Medical Care is Not the Answer
“Medicine is a social science and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale. Medicine as a social science, as the science of human beings, has an obligation to point out problems and to attempt their theoretical solution; the politician, the practical anthropologist, must find the means for their actual solution” —Rudolf Virchow 1848
Yesterday we celebrated our successes (127 total engagements at our Wednesday clinic), today we talk about how far we still have to go…
Early this morning, we lost our fourth unhoused patient (that we know of) in the nine months we have been in operation.
They died of sepsis, after our physician found them trapped under a collapsed structure on a routine follow-up visit.
Medical care is not the answer. Medical care is the necessary action we take when our other systems of care have failed. We need massive public engagement to deal with the systematic and structural oppression that keeps people dying in our streets, in our parks, alongside our railroad tracks and rivers…
We need you. We need us, to show the fuck up and refuse to compromise on a local, regional and national level.
We have many people reach out and want to help us with our work, and we are grateful, but the work of the people is greater than ours.
Black Thistle Street Aid is only one team, and we have amazing community partners, but we cannot continue to rely on small regional nonprofits to do the work of making governments recognize human rights. Only the people can do that.
So tonight, we invite you to light a candle for the souls we have lost, and tomorrow rise up with the disruption on your mind and fire in your heart. Nothing will make change except massive public outcry and not just after a tragedy, but long sustained pushing towards justice. Write. Call. Make noise.
We would like to start a small fund to help our patients’ families deal with funerary costs. If you would like to donate, please do so through the donate button via our PayPal with “funerary fund” in the note.