An eye-opening exposé of how outdated assumptions about marital status and social support jeopardize the healthcare of single patients
When Joan DelFattore was diagnosed with cancer, she had to leave an oncologist who insisted on withholding an essential drug in the mistaken belief that without a husband or immediate family, she could not possibly have the social support necessary to handle its harsh side effects. In Sick While Single, DelFattore draws on more than two hundred peer-reviewed medical studies to show that this life-threatening encounter was not an aberration: unmarried cancer patients are significantly less likely to receive aggressive treatment than otherwise similar married patients, and significantly more likely to die of their disease. The same narrow understanding of social connectedness also underlies laws and policies covering:
• caregiver leave extended only to employees caring for a spouse, child, or parent
• employer-sponsored health insurance that covers only a spouse and children
• burdensome procedures that obstruct surrogate medical decision-making by anyone except the next of kin
Drawing on medical literature, law, and personal accounts, DelFattore convincingly demonstrates that recognizing only immediate family as caregivers is a recipe for disaster when almost half of U.S. adults are unmarried, family size is shrinking, and the population is rapidly aging. Given these realities, Sick While Single argues for the urgent need to work with the support networks people actually have.