Under the circumstances, I am extremely happy to be here in this UCSF hospital getting excellent care.

But here’s the thing. It reminds me that I must be one of the 5%, or 3%, or 1% of the population who have access to this kind of excellent care.

Our system concentrates health resources among those who already have lots of other social, political, and financial resources. To get here, it required excellent insurance, which Meda qualified for after working for the State of Hawaii for 50 years. It also required personal resources so we were able to get ourselves from Hawaii to San Francisco for the specialized care that they have been able to provide.

But there’s another thing that people don’t talk about. And that is that it often takes knowing somebody who knows somebody to get into an excellent system like this. Like so many other parts of life, it get’s down to who you know.

I called on an old friend who happened to have connections here at UCSF and one thing led to another, and I ended up using those connections to get into the system here. I can’t say for sure just how vital they were, but I think they were important in breaking through the. bureaucracy that screens incoming patients.

So that’s a big burden for regular people seeking healthcare without these layers of personal or family resources. We really do have to do something about it.