OPINION:
As physicians, every person in our world is our potential patient. As psychiatrists, we tend to their mental well-being. Day in and day out we are privy to patients’ most intimate fears. Our job is to alleviate suffering and to help people live their best lives — for themselves, their families, their communities, society and others around the world.
Recently, we have witnessed a marked increase in anxiety and even terror among our patients: fears of losing access to health care, Medicaid and Medicare in particular, fears of losing the ability to access and pay for life-saving treatments, fears about their financial stability, about being deported, having their families torn apart, losing stable housing and access to food. They fear for their futures, and we share their fears. Our patients are confronting an extraordinary degree of uncertainty, one which causes profound misery. For many, this ambiguity threatens survival.
We see the compounded suffering as a clear and urgent call to action. It is incumbent upon us to advocate for the well-being of our patients, and for innumerable others in comparable pain. It is clear that clinical care is not enough.
We must make the strongest possible case for sustained investment in policies that increase stability, reduce uncertainty, and meet the needs of the people. As psychiatrists, we call for improved access to health care and to mental health care. Beyond that, recognizing that health is affected by multiple factors, we call for improved access to food, housing and education, which make up the backbone on which the stability of society depends.
Specific actions for our elected officials should include taking steps to stabilize and assure access to Medicaid and Medicare. It is essential that everyone with power and influence champion policies that enable people to meet their basic human needs.
Predictability is what allows people, communities and society to survive and to bear life’s challenges. Relieving people’s fear and suffering is not political, it is ethically mandatory at this time.
KAREN S. GREENBERG
Member, Committee on Professionalism & Ethics and Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry
Dallas, Texas
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