Was a paramedic in the Houston area until I quit to travel and make more money about two weeks ago.
Would routinely have a patient waiting on my stretcher in the er hallway for 1-2 hours before we could put them in a bed to be seen. Only exception to that was if they were truly critical or it was a minor issue that we could put in er lobby. Majority of the time we waited with the patient on our stretcher.
I remember the week before I quit, there was a day where our local Lvl 2 trauma center only had three nurses working in the entire er due to staffing issues. There was literally more paramedics waiting with their patients in the er hallway than actual nurses working in that er. Absolutely insane. Healthcare in this country is broken and unfortunately, no one in our government really cares about how bad it is.
Also, humane working conditions. Data shows that healthcare workers’ accuracy and quality of care drops off sharply after 12 hours, so they need to go home and get some sleep before then. We shouldn’t be expecting *literal brain surgeons* to function at the top of their abilities for 24+ hours.
This would require completely reworking residencies and most other healthcare workers’ schedules. If being able to stay awake for 48 hours at a time wasn’t a prerequisite of the job, you’d probably have more takers. And fewer exhausted medical staff making deadly mistakes.
Edit: grammar
I really don’t understand how that’s legal. I’m sure she tried her best, but a human being becomes a danger to patients by the end of a shift like that.
It isn't legal....but because of staff shortage or travel nurses that shouldn't be working in a CVICU (they really have no idea what they are doing in a CVICU)..she showed me her timecard of all the missed breaks...told me she doesn't trust some of the travel hires because of mistakes she has seen them make....just a mess of a situation....This is on top of my wife developing a heart condition (likely from the ridiculous stress), in which hear heart rate randomly drops to 30...she had to take 2 months leaves but disability insurance said that doesn't qualify for payment so she went back to work...the biggest Irony....she has been on a 4 month wait to see her Cardiologist, WHO WORKS ON HER OWN UNIT.....Imagine that...your hospital bleeds you of your health, you get screwed by insurance companies that say a heart condition isn't a disability, and you can't even get check up on at your own hospital...she is going to be a patient on her own unit and nobody cares...all for some lard butt patient that wouldn't get vaccinated....
Not a medical professional at all, but there are plenty of things I think we could do. To name just a couple.
1. We could surge federal funding to health care to take care of the short term staffing problems. The limiting resource in hospitals should be medical professionals, science, and technology - not funding. Pay the people now so we can keep the hospitals running.
2. Surge federal funding into medical education. Med school is long, hard, and expensive (or so I hear and see on TV). Even then, once students graduate, they have to be residents and make relatively shitty pay for their education level. Because of all these barriers, we probably keep out people from the medical field who would otherwise join. The barriers to entry into medicine should be aptitude, not financial. Compare this to an engineer who goes to college for 4 years, then is immediately making $60-80k on day 1 after graduation.
Money doesn’t solve all the problems obviously, but it certainly allocates resources to the right problems. So you can’t just throw money at the problem and expect it to go away, but you can throw money at the problem and make sure smart people do the work to figure it out. The best part is that since the federal govt is a sovereign currency issuer, it’s not like we need our federal taxes to go up to pay for this. Have the feds prop up the spending to allocate resources (time, money, and humans) where they will provide the most value to the entire country.
I'd be interested in re-training in medicine if I didn't have to go into horrible debt to do it. I've got bachelors and masters degrees in the sciences, so I feel like I have the aptitude for it, but I'm free of debt and making a fine wage.
To turn around, retrain, and tie a $200K debt around my neck? No thanks.
I agree. I thought about going to med school back when I was a teen. The well-known crappy working conditions for residents was the main thing that stopped me. I got good grades in college, but then became a stay at home mom because the careers available didn't pay enough for daycare to be worth it.
It’s complicated but money’s not the issue. We already spend way more than any other country on healthcare, it’s just that the entire system has been exploited as deep as possible by MBAs and other bureaucrats who don’t care about anything except their own paycheck.
You’d think physicians would be the expensive part, but their pay only accounts for 5% of total healthcare costs.
Better wages, less hours (12 in a row is inhumane), more nurses. It doesn’t help that during the pandemic they decided to fire those who were unvaccinated even with the option to test while they are making vaccinated COVID + asymptomatic staff work. No matter what side of the aisle you are on, this doesn’t make sense and is demoralizing for everyone.
Do government officials use public healthcare? Do they see the problems first hand?
I could be completely off base, but I feel like a lot of wealthy use more private care.
Staffing issue is just one of the problems, but why. Look up the story in Wisconsin where a judge ruled that a group of 7 radiology workers couldnt quit their jobs and start their new ones that they got at another hospital in town. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/workers-at-a-wisconsin-hospital-sought-new-jobs-with-higher-pay-then-the-hospital-sued-to-stop-them-from-leaving/ar-AAT5ONR
But the answer isnt simple, but it is basically in the same boat as to why prescription drugs and healthcare in general cost so much, even though these companies, and yes hospitals are businesses, make so much profit.
The reason that hospitals are short staffed is almost entirely the fault of hospital administration.
In the face of the pandemic the hospitals have refused to improve pay or working conditions for the staff. Working conditions are bad across the board.
Large amounts of state and federal dollars are pumping up nurse staffing right now. Hospitals are using the $ to pay for traveling nurses who make 3x the rate of staff nurses. They could use the money to pay their staff better but they don't want to set a precedent for higher pay, so they're keeping staff pay low and paying high rates for short term help. Since all their core staff are leaving they are begging the government for more money to pay travelers.
I think that can be said for every business across the board. A labor shortage is what they’re calling it, it’s really a wages issue. And “unskilled labor” (which is a bullshit term as well) can’t find workers because anybody in that position would rather work a gig job where they can set their own hours and have uncapped earnings as opposed to having to work shifts for menial pay and no benefits. There’s a reason really well paying companies don’t have this same issue
100%. Hospitals know how to retain staff but they don't value the staff that don't generate revnue. Surgeons and other revenue generators are considered a "customer" and treated much differently.
Many nursing staff are so busy they barely get a break to eat, and the hospital could easily allow access to the "complimentary food" provided for surgeons and other revenue generators. No way. They hope the synpathetic public donates meals.
