Whistling Past the Graveyard

[Fumesucker]

Note to the hosts: I have long standing permission from the blog owner to quote anything I wish from this blog.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/10/16/whistling-past-the-graveyard/

Posted by Betty Cracker at 4:40 pm

Valued commenter Loneoak has a front-page post up at TPM that shares a front-line perspective on medical crisis preparedness:

I have a perspective tying together today’s big news brouhahas. My wife is an ER nurse at a major urban hospital owned by the Hospital Corporation of America, the hospital chain once run by Rick Scott. It’s the largest for-profit medical system in the world, and is of course also notable for its ‘creative billing’ practices in the largest Medicare fraud settlement in history. Scott was booted from the CEO position following that fraud investigation, so he’s not directly responsible for current conditions in those hospitals.

But it is obvious to those who work there that the combination of lax training and toxic labor relations ‘leaders’ like him have brought to the company are emblematic of a big problem for US hospitals if a major outbreak of ebola or other infectious disease occurs. My wife’s ER has an ‘ebola cart’ with some lightweight protective gear and written instructions for putting on a PPE, but the instructions are a loose bundle of papers and the pictures don’t match the gear in the cart and has inaccuracies that put them at serious risk. It’s an object of gallows humor for the staff. That’s the totality of their training or preparedness so far. As we all now know, PPEs are not easy to put on and take off correctly. Even though nurses all have experience with standard droplet control (they see TB and HIV all the time), ebola is a special case. They have gone months and months without a nurse education director because no one wants to deal with their management and take the position. Her coworkers are clear that they will refuse to treat an ebola patient because they have woefully inadequate training in the correct procedures and lack proper gear.

And yet the head of infectious disease at this hospital went on the local news to proclaim the hospital was ready to receive ebola patients safely. They obviously didn’t bother to speak to a single nurse on the front lines. I’m not particularly panic-y about ebola, even though obviously the family members of ER personnel have a lot at stake in ebola preparedness. But I think that this situation will be the weak link in any major national response. So many of our hospitals are run by lunatics like Rick Scott who seek only the highest profit margin. They do not invest in training, they build charting mechanisms that are good for billing but not treating patients, they constantly fight with their unionized employees, they lie to the public, etc, etc. We like to imagine that competent, highly-skilled medical institutions like Emory will save us, but we have way more Dallas Presbyterians in this country than we have Emorys. You can see exactly this managerial incompetence—and toxic labor relations—woven through the statement released by the nurses at Dallas Presbyterian today. Also see the head of National Nurses United on All In With Chris Hayes for a similar perspective.

To put it bluntly: we’ve entrusted our national medical system to the managerial competence and goodwill of the Rick Scotts of the world, and that is much scarier than a podium fan.

Emphasis mine, where Loneoak nails the crux of the problem. Rapacious knaves like Scott and like-minded armies of MBAs have hollowed out our national institutions across the board. As alarming as it is to get a glimpse of the true state of our “first world” healthcare system, that just scratches the surface of the rot.

We all had a ringside seat when the geniuses who run our financial institutions were revealed to be bumbling thieves several years ago. And before that, we were treated to the sight of our political class wielding the world’s most fearsome military like a brain-damaged spider monkey with an AK-47.

One of my great-uncles, a World War II vet, public health official and endlessly curious and intelligent man, surprised my then-high school kid self by telling me that this country was on the express bus to Banana Republicanstan back when Reagan was sworn in.

By god, you were right, Uncle Billy. You were right.

[alterfurz]

1. We are so beyond fucked now...

...that the light from fucked won't reach us for 10,000 years. -- Roseanne Barr

[mountain grammy]

2. Excellent post. We're on the express bus to Banana Republicanstan indeed!

[LuvNewcastle]

3. Not too long ago, there was a lot of smugness on this board

about Ebola's chances of becoming widespread in the U.S. 'It won't come here and even if it did, our medical system is so far above that of the West African nations that an outbreak would be immediately contained.' I'm not seeing that attitude much anymore.

It can indeed happen here, and we're finally beginning to see why. After decades of privatized medical care, we can't expect the government to come in at the last minute and organize everything well enough to save the day. This is the same attitude that people have about climate change. 'We can pollute all we like, and then when things get out of control, we'll let the government come in and start regulating.' Irresponsibility and procrastination is killing us.

[AverageJoe90]

6. And, to be honest, Ebola's chances of actually becoming widespread in the U.S., are STILL quite low.

With that said, though, I have long supported adopting a system similar to that of Canada or the Nordic countries......

[KoKo]

4. Recommend...!

[Skittles]

5. it is nothing new that corporatism/profits now trumps all

we've been screaming about it on DU for some time now