market, including medicine, would not have been possible without the media. Publicity, proper exposure of the problem, and sympathetic associations helped to hammer the new ideas of the authorities into the heads of the recipients of medical services. Thus, invitations to press conferences were sent now and then to editors specializing in medical topics. Special care was given to all editors of the environmental media as a bastion of traditional resistance to the new business solutions being introduced.
So many invitations to various events were sent out that each editorial office had to establish a 24-hour email and text messaging duty. He was supposed to receive incoming news to the editorial office and report quickly to the bosses, possibly running to the most urgent press conferences.
Things were similar at the monthly „Modne Diagnozy” located on the border between Realandia and Virtualandia. This monthly magazine filled a gap in the educational market for physicians, who had to master those disease entities for which patients wanted to accrue disease. Traditional education in medicine was no longer sufficient to serve Sarmalanders and provide them with the satisfaction of getting sick, which is an inherent bonus due to every patient, constitutionally guaranteed by the Sarmalandia government.
Matilda Przekora
Sickness without satisfaction for illnesses that a doctor diagnosed was no longer trendy, and violated the patient’s rights to be an active partner in the treatment process. Every citizen has the right to equal access to being sick, satisfaction from being sick and receiving treatment, and to be an active partner in the therapeutic process, as proclaimed in paragraph 22 of the Sarmaland Constitution. Rumors that sickness and satisfaction are mutually exclusive were actively debunked by Dr. Odrana – Zatroskana, the originator of this provision in the constitution, longtime minister to all patients and tireless comforter of the afflicted, and over time an active developer of civil rights in Aeropag Sarmalandia.
Well, after all, it wasn’t why citizens paid taxes to educate doctors and their salaries, not to have the sponsorship satisfaction of freely choosing to get sick and get fashionably sick. „Modne Diagnozy” thematically kept up with the medical market, which was changing like in a kaleidoscope. The editors were just looking for a journalist for the position of participatory reporter to cover numerous events in the medical market.
Dr. Matilda Przekora, after a trip to the border areas between Virtualandia and Realandia, had become more solidified in doing medical journalism in extreme conditions and was ideally qualified for such work. After a brief interview with the Managing Editor of „Modne Diagnozy,” she was accepted for the job. Admittedly, the Managing Editor detected during the interview the candidate’s abysmal state of knowledge of the rules of punctuation, spelling, and calligraphy, but this was not the most important thing which punctuation marks the attending reporter would use in the text, but what words she would insert between these passionate stamps when describing the next medical event.
Dr. Matilda Przekora new job meant moving swiftly from place to place on the front lines of the battle for the welfare of Sarmaland’s patients, attending numerous press conferences, briefings, and meetings, and keeping an ear to the incoming blandishments around the clock, and then describing it all. Matilda had just been on round-the-clock editorial duty when the sound of an incoming text message pierced her ears.
And what the heck is embarrassing me by Sunday,” she thought and cast a weary glance at the contents of the blandishments.
- Minister of All Patients of Sarmalandia invites you to a press conference – proclaimed the text message.
- Ah, what a hard worker he is, this minister - she remarked with undying admiration, „so tireless, by Sunday, only press and press. Pardon, of course, work it’s from those nerves me typo misprint happened - stated Matilda.
Service is not the best man. Maybe what state of dissent will be announced? It’s been a long time since there was anything like that - she fumed and quickly summoned her military journalist outfit. Just there was something to it, for summoned along the same road, other medical journalists took up fighting positions in the perimeter bushes and took out clattering machines to broadcast correspondence from the front lines of the battle for the well-being of the Sarmalandia patient.
From such a modern computer it is any one foreign correspondent who can intercept the idea as his own into the world and then no one will come to learn. And from the personal tapping machine, no one will copy anything. Now we can’t get rid of those who, come to us to watch – because as the world is long and wide no one comes up with such ideas as we do. And their great-grandmother is Dr. Odrana – Zatroskana, or maybe just a right case, who knows – pondered Matilda sitting in the official bushes. One could sense an unusual aura around the Ministry of All Patients from the first moment. Yet something big is going to happen - Matilda thought. She didn’t look back and it was time to enter the ministerial halls. With a deft move, she took out a press card from her field bag, at the sight of which the barrier master lifted the aforementioned connecting link that binds the government to the people and the ministry to the people, and allowed journalists into the area inhabited by the authorities.
