When Policy meets Human Misery

Policy, a human creation, is meant to ‘police’ the day to day transactions that we all make with each other and with the institutions we all interact with.  Policy is not a tangible thing that would ever be recorded as an asset, with the exception that you can touch the paper that is mean to communicate a policy to the end reader.  

 We are all conditioned to accept the authority of policy, over the personal whims of others that might restrict our ability to transact with others so that we could fulfill our needs.  We naively believe that policy must have been properly developed, consequences understood, properly consulted and tested against the values that underline its existence in the first place.  Policy is a form of governance, or to another mindset a form of control.  Policy impacts us all in ways that we cannot imagine like an invisible force.

Good policy requires engagement, understanding, ongoing dialogue, ongoing adaptable learning, transparency, and clear purpose.  With most intangible things however most don’t get it, or fully appreciate the individual benefits or curse that it bestows on us all.

Bad policies can kill, most of the time indirectly and without intent.  The policy regime around H1N1 is a great example.

Policy cannot replace good judgment, although at times it is an excuse of stop thinking even in the face of consequences that the policy was never met to induce.  Policy can often be many times removed from the transactions between persons, but nonetheless still influence that transaction in ways that are hardly perceptible.

The public can find misplaced comfort to know if there is a policy to prevent a tragedy, but policy without good sound judgment is depressingly empty.

As I think of the young Wourms family from Airdrie, all now gone in an apparent murder-suicide, even in the face of the father’s psychiatric evaluation the month before,  one has to ask the question could anything have anything been done to prevent this senseless tragedy?  Where policies followed?  Were policies even capable of being followed? Were policies enough?  How did good sound judgment play a role or not in the decision making along the way?  What about other policies twice removed from this situation?  The policies around expectations to work in the face of mental illness?  The policies around the design of our communities where some cannot renew their spirit?  How about the policies around what services communities get allocated? How about the policies around privacy and individual rights where people’s needs are met only in an individual level, but not as members that interact in a family or community?

Policies are interconnected in ways that most don’t fully understand, but the consequences are experienced by real people. People may be responsible for their individual actions, but how those actions came to be, can and are influenced by the many invisible policies that we cannot always perceive.

Having a policy won’t save us, but having a good policy with due regard to it’s inter-connectivity, balanced by sound professional judgment, backed by a caring community is far better than misery.