El Comercio del Dolor, when patients became clients, is one of the most read books in the Cuesta Library. It is a text authored by the journalist and writer Altagracia Ortiz Gomez.
Ortiz Gómez’s book is in the Most Read line of the aforementioned bookstore, along with other authors who deal with the most diverse topics, such as politics, migration, economy and biographies.
El Comercio del dolor is a 266-page work that narrates the vicissitudes that patients experience when they require medical attention, in the midst of a highly commercialized health system, aggravated by the indolence of an increasingly dehumanized exercise.
This is the second book that journalist Ortiz has made available to the country, the first being published in 2015 under the title “In Intensive Care, a critical vision of the Dominican health system”, where he narrates the critical conditions of health care.
Read more: HOY journalist Altagracia Ortiz wins the Rafael Herrera award from Funglode
In his recent work, he highlights that when the business model is replicated in the health area without pity and solidarity being present, it is a deplorable and ruthless action.
In the midst of the COVID -19 pandemic and the health emergency, pain trading emerged and became evident with speculative practices in the sale of supplies, tests, vaccines, medicines, and other products.
When referring to dehumanization, he highlights influence peddling, deficient services, contempt for the condition of poverty, crowding, long waits, and complaints amid indifferent looks and collaborators who convey their frustrations to the most vulnerable.
“We Dominicans became poorer when the sick stopped being patients and became clients,” he says. Ortiz.
