ABSTRACT
Chapter Two describes the current situation of health inequities, poverty and the NHS. The suggestion is made that patients and health professionals are inherently bound up in the inequities since people who are sick more often and more severely will come to the hospital and GP surgeries more often. Medicalisation of poverty seems a reflection of health professionals’ awareness of suffering and helplessness to change this. The chapter then goes on to describe how health professionals manage in terms of burnout, PTSD and depersonalisation. Therefore there is a benefit to health professionals in understanding suffering more since not only will that understanding assist their patients, it may also help them.
