It’s Only My Opinion: Why Real Diseases Like Britt’s On General Hospital Are A Problem On Soaps

Carolyn Hinsey offers her take on why scripting real diseases and not fictional ones can be a storytelling problem on General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, Young and Restless, Bold and Beautiful and Beyond The Gates.

Stranger Than Fiction

Soap opera illnesses need to be as unrealistic as possible so we will buy it when the character inevitably recovers and/or comes back from the dead.

Exhibit A: Britt Westbourne. GH gave Britt the very “Google-able” diagnosis of Huntington’s Disease which was unnecessary because they killed her with a poison hook. Now that she’s back, Britt is saddled with a progressive and fatal genetic disorder. We’ve seen her inject herself with mysterious syringes that are somehow tied to Sidwell who is blackmailing her into researching Faison’s “final project,” but it’s all pretty murky.

Britt: “Tell Sidwell I will do the work and keep my head down. Please reiterate I haven’t spoken about this project to anyone.”

Pascal: “What about Jason Morgan and your mother?”

Britt: “Why would I be so stupid? I know my medication goes away if I don’t pull this off.”

What medication? There is no cure for Huntington’s. Britt’s robust health remains unexplained six months after she came back to life.

This is the show that showcased Lassa Fever (an actual but little-known disease from Africa) in a wild 1979 story that kicked off Monica’s famous affair with Rick Webber when the A-listers had to quarantine in the hospital. Other believable maladies have included Alexis’s lung cancer and osteoporosis, Willow’s leukemia, Carly’s polonium poisoning, and various lengthy comas (Nina, Michael, Lulu, Maxie), none of which say fatal when googled.

My bet? Sidwell orchestrated a fake Huntington’s diagnosis for Britt and is supplying her with placebo syringes. Nothing else makes sense.

Ned’s recent heart surgery danced with reality, too. We all know time has no meaning on soaps (a day can last a week, kids grow up overnight, etc.) but Ned had a heart attack on Nov 11, underwent coronary bypass that week, and came home “early” for Thanksgiving.

Ned: “I couldn’t help but notice a thaw between you and Gio when you visited me in the hospital.”

Brook Lynn: “As sick as you were, you noticed that?”

Excellent point, BL. Ned was sick. A little googling tells us a bypass involves cracking the chest open, using a heart/lung machine to stop blood flow, performing the surgery, stitching up the chest, and allowing 4-6 weeks for recovery. Only a few days passed on air from Ned’s surgery to release, but like I said what is time? We’ll let it go because there would have been no Quartermaine Thanksgiving without Ned leading the traditional “We Gather Together” and that entire Q holiday was a winner.

Michael’s burns were handled well, to the point where he still stops by G.H. for “routine blood work.” Lulu should be doing that too, considering she had aplastic anemia as a child, suffered a brain injury from an explosion, was in a coma for four years, and had a liver transplant in 2024. Lulu must be on Immunosuppressant drugs to prevent organ rejection — like Maxie has been in the careful follow-up GH has crafted since her epic heart transplant.

That’s actually the medical story soaps fall down on the most. It’s always tough when a character is given a life-altering heart transplant and then a new head writer comes in and whoosh! It never happened. That surgery requires lifelong anti-rejection medication, regular doctor visits, etc. never mind the fact that there is great dramatic value in playing who donated the heart and what it means.

Y&R is the biggest offender in this department: Victor Newman has an Abbott heart and they never play it! Traci Abbott donated her daughter Colleen’s heart to Victor in 2009 after Colleen was declared brain dead and Victor was shot (by Patty Williams). It is simply inconceivable that 1) Victor needs zero follow-up care and 2) this generous gift of life from the Abbotts hasn’t been mentioned in over a decade.

Billy: “We believe Victor stole Cane’s AI software.”

Jack: “We have to be ready for Victor to turn that weapon on us.”

Traci: “Oh my God, I had no idea it was this bad.”

Jack: “We have to save Jabot from Victor Newman.”

Ashley: “I have a history with Victor. If anyone can make him stop, it’s me.”

Um, Traci? You have a history with Victor, too. There could be no better ending to this cockamamie AI story than Traci putting her hand on Victor’s chest, feeling her daughter’s heart beating, and ordering The Mustache to “end this.”

DAYS has similar issues with Brady, Julie and Jennifer all having received heart transplants. (Well, sort of: Jenn’s heart was removed, then put back in…) Brady has Daniel Jonas’s heart which you think would come up since Daniel’s daughter Holly is dating Brady’s son Tate.

On a separate note, it made good soap opera sense when DAYS started writing Rachel as a loopy child of the corn — her mother Kristen and grandma Rachel are murderous nutbags. But they lost the thread when Marlena found out Rachel had shot EJ and didn’t tell Brady or report it. Marlena’s whole through line is that she is a kind, trusted shrink, yet she covered for her mentally disturbed step-granddaughter who also launched a pumpkin at Cat (but hit Alex) and most recently poisoned Sarah with pistachio ice cream to which Sarah has a deathly allergy.

Rachel: “I spooned some of my ice cream into hers. I didn’t think anything bad would happen.”

Brady: “That’s what you said about Cat and the pumpkin. You could have killed her. Did you want to hurt Sarah because you think daddy is falling in love with her?”

Rachel: “I’m a bad person.”

Brady: “No you’re not.”

Yes she is. Brady got Rachel committed to Bayview and promised to visit every day with Tate and s’mores which is more realistic. They even threw in some good loony bin drama when a catatonic Sophia just… walked into Rachel’s room and said “Hi!”

BTG is light on diseases so far, but we ARE getting an education on how to kill someone. First, Hayley faked a pregnancy and miscarriage (complete with fake blood, ew) to get her new husband Bill to open a college account for their “baby.” Now she’s slowly poisoning him by adding some kind of liquid to Bill’s food. Hayley’s co-conspirator Randy calls it the “secret sauce,” but she says it’s not working fast enough — so she wants to double the dose.

Hayley: “I think you gave me a bad batch.”

Randy: “My guy said it is slow acting.”

Hayley: “There’s slow and there’s never. At this rate, Bill’s gonna die of old age. Before he gets any closer to Dani, I’m planning on making my bank account $10 million fatter and putting Bill six feet under.”

The most realistic part of that tale is that strong alpha male Bill is immune to poison.

B&B touches on Katie’s heart transplant from time to time, so I’ll let that alone. But how is Taylor’s “broken heart syndrome”? And who’s running the L.A. hospital that declared Luna dead when she was actually alive and let Grace Buckingham run roughshod over every other doctor (and diagnosis and test) to falsely convince Liam he was “dying”? Those stories were wildly unrealistic, especially for the only soap hospital set in a real city.

But you can’t say B&B hasn’t kept the through line of Sheila’s missing toes.

Sheila: “I am new and improved, want to see?”

Cue her removing her shoe and wiggling the remaining three toes on her right foot.

Deacon: “You went pink! No more black nail polish.”

It was hard to buy Sheila cutting off her toe to feed it to a bear so she could fake her death (to avoid prosecution for shooting Steffy and Finn) and harder still to watch her mourn Luna after the lunatic shot off a second toe. But psycho Sheila  showing off sparkly nail polish on a foot that is only deformed because of her many crimes? I totally buy that.