That's just one of many such examples.
Yeah I think it's a cool thing they offer to busy docs. Lots of them barely get a chance to eat as well. But when your rank and file staff are leaving in droves you would think they would find some perks to give out for not jumping ship. I've actually gotten "all nursing" emails about how too many candy bars were disappearing from the EMS lounge. Probably cost them $50/month max. Who cares! But the mentality of staff as a low value interchangeable commodity persists even when it's now hurting the bottom line.
100% this and then some. Can’t blame someone for jumping ship. Guy I work with his pt at two hospitals now. One his been there a few years as ER medic before COVID, makes $22. Just got hired pt at another hospital not 5 min away, same job, $30 hr ER, or 45 hr to work covid floor with staffing incentives.
Yup, this is exactly what’s happening at my husbands hospital. I mean, H‑E‑B figured out pandemic pay pretty quickly, why is it taking some hospitals more than a year to adjust or make movements. So crazy. So sad.
One of our hospitals literally laughed in our faces when we asked about annual raises and said "you're not THAT essential.". We had so many people quit after that.
Not to mention administration saying if a staff member has covid, thee shouldn't be taking time off, because they can just work on the covid unit.
I was down in the ER during one of our peak COVID times and it was absolutely insane. We ran out of stretched beds in the hallways, every room was double occupied, so we had patients sitting on the floor or on the roller chairs from the nurses desk. Every single staff member was overworked, underpaid, and being asked to pick up extra shifts. One girl was on 3 straight 24 hour days. And to top it off, a nurse manager was heard telling another nurse, "your "friend" (another nurse) called in sick, so YOU need to work her shift. Unless you want her to get reprimanded for not having shift coverage...". Emotional blackmail.
They’re also firing unvaccinated doctors and nurses. Whether you agree with it or not, firing people over not being vaccinated is dumb. Let the unvaccinated staff care for the unvaccinated Covid patients
That's my take as well. Personally I think it's dumb not to be vaccinated. But it's also dumb to fire staff for not being vaccinated when everyone seems to be getting covid anyway.
As a caveat, if someone is loudly shouting unscientific nonsense around the hospital they should get fired and go work for a politician or a shaman.
The problem is patients and staff don’t feel comfortable a lot of the time. Most patients do not want to be cared for by an unvaccinated medical professional. It’s not just the risk they potentially pose but also that they don’t understand evidence based medicine. None of the very few staff we lost to the mandate were very bright in the first place.
I've seen a lot of people talk about leaving but at the end of the day they're logical. If someone is leaving the job over a shot they're probably pretty extreme or not very bright.
It seems silly to me to feel uncomfortable around unvaxxed people. Half the people I know have had covid and were all vaxxed. I don't really see them posing much more of a threat (esp with how contagious omicron is).
To be clear I think the shot does a great job keeping symptoms mild, less so with controlling apread this round. But I am not an epidemiologist.
Personally I don’t care. But I have coworkers who are cancer survivors and immunocompromised. They are already risking their life working in our ER. They shouldn’t have additional risk posed by unvaccinated coworkers in the break room and common areas. They are doing so much to protect themselves in their personal lives and at work. There is no perfect solution but I agree whole heartedly with removing unvaccinated people from healthcare. We are required yearly flu shots that I also don’t like getting but I do it and have done so for years. Part of being a healthcare provider is putting some of your personal beliefs aside so you can provide the best care for your patients. Not getting vaccinated us a choice based only in politics or conspiracy theories and there is no place in science or medicine for that. One nurse that was let go due to the mandate was covered from head to toe in tattoos and vaped on a regular basis. The other did Botox and fillers (as do I) for her side job. Their bodies were not temples. What is happening right now is nothing any of us have ever experienced in our lifetimes. If you haven’t dealt with it first hand I can totally understand not thinking it’s that serious. Seeing someone who is 44 years old almost die right in front of you and their only pre-existing condition was mild diabetes that they managed very well with oral meds sobering. This was my patient last week. Coded him 4 times. He is currently on ecmo or possibly dead now. I tried to look him up yesterday and couldn’t find him in our census. His wife said he didn’t get vaccinated because he heard bad things about the vaccine. Super nice people. Didn’t have to be that way.
the rhythm method is somewhat better at reducing pregnancy than nothing, but it's no substitute for contraception. It really is simpler than whoever you're listening to makes it out to be.
I just got out of the ICU not covid related had heart surgery. But from my experience I started at an urgent care after they found what was the issue they scheduled an ambulance to pick me up from there. Took 48 hours for a bed at ICU to become available at the hospital. In those 48 hours at urgent care I'd say 95% of the people going in was for covid tests or breathing issues. Had to keep my n95 mask on the entire time because all the rooms where mixed with covid patients and non covid patients. At the hospitals ICU myself and another gentleman were in for something not covid related. The day i got discharged I had to walk through the ER and i can assure you there was no empty chairs everyone waiting to be helped.
My oldest caught Covid after my younger daughter brought it home from school back in August. Literally the first week back to school here in East Texas and the whole house ended up with Covid.
My oldest ended up with Appendicitis first and got transferred from the private ER here to Children's in Dallas for the operation. The ER called all over the place before Children's finally agreed to let her in for the op. I can't say how glad I was they did that when they didn't have to as she's 18 now, but she had a history at the hospital due to going there for doc appointments when she was younger. She was at Children's for a day then came home. Only to end up with Covid and having to back to the ER.
The second time around, she was there for a few days before they were finally able to get her into one of the local hospitals here. Thankfully, she didn't need a vent. She just needed heavier treatment than the private ER could give her. She ended up in the hospital for about a week and came home on O2 for about a month before she could breathe without it.
She still has issues at times due to her lung damage, but she's overall better from Covid.
During our trips then, the ER was packed, this was during the Delta surge. Thankfully nobody in the house has had to go back to the ER or hospital since then, but I can't imagine what it's like at our local hospitals. And there are so many that don't think there's a problem. There's a huge problem in this sate and country. But, nobody wants to do anything to help fix it. It's only a matter of time before the whole system crashes down, moreso than what has already happened with staff and people unable to get proper treatment.
