Righteous Dopefiend Case Study

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Healthcare is a universal need, one which everyone will seek at least once in their life, one which we assume brings about comfort and help to individuals in society. In the text righteous Dopefiend (cite), the Edgewater homeless feel much differently about healthcare. In this paper, I will present the social structural force of healthcare, a description of evidence for this force, an explanation of how it works to influence individuals from the text. Lastly I will end by explaining why it matters to the author that we understand how these social structural forces work in this case.

Clearly identify the social structural force
The social structural force of healthcare forces the Edgewater homeless avoid the hospital as much as they can, until they are at the sure point of suffering life threatening injuries. This is because if they were to check into the hospital and their injuries were not life threatening, they were forced to wait in the waiting room almost a full day without guarantee they will be treated. Consequently, after a full day of waiting they are always rejected and forced back on to the streets. Thus, they will return to the streets dopesick without …show more content…

The hospital staff do not like treating or keeping the homeless in the hospital so they push them back out onto the streets as soon as they can even if they are still injured. Thus, they return to their damaged lives and continue as they did before. As a result, we see the individuals rejecting care, or caring for themselves the best they can until they absolutely must go to the hospital. One example is how we see Hank take care of his own medical procedures of clearing an abscess. He described how he lances his own abscesses to avoid the hospital and that its unnecessary to cut and carve the way the hospital does. The procedure the hospital takes is described as somewhat of a punishment

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