As of yesterday (Friday) evening, a major American hospital in an affluent suburb has no face masks available for its medical personnel.
And no coronavirus test kits, naturally.
The information comes from a frontline medical employee of the highly trained, professional type. A person who treats patients. The suburb and hospital shall go unnamed. Someplace on the East Coast of America.
What is the condition of the U.S. medical system? How bad is the incompetence and dysfunction? We’re not talking about individual frontline employees. They are usually well-educated, conscientious, dedicated.
The incompetence and dysfunction is at a higher, systemic level. Higher than the individual hospital, for sure. Doctors, nurses, hospitals understand what is needed.
But at a higher, industry-wide, systemic level, the necessary planning, coordinating, and administration doesn’t get done. Stockpiles don’t exist or can’t be delivered. Funding isn’t available. Information and communication lag behind reality.
Top-level officials appear uninformed, even befuddled.
— John
Living Simply And Still On The Grid 
Yes, that’s the system…. totally out of sync!
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I was hoping some other countries are doing better than we are in the U.S. Is the dysfunction similar in the U.K.?
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I think Brexit showed us the true nature of many of the political pomp. And the petty arguments between parties to score points and make each other look bad. While the voters vote was forgotten.
It showed London was for Europe while we in the north and Midlands had been overlooked for years economically.
The general election put the party back in who were meaning to leave EU. As promises of investment in our areas was given.
It comes down to trust. Trust was given when we voted to leave the EU, yet certain leaders wanted another people’s vote on the referendum to leave. If that had happened democracy would be dead in the water.
But it opens your eyes . We think we have a vote, so long as it goes in certain directions. It caused a lot of division.
And you saw alot of those in parliament with fresh eyes as they became abusive hackler’s behaving like juveniles. . So for a time Yes.
The recent election shook up many of them . They needed shaking. 😆
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Sue, I’m so happy that the majority prevailed in the end. Your country certainly had to go through a lot to get to that point. I’m hoping that now that the big change has taken place, it will lead to better things for everyone in all parts of the British Isles.
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We hope so John thank you.
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I have several friends who are nurses and a close friend who is a raspatory therapist. No, they can’t get what they need, and they need mask for all patients to keep it from spreading.
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https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm estimates that death from flue between October 1 to March 1 it could be as high as 52,000.
I’m wondering if the coronavirus is going to be any worse.
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Good question. I certainly hope not that many deaths. But since nobody has immunity, might be a whole lot of cases. And there seem to be a lot of unknowns about this particular virus. Also, these darn viruses mutate so quickly.
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Glad to see that somebody listens to what I say!
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🙂 I know how you feel, I usually wonder if anyone reads my blog.
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I had the disturbing privilege of talking to a client whose husband resigned rather than retire from a local major hospital because of the corporate stance that allowed an administrator with no grounding in medical ethics to hire questionable heads of departments. The vaunted BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE is fucking up everything.
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You’ve got that right! Today I spoke with a woman in a high administrative position at a nonprofit health organization that cares for patients. The person in charge of procurement there has been working for weeks to make sure they have everything necessary to deal with the coronavirus situation. She’s purchased everything they think will be needed. And I’m told they have plenty of face masks for their many employees.
So I guess I was wrong in placing all the blame at the very top of the healthcare hierarchy. The state of readiness can vary considerably from local organization to organization. I suppose it depends on the ability and attentiveness of decisionmakers in each organization, and the availability of funds to purchase needed supplies. And as you suggest, I imagine that whether an organization is a nonprofit or for-profit might have an impact. And the ethical culture within the organization.
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Yes. I was just talking to Dawn, and as office manager at the dental office she works in, she has prepared well and has everything they need. So at this point it comes down to who has done their job competently. But even they will be out of luck soon because the masks are made in China and our ports are like ghost towns.
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Yep, Maybe the globalized economy is not such a good idea. Small scale and close to home has a lot of advantages. We need to start making things in America again.
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