The Hypocratic oath states that doctors should treat everyone, regardless of race, religion, sexuality, financial status, personal history, etc.
First of all, Western countries already don’t do that. They discriminate by race, religion and sexuality (Catholic hospitals), and especially financial status. So not doing this is already standard practice.
But I personally think a case can be made the communist doctors shouldn’t treat everyone either. If a Nazi comes in, no, he can go fuck himself and no doctor should be treating him. Or in a triage situation, the proletariat should absolutely get priority over the bourgeoisie.
That’s just my hot take and admittedly I do not really know the theory behind this stuff, and I definitely want to learn, hence this post. What do you think? Please correct me if I’m wrong on this.
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During the Cuban revolution, specially being El Che a doctor, many a times enemy troops were captured, where some times there were injured. Ideally they would disarm them and liberate them but if they were hurt and they had the resources they would heal them, oftentimes this caused people to reconsider their positions, even if this only meant to remain neutral. A lot of times it happens people involved are simply proletarians, even if they are on the wrong side of history for one reason or the other. I’m not saying every situation is the same, this should be judged on a case by case basis.
Well a lot of other things come in this as well. The idea is in a big part based on that the doctors are not supposed to be judges over the life and death of people outside of pure medical considerations (like in heated triage for example).
So even if a nazi in SS uniform in danger to his life come, the decision to save him or not should not lie on the doctor. So he should be saved and then properly judged. Same with a nazi in prison waiting for trial.
Or nazi in prison post trial - this mean said nazi was judged to be reedemable and is in the process of rehabilitation, so he also shouldn’t be deprived of medical attention.
For good example, look at Cuba.
Liberalism has made a mockery of the term ‘human rights’ so I’ll not use it here.
But housing, healthcare, education and dignity should be for everyone. No exceptions. If we deny it to a single individual, no matter how abhorrent that individual, it ceases to be a right or universal guarantee by our society and becomes a privilege instead.
That having been said:
Whose responsibility is it to provide these things? It’s the state’s responsibility until we outgrow the need for states.
If any citizen (including a Nazi) needs healthcare, the state should provide healthcare (and some remedial education if he’s a Nazi, as the state has evidently been negligent in that regard). There will always be exceptions, like in times of scarcity or war or triage, but if the state chooses to withold healthcare, it’s betraying its people.
Providing healthcare to citizens of other states is a whole other thing. If an individual can’t get healthcare in their own state there’s going to be a whole ethical dilemma of choosing mercy over cruelty, versus hampering the conditions for revolution in that other state that could lead to a state that does provide healthcare, and the opportunity cost of potentially scarce resources that could be spent on citizens the state does have a responsibility for. Any blanket rulings here would be self-defeating dogma that ignores the myriad factors in the material conditions.
The Hippocratic oath is dogma. It espouses ideals that we share as communists, but in implementation it’s simplistic and ignorant of context. For a communist doctor, the oath adds no value that they don’t already have and only offers limitation.
Providing healthcare to citizens of other states is a whole other thing.
I do not believe it to be the case that citizens of other countries should be treated differently. A nation is just as responsible for guests within its borders as it is for its own citizens. Also, why should a hospital even have knowledge of someone’s immigration status in a just society? The purpose of a hospital is to treat people who enter.
If a criminal, Nazi, whatever enters and needs treatment, they should get it, and simply be guarded or handled as such while they are there. It is not up to the hospital to decide who lives and who dies. The goal is to try to treat everyone. If the hospital treats someone that the state later decides to execute, well then the hospital still did their appointed duty.
Hospitals are not a place for “execution by neglect”. And if a non-citizen enters, they are still a guest of the nation and should be treated as such.
…versus hampering the conditions for revolution in that other state that could lead to a state that does provide healthcare
Denying healthcare to a working class person, foreign or otherwise, simply to encourage a revolution isn’t ethical. Also, it likely won’t even be effective. Imagine for a moment: You are a working class person desperately in need of medicine. You go to a neighboring communist nation hoping they help you because you heard they were compassionate, but you get rejected for being a foreigner. Would you return to your nation hoping to establish communism locally after being turned away in a communist nation? What would your impression of communism be after being rejected? Now on the flip side, would you have a better impression of communism if you went to your friendly neighbor and they treated you? Might it be possible that you go home more willing to ignore the propaganda against the friendly neighbor communist country because you experienced the truth?
People don’t flee nations as huge swaths of refugees for not being able to access medical care, otherwise the US would be empty of humans, so it isn’t like you’ll have massive drains on your resources for simply treating foreigners.
Look at Cuba for example: they are being actively blockaded by the US and struggle to get basic medicines, yet they full on send some their best doctors around the world to aid in fighting some of the worst medical crises humanity faces, and most of the non-white world loves them for it, and shit even regular ass white people here in the states I talk to express admiration for them when I bring this up.
During some of the worst moments of the COVID pandemic, Vietnam was doing much the same sending doctors to even adversarial nations to aid working class people overseas despite having to deal with their own problems as well. China too.
EDIT: Also, medical students don’t take the original Hippocratic Oath anymore, but a much more encompassing public oath. We don’t need to even discuss the Hippocratic Oath because no one even uses it anymore. The medical community is fully aware how outdated it is.
Look at Cuba for example: they are being actively blockaded by the US and struggle to get basic medicines, yet they full on send some their best doctors around the world to aid in fighting some of the worst medical crises humanity faces, and most of the non-white world loves them for it, and shit even regular ass white people here in the states I talk to express admiration for them when I bring this up.
Cuba is a great example. They provide medical personnel around the world, not medical supplies. They have an abundance of the former and a shortage of the latter. During COVID Cuba sent doctors, China sent fewer (relative per capita to Cuba) doctors and way more supplies. Both countries sent aid in forms that was surplus to the needs of their domestic healthcare responsibilities.
Treatment is not free to outsiders visiting Cuba. Medical tourism is an important income stream for the Cuban health system that supports its ability to give free healthcare to its own people.
I’m not saying countries should refuse treatment to outsiders, I’m saying it’s not their responsibility. And there absolutely should be different policy toward them. Giving foreign nationals the same access to free healthcare is just offering capitalist countries a new way to exploit you and siphon your labour and resources. Health policy has to be decided based on material conditions and context, like how China has an agreement with the DPRK for giving free healthcare to one another’s citizens and settle costs between governments - and then China waives the charges for DPRK migrant workers.
And I know the Hippocratic Oath is outdated; I mention it because I’m responding to OP, who mentions it.
