How Journalists, Artists & Physicians are Shaping the Healthcare Debate: The “SOME PEOPLE” (Every)Body Exhibition

How Journalists, Artists & Physicians are Shaping the Healthcare Debate: The “SOME PEOPLE” (Every)Body Exhibition

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Today, few issues are non-partisan. However, one subject that is becoming less partisan involves how people rate the quality of healthcare in the United States. Access to affordable, high-value healthcare matters to all individuals, though it touches some more intimately than others. In the first three months of 2018, more than 28 million children and adults were uninsured. Though that number has dropped by approximately 20 million since 2010, in large part due to the Affordable Care Act, problems with access to healthcare remain. About five percent of children between the ages of zero and seventeen—some of the most vulnerable individuals in society—remain uninsured, and far more are considered underinsured.

Even children and adults who are covered by private or public health insurance face difficulties accessing healthcare. The high cost of care, inadequate coverage, and lack of services or culturally competent care fuel disparities in access to healthcare. Access to healthcare frequently varies based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, age, sex, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and zip code. As a result, people often experience unmet health needs, delays in receiving appropriate care, inability to obtain preventive services, financial burdens, and preventable hospitalizations—all of which further increase healthcare costs.

As I’ve written before, going forward, it is important that we consider which principles should guide changes in healthcare policy. Based on the overwhelming evidence and experiences around the globe, it is clear that policies should reflect key values like equity, compassion, and solidarity, as well as a focus on prevention and evidence-based care. Together, we need to figure out how we can best translate these principles into action—begging the question of how we can improve dialogue around such an important topic.

Curator Kimberly J. Soenen and her colleagues have some ideas. Soenen is curating a multiplatform photography and art exhibition called “SOME PEOPLE” (Every)Body which reveals our universal vulnerability as it relates to the nation’s healthcare policy debate. The exhibition includes images, writings, and art of professional journalists, writers, artists, and healthcare providers. Comprised of a growing digital and soon-to-be live exhibition, select contributions are viewable on Instagram at @HealthOverProfit.

I had the privilege of contributing a brief piece, which tells the story of the included image here. As I note in my contribution to the exhibition, we need to confront key questions such as: “To what do we owe each other? Who is the ‘other’ or ‘some people’? and How can we nurture each other’s vulnerabilities rather than ignoring or exploiting them?”

As art often does, I suspect this exhibition will help us find answers to these and related questions. It will allow us to see the healthcare policy debate more clearly—both in terms of our vulnerable bodies and universal fragility and our potential for resilience.

Soenen aims to open the live exhibition in Chicago in 2019. She is working to engage patients, medical students, healthcare providers, policymakers, mental health professionals, members of the private health insurance industry, and other key stakeholders. News of the exhibition and related programming across the United States will be announced in the year ahead.

You can get involved! Crystal Hodges, a contributor to “SOME PEOPLE” (Every)Body, is creating an art installation that communicates the ways in which individuals suffer as a result of current practices within the United States private health insurance industry. Soenen is collecting correspondence from private health insurance companies to patients to be included in Hodges’ art installation. The installation will be unveiled on opening night in 2019.

If you would like to contribute a letter or multiple letters or documents concerning denial of a healthcare service, delays or restrictions in services, inflated costs, onerous bills, bankruptcy caused by medical bill debt or other challenges associated with healthcare delivery, send PDFs or scanned letters to Kimberly Soenen at:

KimberlyJSoenen@Gmail.com

Subject Line: DENIAL

*Letters will be reviewed and considered for inclusion. Retract the personal information you wish before submitting.

Because, in a debate that affects all of our lives and bodies, we all have something to contribute.

Follow “SOME PEOPLE” (Every)Body on Instagram @HealthOverProfit.

Moral Conviction and Civility Can Coexist. In Fact, They Must.

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As is well known by now, over the weekend, Senator John McCain died of brain cancer. Since his death, people around the world have expressed their respect for and gratitude to the man who survived more than five years of imprisonment and torture while he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. When given the chance to leave his fellow prisoners of war behind, he did not. Since his death, we’ve also learned more about his sense of humor and self-deprecation and the ways in which he mentored and stood up for younger senators, particularly women.

Although I did not agree with many of Senator McCain’s policy views or political choices, I will always be grateful to him for taking a moral stand against torture when too few others would. His policy decisions were more complicated but, nonetheless, he was vocal in his opposition to torture—asserting that it is both wrong and ineffective. With the moral authority of a torture survivor, he rightly called “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and electric shock what they are: torture. His outspoken resistance to torture was meaningful to other torture survivors around the globe and to those of us who have had the privilege of knowing and caring for them.

Senator McCain’s influence went beyond moral courage. He showed how a strength of conviction could coincide with civility. Both, he argued, are possible with humility. Like all of us, John McCain was an imperfect human being. Perhaps what made him stand out was how he embraced that vulnerability, continued to strive for his own code of ethics, and struggled to understand that of others and bridge the gaps in between. He appeared to understand that, in order to find solutions to today’s and tomorrow’s problems, we must both identify values that matter and listen to each other with respect and empathy.

