Burn Down the “Healthcare Hero” Ideal

Credit: Mike Luckovich

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a resurgence of admiration for the healthcare workers who are faced with overcrowded hospitals, scarcity of personal protection equipment, and just generally unsafe working conditions. It seems natural that the “healthcare hero” ideal would re-emerge during a time when hospitals are under the spotlight as gauges for how the United States is handling the pandemic. Still, many have rightfully discussed how this language has the potential to valorize the (unnecessary) risks that many of these folks are forced to take while doing their jobs. For instance, Dr. Justin Jones’s “Stop Calling us ‘Heroes’” outlines some of the potential harm of the “healthcare hero” label for healthcare workers pretty nicely.

However, I’m less interested in how the “healthcare hero” label hurts healthcare workers and more invested in how it hurts patients who find themselves at the mercy of these “heroes” and the facilities they work through.

For those who belong to any “othered” group, discomfort at being in the hospital isn’t from an irrational fear; it is a reaction to the reality that the means by which people are determined to be worth or not worth saving are tailored to white, slim, cis, non-disabled bodies. It is reflexive, triggered by a whole range of experiences with healthcare workers who let us know our bodies were defective by their standards, who violated and traumatized us. And yet we’re supposed to unflinchingly hail these professionals as “heroes”.

What about those of us who don’t get saved?

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To be saved by a “healthcare hero” is a privilege. It means that you are not too poor, too Black, too fat, too trans, too foreign, too disabled to be appropriately cared for by professionals who have internalized the discriminatory nature of medicine and its science.

For example, consider the experiences of Black birthing people in hospitals. Black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die due to pregnancy or childbirth related factors. Anti-blackness is so prevalent in medicine that, regardless of the race of the birthing person, having a Black partner has been related to higher rates of mistreatmentduring childbirth.

The ability to feel ill and go to whichever is the nearest hospital with the assurance that professionals will dedicate themselves to making you feel better. The ability to go to a facility for routine care or for a momentous medical event (like birth) and trust that you will leave the premises on your accord. These are not universal realities. Even the choice to feel ill and seek medical attention at all is more complicated for those of us who are least likely to be “saved”.

When my sister’s partner was unresponsive on his last night at home, my family made sure the paramedics brought him to Montefiore Hospital over Jacobi Hospital. We live smack dab in-between both hospitals; where an ambulance eventually brings you is decided by the smallest details.

The choice to send our loved one to Montefiore wasn’t made out of hospital loyalty or a track record of good experiences or any of the usual animus that people use to make important decisions. It was the lesser evil of two bad options. Montefiore was the facility that we’d have to brace against while Jacobi has the rumored potential to break a person. I still remember the tired cries from my best friend’s mom during her in-patient stay at Jacobi; we were younger then and I still wanted to be a doctor even though everything about her frailty and the dirty floor scared me.

When you’re from my neighborhood or any other one like it, decisions about where to go for emergency healthcare services are typically made using harm reduction logics. Sure, the security guards at Montefiore don’t like to wear their face masks, but at least the floor staff will clean my brother-in-law’s room if it’s too dirty. Yes, he will be in a bed in a hallway of the emergency department for twenty four hours before he is moved, but at least my sister will be able to stay with him during visiting hours. At least she will be able to hold his hand. At least there are small victories to be had.

At least at least at least.

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I’m not writing this to minimize the efforts of healthcare workers at this time. We’re in the middle of a pandemic that those at the highest positions of power have fumbled for a variety of reasons. Hospitals are high-pressure, high-stress environments that are not for the faint of heart. Even so, this issue goes beyond all of these caveats. It goes beyond a hospital or a region or a year. It goes beyond a pandemic.

I’m writing this because I’m angry. I’m writing this because its past time to question a tired trope that only serves to obscure real trauma and real abuse that happens in the medical system.

Who is this “healthcare heroes” ideal for? Who does it serve? Because it’s not for me. It’s not for my brother-in-law. It wasn’t for Amber Isaac, who essentially predicted her death at the hands of Montefiore’s staff. It wasn’t for Joyce Echaquan or Michael Hickson or Dr. Susan Moore. It isn’t for the fat patient who waits to be seen and gets sent away until they lose fifty pounds. It isn’t for the poor patient who is used as a practice run for the burgeoning student-doctor. And it definitely isn’t for the healthcare workers who have found that being valorized has not increased their access to the needed equipment, safety, and resources to do their jobs.

So, again, who?

It is time to burn down what doesn’t get us closer to liberation and justice.

First published on Medium