“For us it is too late. It’s not about us.”
the Words are Maria holst’s, and the gaze is serious. She does not get her father again. Rasmus Davison will never get his leg back. Sandra Dark Valente will not recover.
the Health sector’s failure of them, is irreversible. The hope they all three, that the minister of health, Magnus Heunicke (S) will understand and use their experiences to help others.
“I hope he listens more to us than our doctors did,” says Sandra Dark.
She is incurably ill of cancer at the age of 30 years. She knows it means that she might not come to see his two little boys grow up.
Like the Rasmus and Maria, she has told her story in the B. T. in order to focus on how wrong it can go when doctors don’t listen. When no one takes responsibility, and the patient be left to himself until it is too late.
An issue, as B. T. through a longer period of time has put the focus on, and which usually results in that the reporter interviews the responsible minister. But this is not the case today.
Now it is Sandra, Christine and Maria, who must tell the minister of health, what he can do better. For they know it best. It is those who have paid the highest price to learn the organisation of the health pitfalls to know.
It can be felt, that their fates makes an impression. The secretary look is serious, his voice is muffled, and he listens intently.
“It was a hard message to get. It is my start in life, which is corrupted,” explains 18-year-old Rasmus quiet as Magnus Heunicke asks how it was to get the message that he had bone cancer.
A cancer that has claimed the lives of Rasmus the leg, but could be found much earlier, if his gp had sent him for the MRI scan, as the then-17-year-old teen pleaded to get.
Both Rasmus and Sandra were first scanned very late in their course, in spite of the fact that they had symptoms for a long time. It reacts to Magnus Heunicke on.
“If you had scanned you earlier, had stood in a completely different situation. It must be the case that if there is the slightest suspicion, then you go through a scan,” he says.
When Mary recounts how the communication between the hospitals in the two regions failed to such a degree, that her father missed a scan, which probably had saved his life, the minister slow her down. He finds the pad of paper and pen to write down.
“There should be an alarm system or or someone who follows up if the patient fails to appear for an important examination or scan,” she says.
A point that resonates with the minister.
“It can’t be true, that if you have to have a time at the hairdresser’s, then they follow up, if you don’t come. But when it is about something that is so important as a kræftscanning, then you’ll hear nothing,” says Magnus Heunicke top of Mary’s report.
He is also concerned to hear how outreach and insistent Maria, Rasmus and Sandra have had to be in order to penetrate in the health service.
“As the critically ill or relatives of a seriously ill should have the help you need. It can’t be true, you have to fight for it,” says Magnus Heunicke.
He mentions the increasing specialisation in health care as a possible explanation of the fact that some patients dropped on the floor.
“It is a disadvantage that has come as we have been doing a great deal, once there is a diagnosis. But it can also risk to give nearsightedness, so you forget to see the whole patient,” says Magnus Heunicke, which has a promise to Maria, Sandra and the Rasmus.
“We come to learn of the things you’ve told, and do some thing about. A thousand, thousand thanks for it, your stories have touched me deeply,” he says.
And it could very well feel on the minister, is Maria, Rasmus and Sandra agreed after the meeting.
“Often, when you hear the politicians speak, so it’s always to cover up things or try to explain away. But I think, he laid down flat and said that something should be done, and it was surely also a form of regret to us,” says Maria.
“Yes, he listened to us, I am glad,” says Rasmus, and Sandra adds:
“It is a little more than I had dared to hope for.”
“Now, I very much hope that we can shortly see that there is going to be one or the other. It would be a good christmas present. Or new year’s gift,” says Maria.
