Totalitarian Cancer – When Healthcare Becomes An Oppressive Bureaucracy – And People Die Anyway – Letter To Alberta ‘Helth’ Services
Cancer Stories . Mutterings And Murmurs . Poly Tics . Social Studies
Attention Alberta Health Services Patient Relations,
Surely someone at AHS, The Foothills Hospital, and especially the Tom Baker Cancer Centre knows of the numerous studies that clearly indicate that psychological stress is a major factor in cancer treatment outcomes.
I was diagnosed with Systemic Peripheral Cutaneous Non-Hodgkin’s T Cell Lymphoma with spinal cord involvement in 2017 and have had a long record of treatments since then. I feel that I have had excellent care by some exceptional doctors and nurses during the last five years but only until the onset of the ‘pandemic’ response from AHS and whichever agencies direct the provincial government in their handling of patient care. I am currently listed as Stage 4, Palliative, Refractory with my disease and will be starting yet another round of radiation treatment shortly.
I wish to file a complaint against all those responsible for my non-medical mistreatment, segregation, discrimination and detention that has caused me anxiety and psychological stress during several visits to AHS facilities for prescribed cancer treatments. I am also concerned with violations to my right to privacy and how my personal health information is being used by AHS or their stakeholders and partners to commit this mistreatment against me.
Apparently, I have been ‘trespassed’ from AHS facilities for offences that have not been fully disclosed. I have some idea of them but I have not met with any AHS agents to discuss the matter to see if the situation can be remedied. There was no hearing or formal charges laid, yet I am being subjected to psychological stress as some form of punishment. I am not sure if the sanctions against me are lawful or not but I fully intend to pursue the matter.
Every appointment requires me to prepare myself with documents to back up my reasons to not comply with ‘mandatory’ measures that I have reason to believe are harmful to my already compromised health. I feel that I must always be ready to record any interactions at AHS properties because my intake, reception, and ejection is always so inconsistent. Sometimes I am met by uniformed security before I even get to my appointments. Sometimes I am met by uniformed security when I am finished my appointment to be escorted from whatever building I am in. Sometimes I am only partially escorted from the premises. There might be one or two uniformed escorts. Three times now, I have been escorted by non uniformed staff. On July 18, I allowed myself to be let out of an exit that required me to walk twice the distance to my car than it took for the initial trip in. I ended up having to re-enter a building only to be confronted by the check-in gauntlet. Sometimes I try to avoid detection and the check-in gauntlet by using evasive routes. I am in daily pain. My thyroid has recently stopped working. I suffer from fatigue and muscle and joint pain. This mistreatment is all inexcusable torture.
I am making every effort to live my best life and to eke out any medical advantage. The application of the Hippocratic Oath to whatever care may be remaining would be welcome. I am sure that the good doctor would have been more forgiving of an occasional pamphlet or sticker placed out of frustration and under duress.
I now find my AHS interactions stressful and hostile and I wonder if this mistreatment will continue until my disease or treatments kill me. Whatever the ultimate cause of my death, the stress of my non-medical, and clearly bureaucratic mistreatment does not facilitate good care or healing.
Sincerely,
Alfred Neitsch
These are some links to some of many studies that cite the relationship between stress and cancer outcomes and one that questions the existence of certain diseases, pandemic or otherwise.
Is There A Connection Between Chronic Stress And Cancer?
https://www.cityofhope.org/living-well/is-there-a-connection-between-chronic-stress-and-cancer
How Stress Affects Cancer Risk
Stress and Cancer: An Overview
Mark J. Doolittle, Ph.D.
https://med.stanford.edu/survivingcancer/cancer-and-stress/stress-and-cancer.html
WHY IS HIV AND CANCER BECOMING SO PREVALENT POST/DURING COVIDE
By Dr Tom Cowan