HOSPITALS. ARE. ALREADY. REQUIRED. UNDER. LAW. TO. PROVIDE. LIFE. SAVING. EMERGENCY. CARE. REGARDLESS. OF. ABILITY. TO. PAY. OR. EVEN. CITIZENSHIP.
Stop acting like Americans have no access to emergency healthcare unless we socialize medicine.
IF. YOU. GO. AND. CAN’T. PAY. YOU’RE. STILL. THOUSANDS. IN. DEBT. THIS. IS. NOT. ACCESS.
This hospital in my city just threw out a homeless man
The hospital which took me in after I collapsed from the fist sized tumor over my heart, released me after refusing to diagnose it as cancer, which would have forced them to give me some kind of treatment. The doctor at the county hospital which took me in looked at their tests and said, “this is CLEARLY cancer, why didn’t they diagnose it? We can’t let you leave.”
Hospitals find ways when they want to, to avoid helping people when they want to.
“Oh that’s illegal, you should sue” “ with what money and how will I get the time and energy when I’m busy recovering from chemo?”
People who can’t afford treatment also can’t afford to protect their rights.
Absolutely this: “People who can’t afford treatment also can’t afford to protect their rights.”
All, this, but also: having the ER be people’s only point of access is horribly financially irresponsible. It means that people have to go to the ER for every problem if it’s the only place that won’t turn them away, so they go there for an ear infection or a sprained ankle and rack up a bill that’s ten times higher than if they’d been able to go to an urgent care clinic or a regular doctor’s office.
That’s a huge waste of money and resources. And when people can’t pay that giant bill, it drives up everyone’s healthcare costs. Even if you don’t care about human beings at all, you should still care about this completely irrational situation where we’re losing large amounts of money because we refuse to offer people more affordable access to care.
Also, there are things the ER simply can’t do (or does very poorly and expensively), including:
– Preventative care like vaccinations, cancer screening, or prenatal care.
– Rehabilitative care like PT after an injury.
– Long-term care for people who aren’t able to take care of their own daily needs.
– Care for any chronic condition that isn’t a crisis at this moment.
Treating people as collectively responsible for things some people similar to them do by virtue of group membership – ethnic identity, citizenship, gender, whatever – is a bad idea because it blurs who is guilty and who isn’t.
You can’t treat people as individually responsible for what they specifically do if you assume that everyone is nebulously guilty for it. The group lessens the blame for specific actions.
A lot of people are complicit in bigotry but not everyone personally commits crimes against humanity. Treating everyone as equally responsible for both bigotry and crimes against humanity leads to situations where confessing to, say, locking civilians in a house and burning it down is treated as functionally equivalent to confessing to having had racist thoughts – and lauded as a heroic act of self-responsibility. (That’s a real example.)
It leads to despair, because it lends an illusion of consensus to extremists – if everyone like them is culpable for what they do, then everyone must agree with them. That makes winnable battles seem impossible, and that makes people give up and stop fighting.
It can lead to overconfidence, too, because people who accurately perceive that eg. Trump is massively unpopular may assume that unpopular positions can’t be enacted, if what they’ve been taught about historical atrocities is that the entire population was equally responsible and supportive of them.
It also removes all incentives to behave ethically. I’m not saying that social reward should be a requirement for people to do that, but people are a hell of a lot more likely to behave ethically with it. Social rewards within small settings also can serve to counteract the toll exacted by mainstream society for behaving ethically in ways that are against mainstream society.
in theory its super bad when straight dudes go “hey ur a lesbian? we both like girls we’re the same!” but in reality this has happened twice and most recently was today when a guy i was training in the frame shop went “oh you’re gay?” “yea” “that’s cool. it’s cool that you told me. we both like girls and star wars so it’s nice that we have a shift together :)” like god damn it brett you’re so respectful and thoughtful with your goddamned words
the posts that are like “straight men can never love a woman like a lesbian” are cool jokes and stuff but u gotta really appreciate dudes who have no idea what its like to be gay but try their best to try and relate. “we both like hot ladies” you know what, ryan? that’s close enough. i appreciate that.
