By Drew
Did y’all know there used to be human zoos in Europe and, I assume, across the world? One of the first people to ban human zoos in Europe was an eccentric/vegetarian/starving artist who decided to do the right thing. I can only imagine how that conversation went.
The human zoos consisted of unpaid black folk that white folk would wonder at. They thought they were something to be marveled and yet left them caged, unpaid and underfed.
Not to be confused with…
To compare the struggle of human zoos to the issues concerning the Junior Doctors and Nurses and they’re lack of payment may seem to be a stretch but hear me out as I attempt to reason with the Minister of Health.
Dear Dr. Sands,
My mother is a nurse.
She was a practicing nurse for 51 years (literally). 10 years in Europe and 41 years Nassau. She is 76 now and retired but, if you’re confused by me saying “she is” followed by “she was” its because once you’re a nurse you never stop being a nurse.
It’s not a job, it’s a way of life. It’s lowkey why I love a woman in scrubs…
I grew up with them. I went to their houses. I know their walk, I know their talk and I can recognize a nurse anywhere. Doctors may be rockstars but nurses are fucking superheros. They will forever have my respect and admiration because the smartest woman I know and the only woman I will ever unconditionally love, raised me and made me the man I am today.
I brought this situation up to my mother and unsurprisingly she said, “I’m glad they marched…..we should have marched 50 years ago but back then but we didn’t have the gumption because we really did do it for the love”.
“For the love.”
A funny thing because her generation was underpaid, went understaffed and underappreciated. Who do you think suffered?
The children and spouses.
Sure she may have made more than most, but I remember the look on my mothers face when my sisters godmother told her how much she was making as a nurse in Europe. I’ve never heard my mother curse but her mouth said…
…but her eyes said…
I watched her struggle to put 4 kids through Kingsway, college and help beyond that with my father by her side. It wasn’t easy but she did it. In the words of Dave Chapelle, “my parents did just well enough for me to grow up broke around white people”.
I wonder if she had stood in the rain in Rawson Square what would have happened? What my life, her life, my families life would have been like? 50+ years later and we’re still goddamn here. But your problem isn’t that you’re fucking up, Dr. Sands. Oh no….we’re way beyond that. You’re biggest problem is simple…
We are not our parents.
What I watched those junior doctors do this week literally brought tears to my eyes. This is personal to me. They marched for their children. Their student loans. Their dreams. Aspirations. They marched so they could have more than what my mother settled for. And what was your response, Dr. Sands?
So you were a doctor all these years for the love, beloved?
I don’t know your net worth but I doubt you built your home, fancy car and all that off of love for your craft. The government owes them approximately $10 million dollars.
Joke is, the doctors/nurses were willing to settle for $5 million and incentives. That’s like me being in debt to a chick for $1000 but she tells me she’ll take $500 and a massage.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit
I’ll be out here on some…..
That’s just a win win for everyone involved.
But you have the audacity, after making MILLIONS off the Bahamian people, to tell these young aspiring doctors they must eat a dick and not receive the monies OWED them?? Just because this is some type of new concept?
Fam, they promised them the money. They aren’t marching off air….they’re marching because SOMEONE told them they would get paid. Let me simplify how this went down in the most millenial way possible.
Junior Doctors/Nurses: “Hey…..could we get paid for treating the sick and dying while everyone was out getting drunk and living life and we had to work?”
Government: “Ya man….small tings”
Junior Doctors/Nurses: “Hey…just a reminder about the 9 years worth of money y’all owe us but we’ll take half and a cold soda with ice if you have it”
Government/Duane Sands:
That’s literally all that happened. It’s that simple.
But, since we’re doing it for the love and not money, I challenge you to give up ALL of your physicians salary as well as your ministerial salary to help pay off that which is owed to these people. You know…..cause if there’s one reason to NOT hold public office and or be a physician…its for the money…correct? In service of the people and what not, right?
And, by the way…I’m fully aware this is not your fault.
Make no mistake that I know this has been going on from 2010 and possibly earlier. This is NOT your fault and you did NOT start this fire. Impossible for me to place blame solely on you.
Here’s the problem, beloved…
You’re only as good as your last big mistake.
