The (un)Health(y) Fair

This is not medical advice.

“Are you diabetic yet?…Here, have some candy!”

I should say first, that I love all the populations that I work with, and this article is not disparaging the patients or the medical personnel. This is just a reflection on the industry and society as a whole.

I’m an employee (maybe, after writing this) of a large hospital network. There is this local health fair, where many medical personnel and vendors gather to meet with the general population, presumably as the arbiters of healthy living.

There were maybe 100 vendors, yet right off the bat, karma places our table next to Cartel Unidas’s table. Talk about coincidence. They’re worth $450 billion dollars, but they were handing out bottles of water and koozies with their logo.

I thought about telling their representative my nickname for their company, but thought not everyone wants to hear my smart assed comments, and the poor schmuck is just trying to make a living. He doesn’t know, care or understand that his company owes me $5 grand in previous unpaid claims.

Last year a colleague took a picture in front of a large blow up tent of the colon, and I LOST IT!!! Had to find this one on the internet. Refreshment stand with cookies was right next to it. Oh the irony.

I’m allowed to make fun of the colon tunnel. I had bowel problems for 30 years, went to three different doctors, had 3 colonoscopies. Nothing got better, and in fact got worse on the medications I was given.

My wife fixed me with her cooking, and by trial and error with eliminating certain foods.

Trinkets

“That’s a nifty bone pen!”

Did we extol the virtues of exercise and healthy living to the masses? No. We handed out cheap trinkets. And that’s what the masses want. They don’t want to be lectured on preventative measures.

I kept thinking we should at least be doing some kind of demonstrations. My attitude leading up to the event wasn’t the greatest either.

Years past

I attended this same health fair years ago as a local personal trainer. There were raffles for larger free gifts. I put up a free personal training session ($50 value then, over $100 now in most cities). Someone won it, but didn’t claim it.

Massage raffle? Hell yes!…..they’d be all over that.

Physical exertion? no thanks.

Or maybe they just didn’t want to be around my sarcasm, which is also possible.

Some good things…

I got this free blood screening. If the results are bad, i’m not encouraged to get some exercise, or eat better. I am sent over to one of the medication vendors. Bummer.

The Big Picture

Collectively as a society we have so many complaints about our healthcare. There are many angles to it. Do we collectively try to prevent a demise in our health, or work hard to remedy the problems?

We certainly won’t fix it, or make people healthier, with vendors pushing drugs and candy.