- Ms. Editor Matilda, or rather, Ms. Doctor, what’s trending in diseases there this season? - entreated Mr. Jan, acting as the first barrier in the ministry.
- Mr. Jan, probably the most trendy thing now is to have ADHD in the adult version,” replied Matilda. But for you, it is not a suitable disease, since your job is to sit in one place. Thank you for the warning, in this situation I will not seek this diagnosis. Fashion is one thing, and sanity is another,” the groundskeeper prudently noted. She was not surprised at all by the quick reaction of the ministerial barrier lord, for she had long known that at the sight of the press card all doors open and barriers go up, and on top of that from such an editorial as „Modne Dianozy ” it all happens in a flash. Everyone finally wanted to know what was in fashion and diseases.
Press conference
Barely had the summoned attending reporters set up their microphones and cameras, and Dr. Bartolomeo Karriera – Nieuwierra, the next head of the Ministry of All Patients of Sarmalandia after Dr. Odrana – Zatroskana, entered the conference room. He owed his exotic name and two-pronged surname to his ancestors from Espanalandia, located on the western edge of the continent of Europendia. They arrived in Sarmalandia more than three centuries ago in search of fame and career. Indeed, they were very receptive to these goods and no hardship discouraged them. Bartolomeo approached the microphone and began to speak:
Compatriots! Eaters of Refunded Pills!
- Your health has been in danger….But we have taken vigorous corrective measures! I assure you! Only properly filled prescriptions will be reimbursed. Anyone who raises his hand against the Great Idea of Reimbursement will be cut off from the life-giving contract with the National Brother Payer. The time for trial, truth, and sacrifice has come! Our rule against prescription writers will be An eye for an eye, a tooth for a mistake – on the prescription, of course! – continued Minister Bartolomeo Karriera – Nieuwierra. We will pull out all the teeth of this hydra biting the hand that feeds it! – he threatened in a principled manner. Matilda, feeling reassured by the minister’s energetic actions, began vetting the immediate area. To the left of the minister of all Sarmaland patients stood the young, determined, and dedicated president of the National Paymaster Brother.
- Ah, what an elegantessa she is - thought Matilda not without jealousy, mirroring the richly falconed creation surely specially donned for the press conference. And I’m so military…. did not sense how to dress when invited to the Salons of Power…. oh, no… – pondered Matilda. But maybe there is nothing to envy on the other hand? In such a job, it’s all sorts of things a young, elegant woman can hear….Before Matilda had time to analyze the course of the frills exquisite gown, Amelia Aurelia Boska – the heroic spokeswoman for all sorts of patients’ rights in Sarmalandia, who set up a 24-hour telephone communication „We, the people” with the authorities – arrived at the other ministerial side. She has now escaped from her telephone exchange. I’ll stand here for a while, then I too will catch the eye of some camera,” thought Amelia Aurelia.The poor girl must be suffering from glass-pushing syndrome! – remarked Matilda.
Meanwhile, Minister Bartolomeo Karriera - Nieuwierra immediately noticed the fleeing employees and called out to her in a stern voice: Aaamelio Auuurelio, and what is the best thing you are doing here at my august side? March me to the telephone exchange on duty! Dismiss immediately with a parade step, without unnecessary delay and unnecessary procrastination, and without talking! – shouted the minister passionately. How much fervor there was in these words of Minister Bartolomeo Karrier – Nieuwierra! How much dedication to the well-being of the Sarmaland patient, thought more than one participant in the press conference. Meanwhile, Matilda sank into pondering the Great Idea of Refunds in Sarmalandia.
If we look, for example, at the fate of a poor, non-working woman with a retained uterus for hormone replacement therapy, suffering from diabetes and abdominal pain, shelling out the last pennies from her mother’s old wallet – a pensioner – to buy herself long-acting insulin which, as we learn from a well-known portal Penicillium, costs 140 Sarmalandia reals per packet, we will be flooded with tears of despair. However, this will not be a good reaction to ponder! What’s more, it will be very costly because when we cry all the tears – after all, the authorities will not deviate from the Great Idea of Refund even by a millimeter, they will not even give up a button, at most they will say „and the button will go back!” – then we will come to buy artificial tears for further sobs. And each drop is a 40-coin flask and a cruelly tiny one at that. Hands shake and a droplet of fiat-firut flies into the ear.
