​

Healthcare Justice Speech

by Dionysos Maskaleris

Medicare for All Health Justice Rally and Vigil

With medical students and faculty

UC Davis Medical School in Sacramento, California October 1, 2015

"Of all forms of inequity, injustice in healthcare is the most inhumane." 
-Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Hello my name is Dionysos and I am a... human being. You can call me Dion. My father is Greek, my mother is Jewish and I am a Hoosier (I was born in Indiana). I am having trouble reading the handwriting of my notes for this speech — maybe I should have been a doctor writing prescriptions.
 

Whether you believe in God or you are not sure — whether there is a better place after we die or not — life is precious — life is sacred. Our bodies are temples or vehicles of our souls or being. Preserving and sustaining the quality of life is a human right and a biological imperative. Animals and plants do what ever they can do to survive and sustain quality of life. It is wrong when the greed of the owners of pharmaceutical and medical insurance companies are perpetrating a system that weakens or prevents medical care for millions of human beings. 

 

My son Josiah child of Light was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when he was 15 years old when I was raising him as a single father in Seattle. It was recommended he get a colonoscopy every year because of his higher risk of developing more severe medical conditions. When he was employed his medical insurance paid for his colonoscopies. When he became self employed the cost of insurance and deductibles was very high. In 2012 the cost of a colonoscopy out of pocket was $1000. My son Josiah went several years without a colonoscopy. He got sicker and sicker but did not go to see a doctor because Josiah had thousands of dollars of student loans he was trying to pay off. When his wife Erica said she would divorce him unless he went to the doctor he then finally went to see a doctor and he was diagnosed with stage four liver cancer that had spread from his colon. Josiah died one month later. One year later his wife Erica jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. 

 

This also brings up questions about our society under prioritizing mental health insurance coverage and our fragmented materialistic focused society and the quality of life for all of us in our culture and for each of us as a species. And the priorities of our medical insurance system? $1000 for a colonoscopy versus many thousands of dollars to treat cancer? We waste money and the sanctity of human life. Shame on you owners of pharmaceutical and medical insurance companies. You are perpetrators of class genocide and the destruction of human civilization.    

 

Stronger then my survival instinct for my own life is my instinct to protect the life of my children as it should be. My children died partly because of a grossly unfair medical system in this country as it should not be.
 

I have already lived a long and full emotionally rich life. I would give my very life to my children. I blame myself for my children's deaths that I did not prevent. This manifests deeper then on a psychological level — deeper still on a DNA chromosomal level my soul cries out! My children! My children! Progenitors and perpetuators of my being  — gone. I weep for my lost children. I weep for the millions in pain or dying under a still broken medical system. 
 

It is the responsibility of all human beings not just doctors to cause no harm. The captains of industry — those who benefit from the pharmaceutical and medical insurance industries make gross profits off our lives. I am angry for the suffering of the loss of my children and for the suffering of others over the injustices of the lack of medical care. We must care for everyone as if they are our own children. We must protect and cherish our fellow human beings by changing the social system of greed and death by sharing resources and life. 
I have spoken.

{All Dionysos Maskaleris writings copyright or copyright pending}

​