There are many reasons to be encouraged about the future. However, there is also reason to worry about the silos we have created for ourselves—too often, without enough thought or compassion. We could all do a better job creating bridges instead of walls. I hope that, in the weeks and months to come, we can thoughtfully reflect on some of the life lessons provided by people like Senator McCain and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who also died this month after a lifetime of demonstrating his own moral convictions and civility. Other notable figures have done the same, from civil rights icons Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks to environmental crusader Rachel Carson to animal rights pioneer Tom Regan and so very many others. Though no one is perfect, they provided workable examples of how deeply held moral convictions and civility can coexist—even in the form of civil disobedience. As Senator McCain and they have shown, simultaneously holding onto moral convictions and civility is not always easy, but few worthwhile things in life are.

 

How to Inspire Positive Change in Difficult Times

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Recently I returned from Oslo, Norway, where I met with others to reimagine the treatment of people and animals who are demeaned simply because of who they are – a topic covered in my forthcoming book Phoenix Zones: Where Strength Is Born and Resilience Lives. While in Oslo, I visited the Nobel Peace Center. It’s an incredibly inspiring place – for children and adults.

One of the center’s permanent exhibitions focuses on the contributions of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates. Visitors can “meet” all of the Laureates – going back more than a century. One of the honorees in the exhibit is the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. In 1997, the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to the campaign and its coordinator, Jody Williams. As one of the founding members of the campaign, Physicians for Human Rights shared in the prize. Today, Physicians for Human Rights continues to use medicine and science to document and call attention to human rights violations. As a medical consultant, I work with Physicians for Human Rights to end mass atrocities like torture and sexual violence.

Sometimes, while working in the weeds, it is easy to lose track of the progress that has been made. The exhibition serves as a reminder of the power of hope, hard work, and determination – particularly during challenging times.

Here are some people and organizations honored at the Nobel Peace Center who inspired me to reflect upon how positive change is possible:

Bertha von Suttner was the inspiration for the Nobel Peace Prize. She worked briefly for Alfred Nobel and went on to work within the peace movement and publish Lay Down Your Arms in 1889. The popular novel, written in an autobiographic style, introduced readers to thoughtful, rational arguments against war. She inspired Alfred Nobel to leave money in his will to establish a peace prize, and she was its first recipient.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) received the award twice – in 1954 and 1981 – for its groundbreaking work for refugees and displaced persons across the globe. Its efforts are as relevant today as they were then.

Martin Luther King, Jr. won the prize in 1964 for his nonviolent campaign against racism. At the time, he was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite facing powerful opponents within the United States government, he rallied activists to fight for civil rights and social justice for all Americans, regardless of the color of their skin. Long after his assassination, his incredible legacy lives on – including through the efforts of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Change.

In 1985, a five-year-old group, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, received the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to counteract the nuclear arms race. Founded by two heart specialists in the United States and the former Soviet Union, the organization quickly grew to more than one hundred thousand members in 40 countries across the world. The group continues today as a non-partisan federation of national medical organizations in 64 countries – with the “goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world freed from the threat of nuclear annihilation.”

In 1993, Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk shared the prize for their work toward a peaceful termination of apartheid in South Africa. As one of South Africa’s first Black lawyers and a leader within the African National Congress liberation movement, Nelson Mandela spent more than twenty years of his life in prison. He shared the prize with the man who released him after they agreed upon a peaceful transition to majority rule. After his release, Nelson Mandela helped establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which has focused on restorative justice following the abolition of apartheid.

Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. As a writer and founder of the grassroots organization the Green Belt Movement, she advocated for democracy, human rights, and environmental conservation. Born in rural Kenya, she was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral degree. She went on to fight for other women. In 2006, she co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative with her sister laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Betty Williams, and Mairead Corrigan. My friends who knew her before her death in 2011 speak of her with awe and affection.

In 2011, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, social worker and peace campaigner Leymah Gbowee and journalist and activist Tawakkol Karman shared the Nobel Peace Prize for their campaign for peace and democracy in Liberia and Yemen. They were the first in their countries to receive the award. All three were chosen for their nonviolent efforts to secure the safety of women and women’s rights and participation in the peace-building process. Their work has created a pathway for other women, activists, and journalists.

Malala Yousafzai received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, along with Indian children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi. She is the youngest person to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize. As a young girl, Malala defied the Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be permitted to pursue an education. Because of her activism, a member of the Taliban shot her in the head in 2012. She survived and she has continued to speak out for girls across the globe. Though the Taliban continues to threaten her life, she has worked with others to open schools for girls and to call upon global leaders to invest in “books, not bullets.” I had the privilege of meeting Malala and her father while I was traveling with colleagues in Kenya. She appeared as humble as she is inspiring.

There are many other inspirational individuals and organizations highlighted at the Nobel Peace Center exhibition, and I’d encourage anyone who has the opportunity to visit Oslo to include a stop at the center. Like the people and organizations featured in the exhibition, the center shows how strength and courage can make a tremendous, positive difference in the world – even during difficult, unimaginable times.

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