The Lights are Flashing But No Ones Responding

 I was fired up and ready to blow!

I received a text from a friend of mine asking for prayers for a medical situation.  She was acting as a health advocate for a mutual friend who has been battling cancer. She was frustrated at the slowness to which the medical and insurance industry can move.

You see, our friend had a re occurrence of cancer and she would need chemotherapy two weeks after radiation cyber knife.  The physicians stated that she should have the cyber knife ASAP but had yet to be approved and scheduled.  While the chemotherapy had been approved, the cyber knife has not.

The disease was advancing and the army needed to wage war.  This was not the time to adopt a laissez-faire attitude.

Despite almost daily phone calls politely but persistently inquiring as to the status, asking what the advocate and patient could do to expedite the matter and even doing an end run around certain departments, the days stretched into weeks.

So what was the health care industry waiting for?  Our friend called and was given the same information: “they had not received the final okay to schedule the cyber knife”.  This is medical jargon for insurance approver.  Apparently the doctor was fighting, I mean, working on it!

Now, I know she was not the only person fighting cancer – our hospitals, doctors’ offices, and radiology and chemotherapy centers are overflowing with the epidemic of this century.  But having worked in the medical arena for a number of years, I also know how as medical professionals we can lose ourselves in the data-lanche  (avalanche) of tests, consults, hospitalizations, insurance practices that is a part of today’s medical industry.  It’s easy to get lost in the data and no longer see the people.  Never the less, working in healthcare one must remember the purpose of the endeavor-to help people, not push paper.

So, whatever area of healthcare you are in, this is what I would ask you.  If this were your mother, sister, wife, grandmother, daughter, friend how would you feel?  Do you only see a medical record filled with stats, reports, and histories or do you see my friend as a human being-created and loved by God.  Don’t leave God at home beside your bed and bible – take Him to work with you.  He will help you gain and maintain a “God perspective” through the onslaught of paperwork.

Do you remember God?  The One that gave you the talent you have to help and “do no harm”?  The One that through Christ tells us that when you care for the least; you care for Him.

Denying my friend to have the best care and talent God has blessed you with is denying God.

Please don’t deny God

And don’t deny my friend.

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’  Matthew 25:40

Do you work in the healthcare arena?  If so, can you share a time when you took God to work with you? 

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