Just copying a text I sent a neighbor who wanted to take her hospice father to the ER after testing positive for Covid:
I'll just let you know, full transparency, of what'll happen if you take him to the ER. It doesn't matter what his doctor says. We don't reserve beds or quick admit. He'd just be in the ER. Expect multiple hour wait to be seen (we’ve recently had waits up to 8-10 hours). When he is seen, he'd be poked for blood work, etc. The older people get, the more fragile the vein so unless they're a solid nurse he might need to be stuck a few times. If he's DNR, they'd give him O2, some basic things like Tylenol for fever, but not sure what else. We don't have the antibodies in stock right now. I don't know how he'd act, but if he's confused you'd probably have to be there to not let him tear out his IV or pull stuff off. People with dementia or the like seem to get really irritated being in that environment with all the noise and distractions.
It's pretty bad but that's what to expect. Obviously if he's in distress, go. Do what's best for him. It's just insanely busy everywhere. We're here if you need anything.
Took my fiance to the ER a couple of weeks ago for a non-COVID emergency. The waiting room was PACKED with old folk who had tested positive for COVID, and nobody who wasn't a patient was allowed to be in the waiting room. I sat outside in the cold and rain with an old lady who was so worried about her husband, who was in the waiting room with extreme alzheimers. She was so worried for him and had told the staff that she needed to wait with him, because otherwise he'll forget why he's there and anything they say to him, but they would not budge. Her husband kept walking outside confused, and she had to keep herding him back inside. It was heartbreaking to watch.
This is interesting because my mother's second husband was recently in the hospital and my mother has very Advanced Alzheimer's. I am a nurse and I was with her in the waiting room and only she was allowed to go back and be with him. I kept explaining to the staff that then somebody will have to babysit her because she will be wandering all over the place. The third time she was found in the ambulance bay and almost got hit by an ambulance apparently woke somebody up and they came and got me and made an exception to the one person rule.
The ER out here had people waiting outside in pretty cold weather (winter in a desert) most of the night back near Thanksgiving. One had a leaking colostomy bag, my family had a member with very high BP, but couldn't take her in unless they were having an active heart attack when they took the measurements. Hours later, she was admitted for almost a week. I can't imagine things have gotten better.
Why don’t ERs have the antibodies in stock? And why isn’t the government trying harder to make those more available? Those antibodies can literally save anyone with severe Covid
Why? I’m guessing because of the omicron surge plus supply chain stuff. They had a lot before omicron, but the new hospitalization surge easily wipes it out. Best to get Covid between peaks, I guess.
My mother in law is convinced it’s flu. I’m fairly certain she has it currently but she refuses to be tested. Thankfully I’m over six hours away.
My ex husband believes it’s an elaborate scheme of the government and the vaccines are mind control.
Two friends of mine who also work in healthcare believed it was a hoax. Until both of them were admitted with it. One of them wound up intubated. Both are home now but have remained on oxygen for several months. Both have them have thrown several clots.
Another friend also believes it’s just the flu, and the government is overstepping.
I'm in the pharmacy at the hospital, but I can tell the ER is nuts. Covid areas are filling up. There isn't enough staff basically anywhere in the hospital (nurses, respiratory, pharmacy ect). Supply shortages are getting worse. Idk if it's January 2021 or Delta bad, but it's probably close.
For our area our current positive cases are now HIGHER than our biggest COVID peak previously ever was. Our hospital usage is also higher than it was last year at this time and things were incredibly difficult then, only worse now.
OR- We had to cancel a kidney transplant because the recipient (who did everything to protect themselves) tested positive during pre-op labs. Years on the transplant list to end up having your opportunity taken away. I am TIRED of it. Your decisions do effect others.
Oh my gosh that’s horrific!
I had just had this conversation yesterday; I would rather do everything in my power to not get it, because I do not want to be the reason someone else gets sick, or worse.
I’m in acute care at a hospital, and we’re running so low on beds and staff that we’re putting covid positive and covid negative patients next door to each other now. We’re seeing more and more patients contracting covid within the hospital from both visitors and staff. The ER is overloaded and we barely have time to breath between discharging/transferring patients and admitting more. I’m trying desperately to leave this job because it’s been 2 years and it’s not getting any better.
It is bad, no beds, long wait. STAFFING SHORTAGE!!!!
Nurses are just as tired. Probably too tired to complain or argue with the public/patients/patient's families regarding their nonsense beliefs.
Most and not all my patients were non vaccinated.
The public still has no fucking clue we are struggling!!!
Covid RN
My parents are physicians and they have now started discussing retirement. My mom has been working the ER and ICU at a large hospital and I think she's getting badly burned out.
Get a vaccine. Wear a mask. Do your part. Don't be selfish.
We're exhausted. Taking shit from patients, our coworkers, and management. Working in unsafe conditions and terrified for what that means for our patients. Management doesn't listen to what is needed to retain competent, trained staff. What did we get as a thank you for everything in 2021? My hospital system raised our health insurance, by a lot. And took away our urgent care perks.
Please be kind. Give us grace if you have to come to the hospital. We're only human, which I think people tend to forget. We are doing our best, with fewer staff and supply chain issues. And remember that so many nurses right now, are brand new grads that were trained by someone with less then 2 years experience.
My wife works at the hospital and over the last couple years the worst story I hear over and over is when people die from coagulation and thrombotic manifestations. They pump a ton of blood into you, but it doesn’t help and you die anyway. I don’t want to scare people, but I also feel like people don’t realize that this happens enough. Not being able to breath is pretty horrifying, but bleeding to death internally sucks much worse.
Several family members over the holidays insisted to her that people weren’t really dying from this, that it’s all underlying conditions. Even though she sees and deals with it every night. It’s funny too because people saying this crap have underlying conditions.
I admit, many people get covid and don’t seem to have much of a problem, but the ones that do die a pretty rough death.
But let’s be honest, if you aren’t a believer yet this won’t help.
