Sometimes we need some good news, right?
I think that’s the case for me right now — especially regarding COVID-19.
Check it out here at NBCNews.com.
In The News: Nursing Facility Evacuated Due to Staff No Shows
April 9, 2020 by Leave a Comment
Did you hear about this one? Link: Staff No-Shows, Deaths Hit California Nursing Facilities
I heard about this yesterday. A nursing facility a few miles south of me was evacuated when the staff failed to show up for work. According to this news report nearly 3 dozen residents have tested positive for COVID-19. After many employees failed to show up for the second day in a row, all 83 patients had to be evacuated and sent to different facilities.
These workers were criticized by the county public health officer:
“Nationwide all of our health care workers are considered heroes, and they rightly are,” said Dr. Cameron Kaiser, the county’s public health officer. “But implicit in that heroism is that people stay at their post.”
Kaiser said it’s up to state regulators to determine if the workers are punished for abandoning patients.
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/california/riverside-nursing-facility-evacuated-after-staff-no-shows/2301888/
However, others defended the workers stating that their fear of going to work without adequate protective equipment was understandable. The article I linked above, however, does not mention this as the specific reason for the large number of no-shows by staff.
Another article I found had this to say:
Natalie Visnick, a spokeswoman for the American Health Care Association, a nonprofit group representing more than 14,000 nursing homes and other care facilities, said the Riverside issue “signals a larger, pressing issue.”
“Health care workers in long-term care are having to put their lives (and their family members who they return home to) on the line every day for their residents,” she said in an email. “Meanwhile, nursing homes and assisted living communities continue to desperately need the resources that will help them battle this virus, including personal protective equipment.”
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10884395-181/riverside-nursing-facility-evacuated-after?sba=AAS
This second article seems to imply that fear of catching COVID-19 due to insufficient personal protective equipment (PPE) may have been what led to the large number of no-shows. Later the article quotes the director for the county’s Emergency Management Department:
Bruce Barton, director of the county’s Emergency Management Department, made an impassioned plea for volunteers to work at nursing facilities, promising those who sign up will get adequate safety equipment and malpractice coverage.
“We are in immediate need for help to care for our most vulnerable patients,” Barton said. “Please come join us.”
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10884395-181/riverside-nursing-facility-evacuated-after?sba=AAS
So let’s assume that the no-shows were due to lack of PPE. Do I blame these healthcare workers for refusing to show up? I have wrestled with this question ever since learning about what happened and I don’t claim to have an answer. I don’t think there is a “good” answer.
When I started this post I thought that by writing out my thoughts I would be able to process the information and possibly come to some sort of conclusion. But as I’ve typed away I don’t feel any closer to a neat and clean position on this all.
Many have compared this pandemic to a war.
Sometimes, in war, there are no neat and clean answers.
Pandemic!
March 25, 2020 by Leave a Comment
It is painful to watch the amount of distrust or disbelief amongst the public – even among those who are in healthcare. Last week I saw an article about young people still going on about their usual life, not willing to put things on hold. One of the people interviewed was a nurse.
I saw another article from this week that beaches remain open in Florida for spring break. Parties were just told that they must keep their groups to 10 or less. However, the article also showed a picture taken on a Florida beach in Clearwater that showed pretty crowded situations (the picture was taken on 3/27/2020).
Sometimes I just want to face palm.
Good job, Senators
July 26, 2017 by Leave a Comment
After all the waiting and political posturing, today the U.S. senated voted no on a straight repeal of the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare).
In the days leading up to this you heard many, including POTUS, urged the senators who had campaigned on repeal of the ACA to step up and deliver on their promise.
Today, the U.S. Senate voted not to repeal.
For those who had campaigned on the promise of repeal but decided to vote No because it hurt your constituents, I respect you.
Campaigning for something and then trying to follow through blindly despite learning how it hurts those you represent is — well to me, it isn’t doing your job at all.
The ACA isn’t perfect.
But a full repeal that would result in coverage loss for millions of Americans with no answer in sight is downright wreckless.
The Almost-Kamikaze American Pilots
September 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment
I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since the Twin Towers fell. In these last few days there have been numerous articles about that day and of memorials being held in NYC. For the most part I have stayed away from them. While I do think it is important for us to remember what happened, I think I just wanted to avoid it this week.
But one article caught my attention and I couldn’t help but click on it. It told of the two pilots who were ordered to intercept Flight 93. Back in 2001, there were no fighter jets that were armed and ready to take off to intercept planes. It was a different time.
When the order came to intercept Flight 93, the two pilots, Lt. Heather Penney and Col. Marc Sasseville, could not wait for their planes to be armed. They took off with only 105 lead-nosed bullets and the knowledge that those bullets wouldn’t do the job.
From the article:
“It was decided that Sass and I would take off first, even though we knew we would end up having to take off before our aircraft were armed,” Penney, among the first generation of American female fighter pilots, said to C-SPAN.
Penney said each jet had 105 lead-nosed bullets on board, but little more.
“As we were putting on our flight gear … Sass looked at me and said, ‘I’ll ram the cockpit.’ And I had made the decision that I would take the tail off the aircraft,” Penney recalled.
Both pilots thought about whether they would have enough time to eject before impact.
“I was hoping to do both at the same time,” Sasseville told the Washington Post. “It probably wasn’t going to work, but that’s what I was hoping.”
Penney, a rookie fight pilot, worried about missing her target.
“You only got one chance. You don’t want to eject and then miss. You’ve got to be able to stick with it the whole way,” she said.
The pilots chose their impact spots in order to minimize the debris field on the ground. A plane with no nose and no tail would likely fall straight out of the sky, its forward momentum halted, Penney said.
I read the article and was just amazed and reminded about what our men and women in uniform are willing to do for us each day.
Source: MSNBC.com
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Meet Miss South Carolina. She was just recently crowned and she is planning to compete in the Miss America pageant in January of next year. She is a fitting pageant winner for this generation. Before she won her crown she lost over 100 lbs over 3 years. Her secret? Diet and lifestyle changes. Hard work. No easy way out. No surgeries. Just a commitment to getting healthier.
Her pagenat platform is “Eating Healthy and Fighting Obesity.”
I’ll be rooting for her to go all the way.
For more on her story, you can check out the MSNBC article here.
In The News: Mom Withheld Meds, sentenced to 8-10 years
April 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment
I just got home from taking the Psychiatry NBME Subject Exam and logged onto MSNBC.com and saw this story. It’s a story of a mother, Kristen LaBrie who withheld chemotherapy medications from her autistic son for at least 5 months. He died at the age of 9 in 2009. A judge has sentenced her to 8-10 years.
I don’t know what she was thinking. A quote from the news story:
“If I could do it differently, I would, because I certainly miss my son, and I think about him every day and I wish he could be with me and my family,” she said.
Labrie, handcuffed in the courtroom, after receiving he sentence. Photo Credit: Cheryl Senter/AP
But for whatever reason, she stopped giving his medication.
Source: MSNBC.com – Mom who withheld son’s cancer meds gets 8-10 years
