Moral Injury

ABSTRACT

Ramnath reflects on his career as a physician in the US. He states that although they were incomplete, available statistics unmasked other truths. Health care disparities were undeniably linked to class, race, and socioeconomic strata across countries and continents. Those who did survive COVID-19 continued to suffer from a poorly understood "long-haul" syndrome that prevented a return to full health or work. In the US, decades-long ferment from fragmented systems disinclined to collaborate now burst forth with a vengeance, as the number of deaths from COVID-19 in smaller hospitals with fewer resources tripled those of larger hospitals and attention to non-COVID-19 illnesses dwindled. Hospitals clung to business models predicated on short-termism that collapsed like a house of cards, losing billions.