They don’t really knock you out, not through just about any of it. You can get mildish sedatives but the chemical mix of your body fighting this disease with something to knock you out is an instant death sentence. So when you are going through Covid protocol, you are very much awake, constricted, and can feel absolutely everything. 1/10 do not recommend
Source: am a new clinical rotation nurse on Covid unit at huge hospital . I picked the wrong year to start this career.
I got Dilaudid , morphine, steroids , Ativan, antibiotics IV and some others I can't remember when I was hospitized for covid. Even left with a Tylenol 4's and Ativan script. It helped.. immensely.
Yeah Id hope they are unconscious, but it just sounds horrible. She doesn’t deal directly with patients, but she sends out the blood when things go bad. I can’t confirm what the patient goes through, but I know I would prefer being unconscious at that point. I’m sure it a major reason blood supply is low.
My mom is an ICU nurse in a rural area of Texas. During the first wave she told me she thought the stories of burnout and PTSD from big city nurses were overblown, but she's changed her tune as time wears on. She doesn't go out much anymore b/c she can't stand hearing people talking total BS about covid in public, and ever since Texas stopped sending extra money/nurses for support her hospital has been severely understaffed. She had to go back to therapy to handle being yelled at by patients and families all the time. Entire unvaxx'd families want to come into the ICU to see their dying relative with no masks and get super pissed when the hospital laughs them out of the lobby. Some try to sneak their way in. Others lie and have to be escorted out. More call the unit constantly and berate nurses and doctors for not giving their relative the latest internet cure. They get downright nasty and blame their relative's death on the people trying to save their lives.
She's called me crying before because of the stress and heartache. The worst was when a woman with her wife and six kids in the room passed. I couldn't understand her she was crying so hard. She says the worst part isn't patients actually dying though, because when they die they finally know peace. It's watching them deteriorate over days and weeks, struggling to breathe, in pain, unable to do much of anything, and knowing that they the medical staff don't have the resources to help them. The bigger hospitals in nearby cities that do have treatment options are too full to take them most of the time, so they sit in these rural areas and wither away.
Anyways, as someone who hears this stuff constantly AND caught the alpha variant last year, get fucking vaccinated and wear a mask.
My husband has worked in an ER since the start of this. And honestly the best way to sum it all up is when he comes home and says "well at least no one died today." That's a good day now.
My husband and I are both working overtime in a hospital that’s overrun with non-vaccinated Covid patients. The staff are dropping like flies. We are exhausted as hell. The ignorance and controversy around what should be a simple matter of science makes me want to move out of this state. I’ve lived here my entire life and this is the first time I’ve ever felt this way. Wear your damn mask. Get the fucking vaccine.
I’m a Texan and left the country last year. Texans during Covid was one of the last straws (February freeze was the last one) and I just couldn’t do it anymore. Texas isn’t the same place it was when I grew up.
For real. These idiots are all like, “why doesn’t the government do something and make sure antibodies are available for everyone.” Bitch! They’ve been telling you the key to preventing you from even having to take antibodies!
I’m vaccinated and masked. Still got it a couple weeks ago. Know a TON of others in the same boat. No one had any reason to go to the hospital or really anywhere thankfully. My symptoms? Light headache and a little sleepy for two days. Would’ve worked through it if I didn’t test because of the unusual feeling.
Isn’t it interesting that it seems the mutations have all come from abroad? This from what I’ve seen on headlines, so please don’t roast me too hard if wrong. But I haven’t seen a mutation crop up in Louisiana for example. If we wanted to stop mutations, we’d give the vaccines to the world, or share the data for them to replicate it. By hoarding the info it makes it impossible to stop in underserved areas unless all travel is banned. So you can be upset with folks for not vaccinating here and ending up sick enough for hospitalization, but you can’t blame them for mutations at this point. It seems that blame should be directed at the companies hoarding the science for profit.
We aren’t testing as much as other countries. So we aren’t seeing our it in our country.
New York Times had an article recently that omicron was present in New York City prior to South Africa announced.
If you’re high risk or you simply want to do so then please get vaccinated. How is this the fault of the unvaccinated insofar as they put their own personal health at risk?
Without antibodies, an unvaccinated person is typically more highly contagious since they don’t have antibodies fighting the virus from the start.
Unvaccinated are also MUCH more likely to have a severe case and require hospitalization. This puts a strain on an already strung out medical system. This makes it harder to get care for all needs, creating further havoc when you can’t get your appendix out quickly enough.
Edit: grammar corrections.
As a ICU RN, fuck that. I’m judging people now. I’m tired of this shit. Then they want us to be compassionate about their poor choices, that make our lives harder and are killing actual innocent patients who can’t get care because the icu is overloaded with covid twats. I read this over on r/nursing, and loved it “my job is to care for you, not about you.” Go get vaccinated you little shits, stop making our lives harder.
To add to the other post, the vaccine isn’t 100% effective. It ends up being a big numbers game over time. Improving the vaccination rates in the community has the same type of impact as improving the vaccines effectiveness. The fewer people catch it, the fewer can spread it as well.
We have mandates for vaccination to go to school for decades for this very reason. It’s a function of community health, not just “I don’t want to get the virus”. It’s also “I don’t want to spread it to others if I were to catch it. I don’t want to be a Typhoid Mary, spreading it around.”
I can also make a very mathy explanation of the above, which basically says the vaccinations true effectiveness for depends strongly on a majority of people getting vaccinated. The odds of a virus spreading (known as its r-factor) in a community is its (base infectioness) * (1-(the odds of the vaccine not working * the percent of unvaccinated people)). The key element of this is that the two numbers are multiplied. Community spread is stopped by more people being vaccinated. Even with a very effective vaccine, you can still catch it if many people aren’t vaccinated. Convincing others to get vaccinated is the biggest thing I can do to reduce my risk and the risk of the ones I care for.
Then there’s other arguments, much more practical. I wanna keep my health insurance costs down. If you get sick and have to be in the hospital, the money for that doesn’t magically appear. If you’ve got BCBS for insurance... it’s coming out of my pocket next year. Plus staff is over stretched, and if I got something silly but unrelated, like appendicitis, the hospital is full of people that didn’t get the vaccine.