- One second, third drop … a few more hydrations even after a drop and not a moment before there is nothing left in the bottle! And if there is nothing in the bottle then depression is ready! Depression requires treatment, of course! But is it a disease or rather a mental disorder? A reimbursement controller with a master’s degree in history thinks it’s a disease, and another controller with a master’s degree in cultural studies thinks it’s a mental disorder. A local reimbursement consultant believes that depression does not in every case equate to a mental disorder, but depression is a disease, and this disease requires drug treatment. This means that one should be reimbursed with a 30% gratuity. According to the provincial consultant, illness does not equal mental disorder, and this is where the dog is buried.
- Against the use of the phrase „here the dog is buried” came the Association of Friars Minor but Great in Spirit. Then we can no longer say hier ist ein Hund begrabet? We can’t and no more! How to live, how to live? How to live when antibiotics for pregnant Sarmalandia women are at 100% because the wily pharmaceutical business has not registered them in the indication for those who have decided to rent their uteruses for the sake of our Beloved Sarmalandia. And should, God forbid, a blockage or clot or other misfortune attack the body of a Sarmalandia mother in spe, no small-molecule heparins will be available to them in this heartless reimbursement system! Once they complete their civic endeavor, called marital pregnancy, they will start menstruating painfully again. Will they get a prescription for reimbursable ketonal for such menstruation? In the aeropag of Sarmalandia, a bill is being vigorously worked on to prohibit reimbursement of medical treatment for women with extramarital pregnancies – because only blessed unions have the force of law, and we are a country of laws, and this is not a game. Ene due rabe, how would one swallow this reimbursement frog when ketonal duo has a registration in painful menstruation, and regular ketonal and ketonal forte do not? Searching for an answer to this question, she went for a walk in the Sarmawa forest, where a blood-sucking tick, obviously infected with Borrelia burgdorferi, could attack! How to live when doxycycline is at 100% in the treatment of Lyme disease? And how much trouble will consumers of valproate, carbamazepine, and alendronate have! No kidding, no stairs. Where is the exit? That what ??With a ladder through the window ? And if I twist my leg?.
- Where could there have been a better location for scientific disputations than in Booton, a city where the power of Mind and Ocean could be felt at every turn. The Booton Airport Hotel was chosen as the location for the conference planned by Jonathan and Caroline, which was within walking distance, or rather, a footbridge connecting it to the airport. Time was of the essence and wasting it on commuting to the city center made absolutely no sense. It was no small matter that the Booton Airport Hotel offered a truly discreet environment for deliberations. The cost of one room reaching five hundred Ameerland reals did not make a special impression on anyone, especially since practically none of the conference participants were looking at the bills for their stay. From such mundane matters were the young managers who had been accommodating the hotel since Thursday, checking the last details of the order.
- Everything was in top order – the rooms for the attendees, the welcome dinner menu, and, finally, the conference room for Saturday’s proceedings. Participants assembled on Friday afternoon met at the welcome dinner in the evening, shook hands, and exchanged smiles and first ideas. On Saturday morning, everyone was focused and ready for deliberations. Three groups of topics were chosen for discussion.
The first session considered whether there was a correlation between the structure of proteins, particularly certain varieties, and human behavior. The second session considered the organization of a donor base of biological materials for future research. The third topic was forward-looking and was perhaps the most important – whether it is possible to influence human behavior with methods of programmed biological interventions on a mass scale.
Can people be inoculated, as it were, against generating social costs? Professor Graham Bohner of the National Institute of Science & Medicine, who chaired the first session, did not doubt that such a relationship between biological structures and social behavior exists, although it is not scientifically proven on a large scale. So how could this hypothesis be tested? It needed access to biological samples taken from at least two generations, as well as data on the subjects’ personalities, behaviors, consumption choices, and political preferences.
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Krystyna Knypl
Diagnosis: golden rush
2011 / 2013