Mercenary doctors at the Office

Reference: CIA Paid Torture Teachers More Than $80 Million

Summary: With a privatised, in-house (sometimes outsourced and for-profit) force for surveillance, policing, justice, public relations and now medical assessment (mere vassals or marionettes of the management) the EPO serves to show that it has become indistinguishable from North Korea, where the Supreme Leader gets to control every single aspect (absolutely no separation of powers)

YESTERDAY we kicked off a series of articles about EPO problems pertaining to health and other medical issues, which the EPO not only ignores/disregards but actually exploits. We have been hearing many stories about it for quite some time; it's clearly part of a pattern. Not only personal tragedies of employees are being exploited but also health problems of relatives (like dying parents or spouses) are being exploited. We wrote about one such example yesterday. In any normal place of work this would probably lead to lawsuits and high levels of compensation, but the EPO as a workplace is 'exceptional'; it is effectively above the law or a law unto itself. It's truly incredible that in a supposedly civilised society -- more so in an institution which employs a lot of people with doctoral degrees -- such abhorrent abuse of human rights can be tolerated for so long.

"In any normal place of work this would probably lead to lawsuits and high levels of compensation, but the EPO as a workplace is 'exceptional'; it is effectively above the law or a law unto itself."We are hearing from a growing number of people who are intimately familiar (first- or second-hand) with these abuses. One person wrote to us: "thank you for starting a series of articles on this sensitive topic. Here again there is a lot I could write about, but in order to keep me protected I unfortunately cannot disclose many details. Anyway, I can tell you general considerations as a "longtime insider". Being ill wasn't a problem decades ago. Having a flu, catching a cold or being more seriously ill was nothing that would have led the management to bully you to the exit door of the EPO, and condemn you to stay home ad vitam. I remember a time, when the office was even generous -- or better said empathetic -- about your personal case. I mean, when something extremely serious happened to you or in your family and you were absent off your duties they wouldn't ask too much, because they knew that things would be all right again. That was the time when the Office considered itself as an "example of international organisation". However, the EPO has never been very understanding for psychic illnesses. Mainly because those affected were not "visibly" ill. As a consequence, those suffering psychic disorders were quickly rubber-stamped "fake". And with the usual kind of EPO "subtlety", all your colleagues knew about you disease. Of course these weren't the best conditions to recover your health. Most of the cases lad to a complete inability to carry out the duties, aka invalidity."

Without disclosing any information about anyone in particular, we can safely say that we have read about many stories (not published here for personal reasons and sensibilities) -- enough to be sufficiently familiar with the subject. This is clearly a subject that many people are aware of but are unwilling to openly discuss, for reasons ranging from fear of retaliation to emotional injury (opening up a Pandora's box of bad memories).

"Yet," the person stressed to us, "there is another point which displeases the Office: never tell them that the computer tools provided aren't suitable and may be, or are indeed harmful, to your health. But the use of poorly designed computer tools 8 or more hours a day in addition to an environment affecting your mental condition is a bad cocktail for your health. The computer-related disorders (eyes, spine, skeleton) are well known professional diseases but not in the Office."

“The computer-related disorders (eyes, spine, skeleton) are well known professional diseases but not in the Office.”
      --AnonymousWe might get around to covering some examples of this. I previously worked, as a researcher, with several (not just one) colleagues who suffered from such conditions. I would estimate that about 5% of us had these conditions in our department (Imaging Science and Biomedical Engineering at Manchester University). The affliction rates tend to be rather high among researchers and people who spend a lot of time reading, sitting down, typing, etc.

"Decades ago," the person continues, "you could still refer to hired practitioners, doctors who were apparently very severe but extremely professional. One could trust them. These doctors made a mistake: they told the Office the truth about the health conditions of the staff and issued severe warnings. The consequence: they were fired and replaced by in-house doctors. These in-house doctors sing another song: they were judging your health condition and 100% paid by the office. As a consequence, their judgment was always disadvantageously biased....until Sung king Prez decided he was the most competent to asses health issue because the in-house doctors were too "generous" anyway."

We have heard a lot over the years about such "practitioners", sometimes in the context of suicides.

"We have heard a lot over the years about such "practitioners", sometimes in the context of suicides.""To put it short," the person continued, "the whole organisational health service is corrupted and to me it appears that some of the goons hired there (before Sun king Prez made the putsch) are damned toxic and take a mischievous pleasure to torture their patients." ⬆