Let's try this one more time. I don't always defend my medical colleagues all the time for lots of reasons. I'll bat for them this time.
Inpatient hospital care is an expensive endeavor. I'm not talking just about financial expenses. The medical cost and emotional costs per patient is staggering. And this is regular inpatient care. ICU care is a different level. People don't want to be in hospitals. Ever.
And I'm not even going to get into resource access deficiencies between private and public hospitals. That's a different animal altogether. Still relevant to what you're about to read.
I've walked inpatient floors. I've been in the ICU to provide services to pts touch and go. I've been in the ER standing room only with trauma in full swing. Seen people hang in the balance, unknown. Have had people die on me within two days of seeing them. This is regular days. Pre COVID-19. Also, doctors and other Healthcare workers have a increased risk of suicide and mental health challenges based on the secondary/vicarious trauma of the working environment, especially in areas like the ED, inpatient and critical care units like ICUs. They're constantly seeing people are their most vulnerable and expected to perform live saving interventions. It just wears on you heavily after a while.
Now the doctors are being asked to be effective within the context of a relatively new illness with no established treatments: COVID-19. It's one thing the doctors don't like in medicine is the practicing with the unknown. As the numbers climb, the doctors feel the strain. As the a few of the healthcare workers become patients themselves that need care, it's a double gut punch - you're down experience and numbers to care for people who work alongside you to treat patients as your new type of patient.
Doctors and all good healthcare professionals take time to be made. So when they die off on get sick from COVID-19, it's not like a car where you wreck one you go buy another. When that happens it depreciates the overall knowledge base and makes the fight harder.
Had a pt in the early days of COVID-19 who beat it talk about the doctors coming in asking permission to try different therapies. When asked "will it work?" And the doctor says "we're not sure." What do you do with that?
Now, how about forced to be practicing taking care of people who wanted to exercise legal freedom to protest being asked to stay home and not put themselves voluntarily in a situation for an inpatient stay on top of this? And regular critical care doesn't stop because of COVID-19.
Had a pt whose fiancée was hit with a stroke, put on a vent and died in the hospital. You know what the hardest part was? COVID-19 kept him from physically being in her room, holding her hand as he prayed for her. Couldn't physically be there when she died.
As the pandemic took hold, we waited for the other show drop...for the ethnic disparities to show up in the data. Sure enough, as soon as it surfaced about it wrecking people of color vs whites, some white folk got antsy as now it doesn't apply to them (see attachments in the next post).
Given all, this, some of you're still interested in listening to someone who wondered out aloud about drinking bleach and peddling medical advise when he could barely run his own business vs medical experts who actually been in cut seeing and dealing with the horrors first hand? Still willing to listen to a carpet bagger in the White House who the only gods he prays to that the one made of his father's money and the other of his self-image? All while holding his "bible" - The Art of The Deal?
Hard facts of the science and dead bodies and the anecdotal stories of the devastation of COVID-19 STILL not convincing enough?
Yes, people need to make money, but when you're in an ICU or a pine box you BOTH make no money AND cost money to stay alive or be buried. Funerals in the US can easily run 10K. Had a pt die on me at the height of COVID-19 and his sister was so poor and so sick she couldn't bury him. Can you imagine what it's like when you cannot go to a funeral due to concerns of a large gathering to spread a virus that can put you also in a pine box? Can you imagine the idea of a loved one buried in an unmarked grave?
You want me keep swinging and landing headbutts with these realities during COVID-19? Cuz I can keep finding examples as easily as pouring a silky shot of J. Wray & Nephew in a glass.
Here's the scary part. I'm not an inpatient worker either, where the experience is constant and daily. I get to see enough of it but it's not my 9-5 work environment every day. They could get way more in depth with the horrors they've seen.
Get the 'eff outta here man. Get off your privilege and get a clue. Don't be protesting in the street with the same perspective of a thief who is talking about he cannot get caught. Because if you get sick these same overworked, overburdened Healthcare workers still have to take care of you. Same way the jailers have to take care of the thief who got caught sitting in the jail cell.
It disgusts me how people love to romanticize and play philosophy with the real stuff that happens. I'm waiting to hear from the same protestors about their rights getting violated with governors asking people to stay home or health officials asking people to wear face coverings.
Find me one and post it here. Better yet, find me hundreds of them talking about how they beat COVID-19 on the strength of their own will and resolve without the medical help. Tell me one who says "Well, I had covid-19 and beat it...if I could do it all over again, I'd still protest to have my liberty intact so I could have caught the virus. Wouldn't have changed a damn thing."