How Will Healthcare and Medications be Affected by Energy and Resource Decline?

 

The Koocanusa Bridge is the only bridge connecting the east and west sides of Lake Koocanusa in Montana and is Montana's highest (215 feet above the river) and longest bridge.

A bridge too far? What will be the consequences of energy and resource decline on the healthcare industry? Will medicines be affected? Unfortunately, energy affects every one of us in very distinct ways. While these questions are very important ones indeed, energy and resource decline will affect far more than just the healthcare industry. It will affect parts of our daily lives in almost every way imaginable. Agriculture and food and water security will be one important area of concern. Another area of great concern will be climate change and collapse, as collapse will reduce the level of energy available to deal with the increasing incidences of extreme weather events and natural disasters caused by climate change. Think about a piece of infrastructure - ANY infrastructure - how did that piece of infrastructure come to be? Energy and resources. How is that infrastructure maintained? Energy and resources. How is that infrastructure done away with at the end of its life? Energy and resources. So, as one can clearly see, this particular predicament is one of the most pervasive and comprehensive ones we will have to deal with as time moves forward.

Since the healthcare industry deals with disease, another related symptom predicament, just as disease becomes more prevalent due to the ongoing effects of all the other predicaments under the ecological overshoot umbrella, we will have less and less energy and resources to deal with it. One of many consequences will be a shortened lifespan for humans and our animal companions. Even though many people probably don't think about it, our plant companions on this planet will also have their lives cut short as well. Many of the programs we utilize today to "save species" or to usher in conservation utilizes energy and resources, no differently than everything else that is a part of our daily lives. Without this energy and resources, we will be forced to leave plants and animals to their own devices for the struggle for survival. I've always found those who think we are the rulers of nature massively foolish and arrogant, but that's another subject (see hubris).

Because of species and biodiversity loss, disease will be ramped up into overdrive. We are just beginning to see these effects now, and there will be many pandemics in the future which will be far worse than today's COVID-19. Increasing levels of chemicals and pollutants will also cause worse issues than those of today, and this will cause increased disease to become the norm rather than the exception. 

Taking all this into consideration, it becomes all too clear that what we know of the healthcare industry today will become seriously reduced in scope, breadth, and capacity. Likewise, medications will become less available, less effective, and this is only if they are available AND can be transported to where they're needed in the first place. The grids with which we are familiar today such as our transportation grid, the electrical grid, and the communications grid (internet, phone, and other media) will all begin reducing their scope, breadth, and capacity no differently than our healthcare industry. Just like climate change, ocean warming, and other predicaments; even though we reached peak oil in 2018, the lag effect also affects energy and resource decline. Most of society today still thinks that we are just in a "rough patch" due to the coronavirus and that as soon as everyone gets vaccinated that everything will return to "normal." This is not to be, unfortunately. We have run into limits to growth and from here on out, we will be contracting in one way or another due to the master resource, fossil fuels, being consistently and constantly reduced by the energy required to extract it and the fact we are reaching limits to being able to extract it in the first place. Once the energy required to extract it is just above the energy value of the finished product, it becomes pointless to extract in the first place. Since ALL other forms of energy depend utterly on the fossil fuel platform for the above grids to function and be maintained, they will only function as long as no breakdowns requiring maintenance occur within either the devices or the plants they operate within, and/or the grids they utilize to transmit their energy. The future is not going to be pretty.

Medications, medical devices, medical supplies, medical tools, and even the doctors, nurses, technicians, janitors, office and administrative staff, etc. ALL rely on the transportation grid. Just like the electrical grid, some of the "branches" of this "tree" will be required to be pruned back or cut off completely as time goes on out of necessity. There will be areas of sacrifice where certain parts will no longer be affordable or able to operate for various reasons. So, just like sacrifice or exclusion zones carved out for areas such as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster; Fukushima; Centralia, Pennsylvania; Picher, Oklahoma; and many other toxic areas, many rural areas with few residents are likely to be cut off from servicing grids as the energy to power those grids is reduced. The same thing will happen to small towns and rural outposts - hospitals and clinics will close up shop and move to larger areas no differently than many businesses have been forced to do just to survive. 

Another facet of this particular issue has to do with financial resources. As people continue experiencing rising costs of basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, heating and cooling, clean water, and garbage/sewage treatment, less money will be available for drugs and medical treatments. In this update, a new article about rising drug and treatment prices shows Syrians resorting to herbal medicines and treatments in response. This is another example of collapse.

Two key ingredients in modern healthcare are plastics (to keep things fresh and sanitary) and molecules for pharmaceuticals. Both are energy-intensive and highly-industrialized products made from fossil fuels and shipped from far away from the location they are consumed. Also, precision in manufacturing is an issue: scalpels, hip implants. optical instruments, etc. are all produced with fossil energy and industrialized supply chains. They simply cannot be produced as pre-industrial artisanal manufactures.

As I sat down to write this, I figured it would be much easier and less complicated than it has turned out to be. What appeared to be a simple issue is much more complex and involved and interconnected than I first thought. This same issue is omnipresent within society today where so many people think that solving issues will be much easier than in reality. The truth is that these are predicaments with outcomes, not problems with solutions. Reaching acceptance of these predicaments and the implications thereof is not easy, which is why I have provided spirituality resources for those in the groups I run. Denial of reality is often the first step in the grief process, followed by anger (this stage tends to feature a lot of blaming). These are often followed by the bargaining stage which is where many people stop for quite some time, if not permanently. Depression follows once one begins to realize that bargaining doesn't actually work. Finally, one reaches acceptance (hopefully). I liken the process to how I learned the truth about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny: 

Moving right along, it is clear to me that the healthcare industry along with the concomitant medications that are usually a part of the industry, will be reduced. As time moves forward, the disasters will come more frequently, be broader in size and scope, and affect more people. At the same time, the resources to resolve those issues will become smaller, be more constrained to specific areas, and be available to fewer people for a multitude of reasons.

This entry is particularly depressing, so now is a good time to spend some time browsing through those spiritual resources I mentioned above. Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow and this has always been the case; so today is the perfect time to Live and Love Now! If you aren't enjoying your job or your life or any particular part of it, now is the time to make a change and begin cherishing what time we do have! Thanks goes to Duncan Irving for this topic!