Football fans have a tendency of getting intense when it comes to their team. Tears are shed, furniture is damaged and even some relationships are put in jeopardy. Regardless of all of these things, it is just a game. It is a recreational event that happens for entertainment.
With all of this being said, it confuses me that a football game was the cause for the postponing of a woman’s radiation treatment for her stage four breast cancer.
Two weeks ago, UNC-Chapel Hill played the University of Miami in football on a Thursday. Because of this game, a woman’s radiation treatment was allegedly postponed. Kathleen Keating, an elder-care specialist from Chapel Hill said that her friend received a phone call telling her that the appointment she had scheduled for Thursday would have to wait because of the football game.
The hospital’s excuse for postponing Keating’s treatment was because they did not want their patients to be stuck in game traffic. When one has cancer, I can guarantee he or she has bigger things to worry about than sitting in traffic. If they want to sit in traffic to receive their treatment, why can’t they?
Cancer treatment is indeed not a game, the woman who was denied her treatment was too weak to interview – it was not like she had the strength to wait a few days. Every second counts. According to cancerreasearch.com, cancer cells don’t stop reproducing after they have doubled 50 or 60 times – she has stage four.
So in this situation, the following statement is true: a college football game postponed the treatment of a patient’s cancer.
That statement makes absolutely no sense in my head; I can’t compute it. How dare football be an excuse for not giving radiation treatment?
The UNC hospital needs to get its priorities straight. According to The Charlotte Observer, officials with UNC Health Care said they had planned for the night game for months and had not scheduled patients after 3:30 p.m. Thursday. The game’s kickoff was 7:45 p.m.
Why? Why should a football game stop anything that a hospital does? It shouldn’t. The hospital should be getting its patients better, not working around the schedule of a game.
According to The Charlotte Observer, Dr. Shelley Earp, director of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, said that “the clinics are used to working around other disruptions, such as holidays, weather events and other major university gatherings.”
It’s a hospital. Its sole purpose is to cater to patients – holidays, weather events and university gatherings shouldn’t make the hospital staff blink. The outside world should not matter when they are on duty.
I can understand why UNC health care professionals would not want to force some patients into traffic to make their appointments because for some, that would be a lot to handle. A lot of cancer patients have to bring oxygen with them or can be too weak to sit up in a car for too long. But at least give them a choice – don’t deny them – let the patients be on “offense” for once.
The woman was eventually treated on Saturday. I can only assume it was because the conditions were just right, no traces of a football game or weather issues or holidays.
