Critical bounds of the health-care system
Production of medical damages
Obscuring the political conditions that render society unhealthy
Mystification and expropriation the power of the individual to heal himself
| Illich, Ivan (1975 / 1976). Medical Nemesis. Toronto, New York, London: Bantham Books. S. XVI. |
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A professional and physician-based health-care system that has grown beyond critical bounds is sickening for three reasons:
— it must produce clinical damage that outweighs its potential benefits;
— it cannot but enhance even as it obscures the political conditions that render society unhealthy; and
— it tends to mystify and to expropriate the power of the individual to heal himself and to shape his or her environment.
Contemporary medical systems have outgrown these tolerable bounds. The medical and paramedical monopoly over hygienic methodology and technology is a glaring example of the political misuse of scientific achievement to strengthen industrial rather than personal growth. Such medicine is but a device to convince those who are sick and tired of society that it is they who are ill, impotent, and in need of technical repair.