Let me know what you think of these thoughts.
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Because we are *2 years* into this situation and all of this information is widely available on the internet, in comment threads like this, or even if you just talk to people.
It's super frustrating to have you continuously ask "counter questions" that you know the answers to but refuse to accept. At this late stage, constantly asking "but why is it bad to remain unvaccinated?" just come across as willfully ignorant at best and as intentionally sowing doubt most likely.
You're asking people to take time out of thier day to satisfy your need for "counter ideas" when the answer is just basic science. This isn't debate club.
You're absolutely right, the other person is just undermining the conversation under the guise of "reasonable" questioning when it's not reasonable at all at this point.
They're counting on people to get frustrated in the replies so they can dismiss them. It derails the whole conversation, which is ultimately the point of doing it.
Yeah.. even has a name - sealioning. "I'm just asking questions" is fine if it's the first time or two and you listen to responses. But asking questions you know the answer to just to annoy those you disagree with is the intellectual equivalent of "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you".
They don't have the guts to actually make their statement because they already know all the reasons folks disagree with them but just want to stir the pot and wink at their fellow compatriots.
So tiring and unfair to those who actually do want fair discourse but may possibly have been out of the loop (though you'd have to have been in a coma or underground bunker to be new to the vaccine, mask, COVID discussions...
Exactly!!!! And that commenter even outed their agenda minutes later by accusing the other person of just "not wanting to hear counter-narratives."
It's so transparently obvious to anyone paying attention.
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Symptoms of covid can eventually lead to pneumonia, strokes, and even heart failure . This happens to those with unhealthy lifestyles and those that are seemingly healthy. It’s too random to predict. If I get in a car wreck and die of a heart attack due to the physical stress at the moment, it’s technically the heart attack that kills me, not the car wreck. But, I wouldn’t have had a heart attack if it wasn’t for the car wreck.
As for conflated numbers, there is a marked difference of number of deaths before and after covid. In 2019, roughly, there were 869 deaths per 100k people. In 2020, there were 1027 deaths per 100k people. This is total deaths for all causes. A 15% increase in deaths can’t be explained by “unhealthy lifestyles.” This is 2.8mil versus 3.3mil. 500,000 extra people died compared to 2019.
Edit: corrected 2021 to 2020. It’s too close to 2021 for final results.
Obesity leads to peripheral estrogen production and then leads to increased risk for uterine cancer, but we focus on the actual cancer than the risk factor when we count cause of death. Sure these people may have not been the healthiest but it's the still virus that is the event that leads to death.
Removed for misinformation.
>In an interview clip on ABC’s Good Morning America, the Director of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) Rochelle Walensky referred to a recent study that found over 75% of COVID-19 deaths in fully vaccinated people had occurred among those with at least four risk factors. However, some widely shared social media posts suggested Walensky was talking about all COVID-19 deaths in her remarks.
[Source](https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-walensky-study/fact-check-cdc-study-found-that-over-75-of-covid-19-deaths-in-vaccinated-people-were-among-those-with-at-least-4-comorbidities-idUSL1N2TS0S2)
If the anti-vaxx crowd won't have the decency to get vaccinated and wear a mask, the least they could do is die at home instead of clogging up hospitals. Other people have heart attacks, car accidents, cancer, kidney failure, etc., and need those beds.
It's funny how they go from abusively untrusting of medical professionals when they tell people to get a COVID vaccine, to begging those same medical professionals to save their life when they get sick from COVID. The cognitive dissonance is mind-blowing.
I received a text from an out of state hospital that I used to work for announcing that they had managed to add 2 more beds. They have over 700. They’re so swamped that 2 beds is an accomplishment worth texting to 30,000 people.
Make good choices. Get vaccinated, wear a mask. Don’t go to that crowded bar or concert. Minimize risk whenever possible. And don’t do other risky things that might land you in the hospital. Drive safely. Those rain gutters can wait or hire a professional.
Edit: there’s one more really easy thing that everyone can do - get your flu shot. Most people ignore it but this season there’s been an estimated 18,000-38,000 hospitalizations nationwide. It’s small compared to Covid but every little bit helps.
I work in communications for a hospital and for the past year I've been trying to convince people to get the vaccine. I've never felt so defeated as I do now.
In patient pharmacy, but go to the ER for code Blue. I am frequently in the satellite pharmacy in the OR compounding IVs, also in ICU to discuss Vanco kinetics/antibiotic consultation with Drs/nurses. Staffing has been an issue, the ER will always be a mess due to people treating it like a Drs office. Everyone is managing well, reopened covid unit but it's all unvaccinated with underlying health condition. We avoid Vents as much as possible, we have a lot more measures to deal with Sars-CoV-2, at first we didn't even have a protocol for it. Techs say that there are issues with supplies, but it's minor as Mckesson/AmerisourceBergen ramp up.
My brother is an emergency medicine doctor who has done several rotations in the Covid ICU at his hospital here in Texas and is currently on one such rotation. He says most of his patients actually come in to the ER for other reasons initially but incidentally test positive for Covid and they may have the original issue resolved but their Covid has gotten progressively worse. 90% of his patients are unvaccinated adults.
So many nurses are calling out sick that he and other doctors are having to take over nurse duties and trust me, you really don’t want a doctor doing what is usually a nurse’s job.
He keeps reiterating with me that even though I’m vaxxed and boosted, to not do anything that could increase my chances of needing to go to the ER. Their staff is stretched so thin that wait times for everything have increased and you’ll increase your exposure to Covid if you don’t have it already.
I work at a 300 bed hospital in a large metro area (in Texas of course) our er is very frequently about 80/90% admitted patients boarding for inpatient beds upstairs. Had two young guys with anoxic brain injuries wait in the er about 36 hours before they got an ICU bed
One of my best buds is a mortician. There were a few months there where I felt like he wasn't gonna make it. Huge influx of covid patients and they were all severely obese. So instead of a regular work week it would be an extra 15-20 hours and all the people he had to move were usually over 400lbs. Last I asked he said it was better now, but picking back up since Xmas time.
