Sickle cell disease is fraught with a lot of disparities, a lot of complications, a lot of issues. Patients that have these conditions typically end up not having the same quality of life that patients that do not have sickle cell disease have. They don’t have the same ability to go to work every day. They don’t have the same ability to have a secure job that allows for them to have a roof over their head consistently, that then results in them not necessarily having the support system that they need in order to take care of themselves, take care of their family, and then take care of their condition and their disease...
Sickle cell disease is fraught with a lot of disparities, a lot of complications, a lot of issues. Patients that have these conditions typically end up not having the same quality of life that patients that do not have sickle cell disease have. They don’t have the same ability to go to work every day. They don’t have the same ability to have a secure job that allows for them to have a roof over their head consistently, that then results in them not necessarily having the support system that they need in order to take care of themselves, take care of their family, and then take care of their condition and their disease. So when you look at the patient who has sickle cell disease, their priority for us as clinicians or for anyone that takes care of patients is to take care of the patient themselves. But the patient’s priority is to take care of everything else before their disease. So not having a support system to help them take care of those conditions that impact their disease makes it hard for them to take care of their condition. And that lack of support impacts the way that the patient feels about themselves, the way that the patient feels about the healthcare system, and the way that us providers and anyone else that do not have sickle cell disease thinks about the patient themselves. They don’t take care of themselves. They don’t have a roof over their head. They may not necessarily dress as everyone else. And all of that interplays with how the patient feels, the image that we have about the patient and it eventually cascades into a complication about their condition.
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