14/08/2024
When Silence Screams: The Powerlessness of Doctors Against Rising R**e Cases
There comes a time when the heart grows so numb that even the most horrific tragedies fail to elicit a response. A time when despair and futility take root so deeply that they suffocate the last embers of hope. Today, I find myself in that space—where I no longer flinch at the news of another r**e, where my soul no longer cries out for justice, and where my outrage has withered into a desolate silence.
It wasn’t always like this. I remember the fire that burned within me, the conviction that if we, the doctors—caretakers of life—raised our voices loud enough, we could shake the very foundations of power and bring about change. I remember the candle marches, the black ribbons, the strikes, the endless meetings and protests. Each time, we believed that our collective outcry would compel the administration to act, that the pain of our colleagues, patients and their families would finally be acknowledged.
But the bitter truth is that our voices, however loud, fall on deaf ears. The local administration remains unmoved, the government remains indifferent. Our candle marches flicker and die out, unnoticed. Our black ribbons are mere symbols, devoid of power. Our strikes, no matter how impassioned, fail to disrupt the status quo. We are like ghosts, present but unseen, heard but unheard.
And so, the flames of outrage that once fueled our protests have slowly turned to ashes of resignation. How many more marches? How many more ribbons? How many more strikes before we realize that we are but whispers in a storm? The system is too vast, too entrenched in apathy, too indifferent to the cries of its people.
In the quiet of my exhaustion, I have come to a harrowing realization: nothing we do seems to matter. No march, no ribbon, no strike has ever truly shaken the halls of power. They remain fortified against the voices of the broken, the suffering, the violated. What power do we, the healers, have in the face of such brutal indifference? What difference can we make in a world that has grown so comfortable with violence that it scarcely blinks at the horror of another r**e?
Perhaps it is not that we have stopped caring. Perhaps it is that we have cared too much, for too long, without seeing any change. We have poured our hearts into the fight, only to watch our efforts dissolve like smoke in the wind. The pain of powerlessness is a heavy burden to bear, and it wears down even the strongest of souls.
In my heart, I still yearn for justice—for the day when our protests will finally be heard, when our voices will carry the weight they deserve. But today, as I light yet another candle, as I tie yet another black ribbon, I cannot help but feel that we are merely going through the motions. We are trapped in a cycle of outrage and inaction, where every protest ends in the same crushing silence.
I do not know what the solution is. I do not know how to reignite the fire that has been extinguished within so many of us. But I do know this: we cannot continue down this path of empty gestures and futile protests. We must find a new way to fight, or we must accept that our battle has been lost.
Until then, I fear that the silence of our exhaustion will continue to grow, drowning out the cries for justice, until there is nothing left but a hollow echo of what once was.