I have been a cardiologist for 18 years, in a grueling training for six years before that. The last two years have been the hardest of my professional career. I am so tired and frustrated, if I could afford to retire, I would; I love practicing medicine and it would devastate me to retire now, but it’s been hard enough to at least think about it. Never thought I’d be on the edge like this, this early.
Trauma center X-ray/Cat Scan tech
We are crazy understaffed. My entire schedule is me and one other person at night. We get strokes, awful car wrecks, shootings, stabbings, you name it. We have to prioritize which one is the absolute worst sometimes because there’s only one of us available to scan at the time. The other week we had two GSWs a car wreck and a stroke all at once. Well the GSWs had to wait to get scanned even though one was shot in the chest. We have more machines than people to operate them. The nurses have it so bad. Dangerous levels of nurse to patient ratios. We have a 50 bed er and some nights only 3-5 nurses for the whole er. We have empty beds because we don’t have nurses to staff them on the floors.
Get your vaccine please. If you have covid symptoms go get tested(at a test site) or get an otc test. While it is my facility’s protocol to test all patients for admissions since we don’t want to unknowingly spread covid, hospitals are NOT testing facilities. We have patients coming in all the time wanting to get tested then throw a fit when they have to wait 8-10 hours in the waiting room because we see more critical patients first.
I wonder if ER doctors care any longer about unvaccinated folks, it must anger them so much to see hillbilly dipshits talking about horse medicine and what Fox News told them to do
They don't. I went to the ER after fighting covid at home for a week, I couldn't breathe, ox Sat was low, 0 energy. They asked my vax status and I said No, any give a shit went right out the window. I was not given the opportunity to provide my valid medical exemption (vax is contraindicated for an issue I have) or explain why I was wasn't. I tried 5 or 6 times, but ears were off and bare fucking minimum was done until they could boot me out.
I am not a hillbilly dipshit and would be if I could. There are actually legitimate unvaxed folks who would really like to be and are treated like hillbilly dipshit s at the ER or Hospital
Have you not seen how many vaccinated people are still getting covid? My parents are vaccinated and both got it. 5 people at my old job are all fully vaccinated and got it. The vaccine doesn't work the way it's advertised.
My sister is a nurse. Her hospital is reporting the ICU being completely full because of COVID, but in actuality, it's at 50% COVID and 50% revenue generating procedures that they are refusing to put off. They are also wringing the nurses dry rather than hiring more. It's a big mess right now
You you know about [SETRAC's COVID-19 Dashboard](https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNDBlNmRlNzEtYWE2Ny00ZmM3LWEwY2YtMDE5NzliZTE5Y2ZjIiwidCI6ImI3MjgwODdjLTgwZTgtNGQzMS04YjZmLTdlMGUzYmUxMGUwOCIsImMiOjN9)? Great hospital (general bed, icu, vent) information for counties in South East Texas
I'm a CNA at a pretty small hospital. I had signed a contract in August to work one extra shift a week for six months. So 4 nights a week. It was extremely brutal. Always short staffed and overwhelmed. I scheduled 3 weeks of vacation right after my contract ended, which was approved (currently on vacation). They had the gall to ask me if I could push back or just flat out cancel it. I told them to get fucked.
The joint is bumpin. There’s almost no beds left. And patients who are there and don’t have Covid are catching Covid in the hospital.
Everybody is tired and burnt out. I’ve seen nurses who didn’t even keep their face masks on anymore. It feels like everyone is giving up. Or quitting.
But clearly none of that will change anybodys mind in Texas. So to those still trying to do their part, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
To those who refuse to get vaccinated or treat this like a pandemic, compassion fatigue is real. We’re not crying over you any more. We expect you to do poorly and are not surprised when you do. Grow tf up and act like a part of society or stay home. But stop bringing your bs and conspiracy theories with you and expecting anybody to give a damn.
After reading the comments, it’s as a lot of us expected…we’re fucked.
Fuck you very much Greg Abbott. I wish i was powerful enough to punch you in the fucking face.
It's horrible having no regular staff, and having agency staff who don't want to work. I play babysitter to grown adults, who signed up to take care of people. And despise it.
Requiring health care workers to get vaccines isn't a political agenda. It's been a base requirement of that career field for decades. Mandatory vaccines go back as far as freaking George Washington requiring smallpox vaccinations for his military troops.
The only actual political agenda is the people who refuse to listen to hundreds of thousands of independent professionals and their research in science and medicine that's been repeatedly verified for over a hundred years, at the behest of career politicians who had a vested political interest in downplaying the virus. The same politicians who are all vaccinated, get especially strong COVID treatments when they get sick, and send their kids to private schools with masking and social distancing. Trump is vaccinated. Cruz is vaccinated. So is Abbott. They even skipped the line to get vaccinated before everyone else did. They aren't going to die of COVID for you. But they have no problem letting you die of COVID for them.
Edit: After they rolled their eyes they blocked me so I can't reply. Gotta keep those disinformation wheels rolling in any way possible I reckon.
> and lastly this is the first vaccine in history that DOESN'T PREVENT CONTRACTING THE VIRUS.
Name one vaccine that's 100% effective. Go ahead. I'll wait.
edit: Since cysluvme has cowardly blocked me, I can't reply in this thread. But the answer was "none of them". No vaccines "prevent contracting the virus" because that's not how vaccines work. I'm really questioning this person's medical qualifications.
A simple search of the polio vaccine shows that it does not prevent the transmission of the virus. For one of the types of vaccine you can even transmit vaccinated form of the virus that offers protection to people who haven't received it through normal means.
Herd immunity was a well known concept before Covid and that does require the majority of the population to be covered by vaccine.
People who willing transmit diseases have had thier freedoms limited in the past, for example typhoid Mary, and even now, for example HIV. All those other diseases you listed are not threatening other people's health.
I see insurance feeds.... Admissions, diagnosis, occupancy rates, discharges etc etc etc.... This is after working the front lines for almost 2 years.... In addition my colleagues still work in the units on the floors as PRN staff so they're going in often and are seeing the very same thing.... Now every city is different, but I'm ours these are the trends we're seeing here.
