Sarah: The Best Example of the Need for Healthcare Business Model Innovation

Sarah Harding wrote in her Times memoir, “In December, my doctor told me that the upcoming Christmas would probably be my last.”39 True to her doctor’s prediction, Christmas 2020 was her last. On Sunday, September 5th, 2021, her mother wrote on her Instagram page: “It’s with deep heartbreak that today I’m sharing the news that my beautiful daughter Sarah has sadly passed away.”39

In August 2020, Sarah announced she had been diagnosed with metastasised cancer. She revealed that when she first noticed lumps under her arms, she ignored them. However, an MRI scan was quickly scheduled for her when she visited her doctor months later.

Then, “Coronavirus hit, and everything either went into slow motion or stopped altogether,” she explained. With treatment halted because of Covid-19, Sarah’s only option was to wait and hope for the best.39 But when it comes to cancer, hope is not a strategy — cancer does not stop growing because of Covid-19. When she was finally offered an appointment, the cancer had already spread to other organs of her body.

It became a race against time to stop the spread and hope for a miracle. But miracles are rare in cancer country. The brutality of the treatment itself is enough to batter the body into submission. This was Sarah’s case as the fight to save her commenced. She was admitted to the hospital, where she underwent a mastectomy (removal of her breasts) and gruelling chemotherapy sessions. An attempt to fit a port for the delivery of chemotherapy treatment resulted in sepsis infection — her first brush with death.

She was put into a medically induced coma for two weeks and spent another two weeks in intensive care. As she discovered, the middle of a pandemic was not the best time to be admitted to a hospital. She was alone because no one was permitted to visit due to the pandemic. Fear and loneliness compounded her difficulties.

She was discharged from the hospital at the earliest opportunity to continue her almost hopeless battle against the disease. But the battle with cancer is never an equal fight, and in the end — aside from very few exceptional cases — the disease almost always gains the upper hand.

Sarah began to fade away. First, the pain intensified. She said the pain was so intense she kept popping painkillers like candies. Her body began to weaken, and she struggled with essential mobility — like getting out of bed or adjusting her position in bed. She lost her appetite and had to be coaxed into eating spoonsful of soft food. Despite her constant thirst, her desire to drink diminished. She began struggling to swallow the painkillers, worsening her intense pain.

She was constantly drowsy, falling asleep as soon as the pain receded, then awakening again when it returned. Despite her will to fight, her life was reduced to constant grunting from pain, drowsiness, sleep and confusion. Thick mucus formed at the back of her dry throat resulting in crackling sounds as she struggled to breathe. She started breathing fast and slow, repeatedly; her heart rate became irregular, and her blood pressure lowered. Her hands and legs became cold and dark.

Her vision blurred, and her hearing became impaired. She became unresponsive and lost control of her bodily functions, including her bladder and bowels. Then on the morning of September 5th, she exhaled one final painful long breath and stopped breathing. The battered body had had enough. The suffering had ended. She could now rest in peace.

I am not telling Sarah Harding’s story because she was a celebrity. I am telling her story because she was one of the forgotten victims of Covid-19 secondary deaths. The official Covid-19 death toll at the time of writing is approximately 15 million. However, millions of secondary deaths like Sarah’s are indirectly linked to the pandemic — even though they were not recorded as Covid-19 deaths.

A woman who lost her daughter after her chemotherapy was paused on the first day of the March 2020 lockdown lamented that people like her daughter are victims no one remembers. These forgotten victims are too numerous to tally. Still, I will highlight a few to show their impact. Why were medical professionals and hospital administrators forced to choose between saving Covid-19 patients and saving Sarah?

Many people reading this might conclude that nothing could have been done — it was a situation forced upon us. But was that the case? Was there not something that could have been done? I guess the question worth asking is: how could this situation have happened in the 21st century when we can do a pig-to-human heart transplant?

This question is at the heart of everything highlighted in this book series. There is a difference between medical science and the medical profession. It is because we confuse the two that medical professionals were forced to choose between saving Sarah and saving Covid-19 patients.