Testing the water. (context: Poland)
I am permanently dumbstruck by the wealth of neglected opportunities for cooperative social ventures. There are many needs created by hostile capitalist modernity, that can be fulfilled in a win-win manner: affordable for customers, justly paid for providers.
In TePeWu we are working towards starting some such projects, and I am curious if anyone here is thinking along similar ways. To me, it is a reasonable first step towards building a solarpunk society.
Examples in Polish context:
- Healthcare cooperatives formed by patients, hiring medical practitioners to take care of them and possibly for outside persons as well.
- Short-term hostels and storage facilities for people evicted, to give them a bridge, before they find a permanent place again.
- R&D and manufacturing of functional food mixes, helping people to cope with ADD/ADHD, depression, anxiety etc. etc.
If anyone is interested in a deeper conversation, I am happy to have it.
I wonder how is this going? I have limited knowledge on that sort of efforts but it's a topic that interests me.
I know of some cases of doctors self organising to provide their services. The longevity of the projects Ι have heard of varies. One of them did last for a few years, but I remember the last dentist left told me they got afraid of having their license to practice revoked.
Also in Chiapas the Zapatistas have been doing tremendous work on it. If I remember correctly from last time I checked, they mainly relied on local traditional medicines and had help some conventional doctors. I understand that this example is a totally different to the situation you are describing but I think it is slightly relevant in the broader sense of autonomous health services.
As for dentistry, while more costly, the approach is potentially quite simple. The patients' co-op can provide fully equipped facility for independent practitioners to use. The lease agreement may specify all kind of additional conditions, like a quota of gratuit services or offsetting the cost of used materials against rent.
Self-determined healthcare is one of my strategic topics. While solidarity (social) clinics are known and growing formula of activism, in Polish conditions it is still too radical, and beyond popular grasp. On the other hand, we have a tradition of MD cooperatives, which is just a step from what we need. It is fully legal, assumed official registration (and some creativity). Baby steps will be needed anyway, probably starting from some kind of group purchase (of medical services) scheme.
What are MD cooperatives? Are those mutual insurances in Polish?
Nope. They are Medical Doctors' Co-ops. In principle they are simply workers', or perhaps freelancers' cooperatives in the area of medicine.