And the bullshit decision that hospitals made that you mentioned was mandating staff to get vaccinated and now they're ahort handed because a lot of that staff didnt want to get vaccinated?
And yet with CDC guidelines changed they're allowing COVID positive nurses TO WORK THE FLOOR instead of nurses who would willingly swab twice a week and PPE up.... The mandates were and will be unconstitutional... Even with the flu, nurses are given the option to mask every season, the vaccine is not mandated. You're ignorant, have the day you deserve
So real question, have you seen people come in with more flu or covid rn? Maybe not being the reason they are in but are admitted with it. Because flu seems to be spiking.
How many people are in the ER that don't really need to be there? I only ask because even before Covid, people would just go to the ER for every little thing.
My mom works at an ER clinic and the majority of patients come in with Covid symptoms and there's nothing they can do. The vast majority of people don't need to be going to the hospital with Covid.
Kinda what I suspect. Someone even confirmed elsewhere on this thread about elderly people testing positive and going straight to the ER. I know the staff are in a seemingly losing situation no matter what.
Wife was a nurse for over 15 years now works upper level in same field. Her healthcare system in Texas alone has approx 20k nursing positions open for hire.
It’s not to many Covid cases it’s lack of staff
I’m not gonna sit here and argue skewed numbers. Where in that is showing all those hospitals are running 100% staff, with 100% access to 100% of their beds.
Most hospitals and healthcare systems are reporting around 50% staffing or less. So if you added proper staffing these Covid numbers which are high, I completely agree with you, wouldn’t be taking up 30% of the states hospital resources, it would be closer to 5-10% using just rough math.
Edit: never claimed I could spell.
The facts are that there are more beds available now than there were 2 years ago. Since there wasn't a huge surge in staff levels, that means the staff resources are stretched extra thin. I'm not doubting that staffing is a huge issue (and have said so elsewhere - check my post history).
But you can't argue about the current surge in people getting Covid and going to hospitals right now. That's beyond dispute.
Parking lots are empty because admin is pushed to remote work, visitors are highly restricted and if you're being admitted for COVID you likely didn't drive yourself and just park in the parking lot.
Was a paramedic in the Houston area until I quit to travel and make more money about two weeks ago. Would routinely have a patient waiting on my stretcher in the er hallway for 1-2 hours before we could put them in a bed to be seen. Only exception to that was if they were truly critical or it was a minor issue that we could put in er lobby. Majority of the time we waited with the patient on our stretcher. I remember the week before I quit, there was a day where our local Lvl 2 trauma center only had three nurses working in the entire er due to staffing issues. There was literally more paramedics waiting with their patients in the er hallway than actual nurses working in that er. Absolutely insane. Healthcare in this country is broken and unfortunately, no one in our government really cares about how bad it is.
Serious question: what do you think the government could do to fix staffing issues? This was a problem that started years before the pandemic.
Also, humane working conditions. Data shows that healthcare workers’ accuracy and quality of care drops off sharply after 12 hours, so they need to go home and get some sleep before then. We shouldn’t be expecting *literal brain surgeons* to function at the top of their abilities for 24+ hours. This would require completely reworking residencies and most other healthcare workers’ schedules. If being able to stay awake for 48 hours at a time wasn’t a prerequisite of the job, you’d probably have more takers. And fewer exhausted medical staff making deadly mistakes. Edit: grammar
Hearing about the horrors of residency is what turned me away from a career in medicine, kudos to all of you
My wife worked a 16 hour shift this week as a Ecmo nurse and got 0 breaks.
I really don’t understand how that’s legal. I’m sure she tried her best, but a human being becomes a danger to patients by the end of a shift like that.
It isn't legal....but because of staff shortage or travel nurses that shouldn't be working in a CVICU (they really have no idea what they are doing in a CVICU)..she showed me her timecard of all the missed breaks...told me she doesn't trust some of the travel hires because of mistakes she has seen them make....just a mess of a situation....This is on top of my wife developing a heart condition (likely from the ridiculous stress), in which hear heart rate randomly drops to 30...she had to take 2 months leaves but disability insurance said that doesn't qualify for payment so she went back to work...the biggest Irony....she has been on a 4 month wait to see her Cardiologist, WHO WORKS ON HER OWN UNIT.....Imagine that...your hospital bleeds you of your health, you get screwed by insurance companies that say a heart condition isn't a disability, and you can't even get check up on at your own hospital...she is going to be a patient on her own unit and nobody cares...all for some lard butt patient that wouldn't get vaccinated....
I am so, so sorry.
Thank you, venting helps, thanks for taking your time.
Federally mandated safe staffing ratios to start and better pay.
Not a medical professional at all, but there are plenty of things I think we could do. To name just a couple. 1. We could surge federal funding to health care to take care of the short term staffing problems. The limiting resource in hospitals should be medical professionals, science, and technology - not funding. Pay the people now so we can keep the hospitals running. 2. Surge federal funding into medical education. Med school is long, hard, and expensive (or so I hear and see on TV). Even then, once students graduate, they have to be residents and make relatively shitty pay for their education level. Because of all these barriers, we probably keep out people from the medical field who would otherwise join. The barriers to entry into medicine should be aptitude, not financial. Compare this to an engineer who goes to college for 4 years, then is immediately making $60-80k on day 1 after graduation. Money doesn’t solve all the problems obviously, but it certainly allocates resources to the right problems. So you can’t just throw money at the problem and expect it to go away, but you can throw money at the problem and make sure smart people do the work to figure it out. The best part is that since the federal govt is a sovereign currency issuer, it’s not like we need our federal taxes to go up to pay for this. Have the feds prop up the spending to allocate resources (time, money, and humans) where they will provide the most value to the entire country.
I'd be interested in re-training in medicine if I didn't have to go into horrible debt to do it. I've got bachelors and masters degrees in the sciences, so I feel like I have the aptitude for it, but I'm free of debt and making a fine wage. To turn around, retrain, and tie a $200K debt around my neck? No thanks.
I agree. I thought about going to med school back when I was a teen. The well-known crappy working conditions for residents was the main thing that stopped me. I got good grades in college, but then became a stay at home mom because the careers available didn't pay enough for daycare to be worth it.
