We are at a crossroads in healthcare. We have to face devastating cuts. Our very way of life is at stake. It is gonna take some preventative thinking and innovative way to deliver effective healthcare for a reasonable price. We know in research when we cut around the corner, the whole research becomes invalid. We have to start from the beginning. It is the same way in healthcare. All professionals must be involved in the process for the process to work. Nurses and doctors and even secretaries have to be involved so that healthcare becomes effective in doing their job to make sure all patients have a long enduring fighting chance for their health. This may importantly include their families. We need the support of families and close friends to help interpret the risks and benefits and help in decision-making. America is divided into healthcare along three lines, the poor ineffective system costing billions of dollars, the temporary system that lasts as long as there is money, and the wealthy system where there are security and possibility.

Every doctor takes The Hippocratic Oath to not harm and ensuring that the medicine used is lifesaving. Whatever happens to our health professionals staying true to this oath that begin in Ancient Greece. It was what you could hold your doctor to and if any harm happened then they would have to explain themselves and the steps that they took to ensure the health and safety of their patient. We must end the money disruption in the health system because it overlooks and undermined the value health can bring to society, We must create a society that can trust its health professionals and listen to their evident-based answer. In this epidemic, it grows ever so imperative that we make healthcare a right and other necessities that cause poverty a right. We have the knowledge and the proven facts that these necessities lead to meager ends and we must acknowledge that. Again, we see in this epidemic that those bound by poverty suffering the most along with minorities. This is unacceptable and the government can balance out the effects and minimize them by researching and providing adequate support. We are met with one universal point of direction choosing either longevity or death. We can no longer ignore the consequences of not only diverse leadership but also ignoramus wants. Our needs must come before our wants, what we need to do right now is more important than a want for greater freedom.

No news story is quite as shocking, or perfectly sums up gun culture, as hearing American authorities have to announce “please do not shoot into Hurricane Irma.”

Kill the Indian, save the man. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth, over one hundred thousand Native American children were torn from their families. They were placed into boarding schools designed to integrate and assimilate Indian children into Western culture. Not only were their traditional clothes stripped from them, their hair was cut, their languages were banned, and they were broken down and rebuilt in the image of the white man. These authoritarian schools operated in a militaristic fashion, corporal punishment was conventional practise, and Christianity was heavily taught by cultivated nuns and priests. The schools were no stranger to mental, physical and sexual abuse, the sufferings were cruel, unusual and strange. The children, who wore traditional Western clothing with haircuts to match were burdened by heavy schedules, English and mathematics were taught among industrialisation and an extremely sanitised depiction of history, particularly that of America.

At this point, I would say I have watched maybe 100 hours of livestreams and video from the various protests that have been happening across the US (and sometimes in other countries, like my native Canada). After all, A&E's Live PD is cancelled and this is kind of the next best thing.

We are a generation that has already faced so much. There are those who are preyed upon for their race, gender, sexual orientation, the characteristics these individuals were born with. How do we say to someone that they are less than, that they are not normal, that they are destined to be hated and scolded for plainly being who they are?

Sometimes I wonder if there’s still an unspoken resentment for the new world here in England.

This week, I plan to cover a subject that is very near and dear to my heart, harm reduction. I had intended to write on another subject this week, but last weekend I helped out with a petition drive. The purpose was to get the federal government to treat the opioid crisis as a public health emergency and to provide a safe supply for those struggling with addiction. I should note that it is not only compassion that drives me to support this. There is another, just as important, reason. Quite simply, it’s because such programs work.

HRC In Atlanta [1975]

I’ve been processing and coming to terms with several different things lately. One of them is the realization that I have (unknowingly) been in the presence of people who did not like me because of the colour of my skin; or worst, people who didn’t like Black people in general but made an “exception” for me. Now at first glance depending on who is reading this, that may not sound like that big of a deal or revelation. Most Black people know at any given time that if they are in a room full of people who do not predominantly look like them no matter the ethnicity, there is going to be a strong likelihood that there will be a significant amount of said people who do not like them. These are microaggressions that Black people experience literally every day and as a whole, we’ve developed a pretty thick skin in dealing with it.

ZV, a minor and her parents wear dreadlocks. They do so outside of any adherence to religion. Her school has an unwritten policy of ‘no braids, no beads, no locking of hair’. Placement at the school is dependent on adherence to this policy. Reason: parents do not wash their dreadlocked children’s hair, “in a timely manner, and the hair gets junjo” (mildew) and has created serious lice infestation issues in the past prompting administrative intervention.

I would not say that I totally disagree with policies supported by the Black Lives Matter movement. But as a black man in America how can I follow a movement on my behalf that does not fully reflect me? The rate at which black men witness inequality and injustice in this country is higher than any other demographic.