Because there’s currently like 2500+ national guard members deployed to hospitals in my state alone, all elective procedures are cancelled in the major hospitals of multiple states (anything that won’t literally kill you in 3 days is elective, even end stage cancer surgeries), other types of appointments are backed up for months, and quite frankly - for the appointments I and acquaintances have had - providers are burnt the fuck out from two years of this.
Like, seriously. When thousands of national guard members have to be routed to civilian hospitals to keep them running - I don’t think “science” is taking a loss. It said this was going to happen, all of you “it’s just the common cold” people made everybody rage against science and not care, and now nobody can get meaningful healthcare because the person the nurses & attendings are referring to as “the walking dead” just have to be kept alive & filling an ICU bed for 3+ weeks stuffed with a ventilator they’re never going to have removed until they’re dead.
Patients mainly need oxygen, no need for full ICUs.
[1]https://donnees.banquemondiale.org/indicator/SH.MED.BEDS.ZS?...
I have a friend, perfectly healthy, who was forced into crashing on their bike during commute in order to not get wrecked by a car.
He fell & broke a few ribs & wrist, was not able to be seen for 28 hours in a major city. He’s still waiting on actual treatment (surgeries) & could/likely will have long lasting damaging from the delay.
Perhaps it’s over except for our entire healthcare system has completely collapsed in the sense that it’s genuinely non-functional, except for keeping wave after wave of people, who workers already know are not leaving the hospital alive, in a bed for a few weeks.
Perhaps I’m a bit angry, but I think it’s not at all considerate of your fellow citizens to say things like this - presuming you’re in the US, that is.
Yes, this isn't in the discussion at all. Hospitals in the US do what's called stacking. Think about your calendar. Every room, every piece of equipment and every medical staff needs to have their calendar stacked with appointments, with no idle space if at all possible. They go so far as to overbook these items as well. If a resource has too much lax time, it's not used, not replenished or laid off (personnel). If a hospital doesn't have enough business to make the desirable amount of profit, it's closed.
Of course from a purely business perspective, it doesn't make sense to keep these things open, especially for a once in a century pandemic. Unfortunately the government hasn't done much (if anything) to ensure we have enough medical facilities even in good times, much less have them somewhat affordable. I was hoping the pandemic would show the cracks in our medical foundation, but for the most part they have been ignored, shifting the entirety of blame to the unvaccinated.
This article is about rural hospitals, but when you close a rural hospital, you overburden the nearest city hospital.
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/why-rural-hosp...
I really thought there was some good data that came out showing that the profits made from elective surgeries that the mid to large hospitals churn out absolutely dwarfs the profits made from COVID patients. I think there were a few of the massive hospitals where COVID patients $ was near breaking even… but it just doesn’t add up.
The summary was that by the end of this a good amount of hospitals will likely go under due to revenue lost from repeated cancellations of elective surgeries unless they get some form of bailout.
I guess we’ll see anyways.
Like, I actually do not get this idea of "oh ur fucked if you get hit by a car" because it should be obvious that 80 years old grandma whose anti-vax has a lower value to life than I, a boosted young person does.
We have to do value to life calculations all the time every day, even if it is unpleasant for us to say things like this outloud.