PSA to all you fantasy writers because I have just had a truly frustrating twenty minutes talking to someone about this: it’s okay to put mobility aids in your novel and have them just be ordinary.
Like. Super okay.
I don’t give a shit if it’s high fantasy, low fantasy or somewhere between the lovechild of Tolkein meets My Immortal. It’s okay to use mobility devices in your narrative. It’s okay to use the word “wheelchair”. You don’t have to remake the fucking wheel. It’s already been done for you.
And no, it doesn’t detract from the “realism” of your fictional universe in which you get to set the standard for realism. Please don’t try to use that as a reason for not using these things.
There is no reason to lock the disabled people in your narrative into towers because “that’s the way it was”, least of all in your novel about dragons and mermaids and other made up creatures. There is no historical realism here. You are in charge. You get to decide what that means.
Also:
“Depiction of Chinese philosopher Confucius in a wheelchair, dating to ca. 1680. The artist may have been thinking of methods of transport common in his own day.”
“The earliest records of wheeled furniture are an inscription found on a stone slate in China and a child’s bed depicted in a frieze on a Greek vase, both dating between the 6th and 5th century BCE.[2][3][4][5]The first records of wheeled seats being used for transporting disabled people date to three centuries later in China; the Chinese used early wheelbarrows to move people as well as heavy objects. A distinction between the two functions was not made for another several hundred years, around 525 CE, when images of wheeled chairs made specifically to carry people begin to occur in Chinese art.[5]”
“In 1655,Stephan Farffler, a 22 year old paraplegic watchmaker, built the world’s first self-propelling chair on a three-wheel chassis using a system of cranks and cogwheels.[6][3] However, the device had an appearance of a hand bike more than a wheelchair since the design included hand cranks mounted at the front wheel.[2]
The invalid carriage or Bath chair brought the technology into more common use from around 1760.[7]
In 1887, wheelchairs (“rolling chairs”) were introduced to Atlantic City so invalid tourists could rent them to enjoy the Boardwalk. Soon, many healthy tourists also rented the decorated “rolling chairs” and servants to push them as a show of decadence and treatment they could never experience at home.[8]
In 1933 Harry C. Jennings, Sr. and his disabled friend Herbert Everest, both mechanical engineers, invented the first lightweight, steel, folding, portable wheelchair.[9] Everest had previously broken his back in a mining accident. Everest and Jennings saw the business potential of the invention and went on to become the first mass-market manufacturers of wheelchairs. Their “X-brace” design is still in common use, albeit with updated materials and other improvements. The X-brace idea came to Harry from the men’s folding “camp chairs / stools”, rotated 90 degrees, that Harry and Herbert used in the outdoors and at the mines.[citation needed]
“But Joy, how do I describe this contraption in a fantasy setting that wont make it seem out of place?”
“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince FancyPants McElferson propelled forwards using his arms to direct the motion of the chair.”
“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince EvenFancierPants McElferson used to get about, pushed along by one of his companions or one of his many attending servants.”
“But it’s a high realm magical fantas—”
“It was a floating chair, the hum of magical energy keeping it off the ground casting a faint glow against the cobblestones as {CHARACTER} guided it round with expert ease, gliding back and forth.”
“But it’s a stempunk nov—”
“Unlike other wheelchairs he’d seen before, this one appeared to be self propelling, powered by the gasket of steam at the back, and directed by the use of a rudder like toggle in the front.”
Give. Disabled. Characters. In. Fantasy. Novels. Mobility. Aids.
If you can spend 60 pages telling me the history of your world in innate detail down to the formation of how magical rocks were formed, you can god damn write three lines in passing about a wheelchair.
Signed, your editor who doesn’t have time for this ableist fantasy realm shit.
If your fantasy setting is having trouble with things like “What other cultures exist in this universe and how do they get on?” or “How do diabled people live?” or “How’s gender work here?” without sounding like Your Conservative Aunt Edna That You Really Wish You Didn’t Have To Be Nice To At Thanksgiving, it’s a good sign that you need to go back, not to the drawing board, but to yourself and your real world, and think real hard about how you’re handling those things in real life.
