We achieve ''active'' mastery over illness and death by delegating all responsibility for their management to physicians, and by exiling the sick and the dying to hospitals. But hospitals serve the convenience of staff not patients we cannot be properly ill in a hospital, nor die in one decently we can do so only among those who love and value us. The result is the institutionalized dehumanization of the ill, characteristic of our age. (Thomas Szasz)

We achieve ''active'' mastery over illness and death by delegating all responsibility for their management to physicians, and by exiling the sick and the dying to hospitals. But hospitals serve the convenience of staff not patients we cannot be properly ill in a hospital, nor die in one decently we can do so only among those who love and value us. The result is the institutionalized dehumanization of the ill, characteristic of our age.

Thomas Szasz

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active age characteristic convenience death delegating die dying hospital ill illness love management mastery nor responsibility result serve sick staff value dehumanization

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