Nobody Is Paid to Find the Root
Seven crises, seven ministries, seven literatures, trillions spent, all getting worse. There is no profession whose job it is to ask whether they are one disease.
A patient arrives covered in rashes, feverish, short of breath, bleeding from the gums. The doctor examines the rashes and prescribes a cream. Examines the fever and prescribes paracetamol. Examines the breathing and prescribes an inhaler. Examines the bleeding and prescribes a coagulant. Four symptoms, four prescriptions, come back in a week.
The patient comes back. The rashes have moved. The fever has shifted without breaking. There is now fatigue and joint pain as well. More prescriptions. Come back in a week.
This continues for years. The patient is never well and is always being treated. The bag gets heavier, the specialists multiply, the appointments get closer together. And at no point does anyone in the building stop and ask whether these are four conditions or one.
That is not a story about a bad doctor. It is a story about how our institutions are shaped, and once you see the shape you cannot stop seeing it.