Choices

What an amazing time we live in! I was sitting in a chair in the sky, enjoying a cold refreshing beverage and watching the evening news—live—while traveling at 500 mph, when two separate human-interest stories piqued my interest.

The first, about the rise of heroin use in the United States, featured two mothers, both of whom shared stories about their children’s experiences with the drug. Sadly, the child of one of them had died. The other mother then talked about her son, a popular high-school athlete who had overdosed. Now in his mid-20s, he suffers from severe mental and physical disabilities, while both he and his family struggle to cope with the activities of daily living and long hours of therapy. His prognosis is fair, at best, and he will never return to his former level of ability.

Jenny Bonner/iStock/Thinkstock

Another young man, featured later in the program, had just entered high school when his father, then in his mid-40s, was diagnosed with incurable cancer. The son, not particularly athletic but motivated by devotion to his father, vowed to win the state championship in wrestling, in his weight class. For three years, he began each day at 6:30, lifting weights, and spent the rest of the day doing nothing but health-promoting activities. He achieved his goal, won the state title and, at the end of the championship match, saw his opponent congratulate his father and give him a huge hug.

These seemingly unrelated stories caused me to pause and ask myself: Is it possible that, if the resources expended on the young man who suffered from a heroin overdose had been directed toward finding a cure for the cancer contracted by the second young man’s father, might the father’s prognosis have improved?

Health care science and technology are advancing at a mind-boggling rate, while the ethics and laws guiding the use of newly discovered science fall further and further behind. My question to you is this: If health care is a right, what responsibilities go with that right? In the face of limited resources, do we deny health care to individuals who make poor health choices when the care involved is directly related to those poor choices? What do you think?

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published by the Honor Society of Nursing, Sgima Theta Tau International. Comments are moderated. Those that promote products or services will not be posted.