“Despite the great scientific strides in diabetes care, the rate of amputations across the country grew by 50% between 2009 and 2015. Diabetics undergo 130,000 amputations each year, often in low-income and underinsured neighborhoods. Black patients lose limbs at a rate triple that of others. It is the cardinal sin of the American health system in a single surgery: save on preventive care, pay big on the backend, and let the chronically sick and underprivileged feel the extreme consequences.”
Both of my parents were diabetic and double amputees, legs cut off just below the knee, the bandaged stubs sticking out with forlorn termination from the seats of their wheelchairs. They received excellent attention at home, loving support provided by a younger sibling who made incredible sacrifices to see that they were adequately provided for. But she wondered, as did I, whether our Mom and Dad received all the care and attention their illnesses deserved from the healthcare system. Granted their suffering occurred nearly three decades ago when diagnostic tools and treatment for diabetes were comparatively crude and limited. Nevertheless there was always the haunting suspicion that their illnesses were discounted and their lives valued less because of who they were and how they presented to the medical establishment.
Nowhere in healthcare is contempt for Black bodies more evident than in the wanton severing of limbs, the culture’s casual diminishment of Black life given physical expression. And it should always be borne in mind—despite ghosted remnants of the Hippocratic Oath—that healthcare is big business, and a politicized one at that. Cost savings realized on the front end by reducing Black access to quality health services are paired with maximized profits on the back end. Bodies worn out from the “social determinants of health,” and a marginalized existence, in their last gasping moments are accorded all the expensive “life-saving” interventions the system can muster. The chop shop approach to amputations mimics substandard end of life care many Blacks endure, only instead of a bad death they are saddled with extreme disfigurement and disability, a literal—not figurative—diminution, a measurable taking from their already beleaguered humanity.
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