It’ll do you and your writing a literal world of good.
Okay but like
Do we have to limit ourselves to wheelchairs?
Or could we have like, different kinds of mobility aids? Like we don’t have to remake the fucking wheel, but what if we want to? Like a world with cool magic should have tons of magical ways to help people get around. Same thing with technology. Like sure wheelchairs are cool but so is a guy with like, a fully controllable robot leg suit, or a paraplegic wizard who just flies around sitting on a magic cloud they’ve made solid with their spells.
Absolutely not! I used the example of wheelchairs because the person I was talking to decided to tell me that mobility aids were historically inaccurate and therefore had no place in their historical fantasy novel setting. So I went the entire hell out of my way to drag them behind historically accurate wheelchairs. I actually have another post circulating at the moment that talks about the use of other aids and how magic and other things could work as a mobility aid. I just switched to mobile so I can’t link, but if you scroll my blog you’ll find it.
This is all I’ve been talking about today because it’s all anyone will let me talk about lol.
Do you think it’s ok to say “rolling chair” or “wheeled chair” to sound slightly more old-timey and avoid the tiffany problem
Yep. Another old timey accurate term was “bath chair”. If that helps.
I mean, even fricking Star Wars has Yoda using a hover-chair sometimes. Presumably being 870-some years old means that joints hurt.
honestly if you want to take proper care of your goths you shouldn’t take them outside in hot weather at all, just winter and MAYBE late autumn/early spring if you live in a cool climate
people really should do this kind of research before getting goths at all but as long as they’re willing to learn and adapt i guess
there are breeds of goth suitable for warmer climes but you have to be very careful when looking for one and you cannot assume that your goth is one of them if you don’t know for sure what they are
even the warm-climate breeds still usually do better in their native locale’s winter temperatures though, and shouldn’t be left outside in the summer unattended or, at the bare minimum, they should be given plentiful shade, cold water, and appropriate music to keep them calm
Honestly, if you want something less fragile than a goth, you should be considering something like a punk anyway. There’s no need to expose goths to the heat, IMHO. Admittedly there’s differences you need to do research on, but punks are very rewarding. And for God’s sake, if anyone tells you ANY emo can handle the heat, run. They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.
goths aren’t fragile though? they’re not heat-tolerant but they’re extremely hardy in dark and stormy weather, metal concerts, and dramatic emotional episodes. just because they aren’t well-suited to one weather pattern doesn’t mean they can’t be extremely hardy and rewarding to keep under conditions they’re better suited to.
Forget the climate thing, there’s a more important husbandry issue here:
WHO THE FUCK PUT THEM OUT IN THE DAYTIME?
Direct sunlight is extremely harmful to goths! THey should never be outdoors before twilight!
Do your damn research, people.
you’re missing a key point though
goths need the opportunity to complain about sunlight, it’s vital to their wellbeing; as long as their time in it is carefully controlled and they’re given sufficient sunscreen and shade, it can be amazing and 100% necessary enrichment
Look at that picture. Look at it. Please tell me where the shade is, because I don’t see any. I see two goths wilting in direct sunlight. Just look at how flat their hair is! This is not even remotely acceptable care.
i never said the picture was a good example of goth husbandry, i think it’s sort of taken as a given that it’s not – nobody in this threat is endorsing it, op included
i’m just saying that it isn’t a black and white issue
Fair enough. I’ll concede that a properly-shaded porch or sunroom-type area can help them get the outdoor enrichment and complaining opportunities they need, without putting them at risk of direct sunlight or actually touching anything outdoors. But be careful not to overexpose them.
Aren’t there some varieties of goth that are built for sunlight, or is that me mistaking a similar species for goths?
You’re thinking of either New Romantics – unfortunately presumed extinct, you could tell them apart by their lack of Victorian plumage and occasional colouration – or Emos, which are the product of a crossbreeding with Shoegazers.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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