Ask Kanye.
See, I’m not here for the semantics and the he said she said. That’s for brighter minds and more intelligent blogs.
I’m a simple man.
Your department, under your watch, owes junior doctors and nurses money. Dr. Sands….YOU’RE A DOCTOR. So is your boss. It blows my mind how y’all can live this life of luxury after struggling as these doctors and nurses did and sit on your, now, high horses and declare an end to a strike which in itself blows my mind, but then double down and tell them to just more or less walk it off??
I would ask if you can imagine what they have been through but YOU ALREADY KNOW!
And you diminish and discredit what it is they do, what it is that brought YOU wealth and prosperity, by telling them, and the public, that it shouldn’t be for the money?
Imagine if I was that granular and dismissive of a woman after (what is usually) terrible sex?
Y’all know what they went through.
Let’s do the math.
That’s 8 years of pre-med/med school, multiplied by 9 years of bullshit promises, broken and otherwise, divided by your apathy….subtract the last government that also didn’t do shit….add the 2 years you didn’t do shit, carry the 2 and that equals to fuck off pay the people.
Don’t give me that look.
That’s the math Kingsway taught me.
And for everyone saying that doctors/nurses are greedy and they need to shut up and just “take what they can” and how they’re holding people “hostage”….will y’all shut the actual fuck up and stop talking garbage on Perry Christie internet?
Doctors/nurses make more than me and I don’t complain. Why? Because I work at a goddamn radio station. If Maurisa and I fuck up on #Unfiltered, we get a reprimand from URCA for saying the wrong thing on the radio.
The end.
Know what happens if an underpaid, overworked, underappreciated doctor fucks up?
The stakes are higher than literally everyone elses and the doctors AND nurses deserve it because they’re the ones saving your accident/disease prone life. And no one talks about them cleaning up feces, piss, afterbirth, blood, puss, bumpy dicks/vaginas….
Do you know how much you would have to pay me to hold another mans balls and have him cough in my face?
So if you wanna bemoan junior doctors/nurses, please by all means skip your happy ass to Lyford Cay Hospital where, if you look too hard in a medical room, you’ll get an invoice.
You get what you pay for.
Dr. Sands, meet with the union.
Word on the street is you allegedly haven’t met with them in 2 months. Just come to the table. No one is asking you to necessarily fix 9 years of bullshit. Let me say again: this is NOT your doing. But you have the power to fix this….you have the power to at least make YEARS of wrong….right. They are not asking for anything extra, they are asking for what they are owed.
You BPL’in them, fam.
Yourself and the prime minister are BOTH Doctors and the fact that I gotta write 2,000 words to men who know the struggle blows my mind. And we all see how…..”patient” our Prime Minister is.
Sir, you’ve made your money and I know for a fact no bank on this island takes “for the love” deposits….I KNOW where “love deposits” go.
Don’t turn Princess Margaret Hospital into a human zoo of unpaid people deserving of more but doing what needs to be done to survive in a world that refuses to give them their just due.
Its funny, isn’t it? How even the best of men can be deceived by their true nature.
“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain.”- The Joker
You can still be a hero, the old ways and methods were wrong and you know it. If you let this go….if you don’t act….your political career will end in villainy.
Don’t believe me?
Know who the eccentric, vegetarian artist was who was the first to ban human zoos as I mentioned before? Who did that brave and wonderful thing at a time when NO ONE else in Europe would?
Adolf Hitler.
You remember him, right? He wasn’t overly fond of Jews or minorities, lets just put it like that.
No, Dr. Sands….I am not comparing you to Hitler…that would be wrong and insane.
The point I’m driving at is, if all we knew of Adolf Hitler was that he ended human zoos and he was a weird artsy guy who didn’t eat meat then how different history would have been. How different would the stories have been? How many lives would have been different…forever changed?
History is watching you.
We are all watching you.
We are not our parents and we will not forget so easily nor will we give up on the path that is right. They deserve more and they will not be as cavalier as my mother and her peers. She wouldn’t want them to be.
Be a hero.
Or don’t.
The choice is yours.
Yours truly,
The Nurses Son
Be safe tho