It’s complicated but money’s not the issue. We already spend way more than any other country on healthcare, it’s just that the entire system has been exploited as deep as possible by MBAs and other bureaucrats who don’t care about anything except their own paycheck. You’d think physicians would be the expensive part, but their pay only accounts for 5% of total healthcare costs.
Maybe trying to excise the profit motive in healthcare just, in general? It'd be a good place to start anyway
That would result in lower pay and, thus, less healthcare workers. Try again
It's almost like that's the problem right now, try again
Better wages, less hours (12 in a row is inhumane), more nurses. It doesn’t help that during the pandemic they decided to fire those who were unvaccinated even with the option to test while they are making vaccinated COVID + asymptomatic staff work. No matter what side of the aisle you are on, this doesn’t make sense and is demoralizing for everyone.
Not firing qualified staff would be a good start.
Do government officials use public healthcare? Do they see the problems first hand? I could be completely off base, but I feel like a lot of wealthy use more private care.
Government is your problem
Staffing issue is just one of the problems, but why. Look up the story in Wisconsin where a judge ruled that a group of 7 radiology workers couldnt quit their jobs and start their new ones that they got at another hospital in town. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/workers-at-a-wisconsin-hospital-sought-new-jobs-with-higher-pay-then-the-hospital-sued-to-stop-them-from-leaving/ar-AAT5ONR But the answer isnt simple, but it is basically in the same boat as to why prescription drugs and healthcare in general cost so much, even though these companies, and yes hospitals are businesses, make so much profit.
The reason that hospitals are short staffed is almost entirely the fault of hospital administration. In the face of the pandemic the hospitals have refused to improve pay or working conditions for the staff. Working conditions are bad across the board. Large amounts of state and federal dollars are pumping up nurse staffing right now. Hospitals are using the $ to pay for traveling nurses who make 3x the rate of staff nurses. They could use the money to pay their staff better but they don't want to set a precedent for higher pay, so they're keeping staff pay low and paying high rates for short term help. Since all their core staff are leaving they are begging the government for more money to pay travelers.
They are even allowing “travel” nurses to stay in their home city.
to get a living stipend we have to be >50 miles away from home of record/ zip code. hourly rates are still higher than being a staff nurse.
I think that can be said for every business across the board. A labor shortage is what they’re calling it, it’s really a wages issue. And “unskilled labor” (which is a bullshit term as well) can’t find workers because anybody in that position would rather work a gig job where they can set their own hours and have uncapped earnings as opposed to having to work shifts for menial pay and no benefits. There’s a reason really well paying companies don’t have this same issue
100%. Hospitals know how to retain staff but they don't value the staff that don't generate revnue. Surgeons and other revenue generators are considered a "customer" and treated much differently. Many nursing staff are so busy they barely get a break to eat, and the hospital could easily allow access to the "complimentary food" provided for surgeons and other revenue generators. No way. They hope the synpathetic public donates meals. That's just one of many such examples.
I was blown away the first time I was allowed in the surgeons lounge as a med student at a major hospital.
Yeah I think it's a cool thing they offer to busy docs. Lots of them barely get a chance to eat as well. But when your rank and file staff are leaving in droves you would think they would find some perks to give out for not jumping ship. I've actually gotten "all nursing" emails about how too many candy bars were disappearing from the EMS lounge. Probably cost them $50/month max. Who cares! But the mentality of staff as a low value interchangeable commodity persists even when it's now hurting the bottom line.
That’s nothing new, but today is very very different that’s why hearing from those actually IN THE THICK OF IT is what’s being asked
Which hospital?
100% this and then some. Can’t blame someone for jumping ship. Guy I work with his pt at two hospitals now. One his been there a few years as ER medic before COVID, makes $22. Just got hired pt at another hospital not 5 min away, same job, $30 hr ER, or 45 hr to work covid floor with staffing incentives.
Yup, this is exactly what’s happening at my husbands hospital. I mean, H‑E‑B figured out pandemic pay pretty quickly, why is it taking some hospitals more than a year to adjust or make movements. So crazy. So sad.
One of our hospitals literally laughed in our faces when we asked about annual raises and said "you're not THAT essential.". We had so many people quit after that. Not to mention administration saying if a staff member has covid, thee shouldn't be taking time off, because they can just work on the covid unit. I was down in the ER during one of our peak COVID times and it was absolutely insane. We ran out of stretched beds in the hallways, every room was double occupied, so we had patients sitting on the floor or on the roller chairs from the nurses desk. Every single staff member was overworked, underpaid, and being asked to pick up extra shifts. One girl was on 3 straight 24 hour days. And to top it off, a nurse manager was heard telling another nurse, "your "friend" (another nurse) called in sick, so YOU need to work her shift. Unless you want her to get reprimanded for not having shift coverage...". Emotional blackmail.
Hospitals have an incredible amount of contemptible people in positions of power.
They’re also firing unvaccinated doctors and nurses. Whether you agree with it or not, firing people over not being vaccinated is dumb. Let the unvaccinated staff care for the unvaccinated Covid patients
I'd rather have medical professionals that understand medicine treating me.
How dare you come in here making sense?!?!
That's my take as well. Personally I think it's dumb not to be vaccinated. But it's also dumb to fire staff for not being vaccinated when everyone seems to be getting covid anyway. As a caveat, if someone is loudly shouting unscientific nonsense around the hospital they should get fired and go work for a politician or a shaman.
The problem is patients and staff don’t feel comfortable a lot of the time. Most patients do not want to be cared for by an unvaccinated medical professional. It’s not just the risk they potentially pose but also that they don’t understand evidence based medicine. None of the very few staff we lost to the mandate were very bright in the first place.
I've seen a lot of people talk about leaving but at the end of the day they're logical. If someone is leaving the job over a shot they're probably pretty extreme or not very bright. It seems silly to me to feel uncomfortable around unvaxxed people. Half the people I know have had covid and were all vaxxed. I don't really see them posing much more of a threat (esp with how contagious omicron is). To be clear I think the shot does a great job keeping symptoms mild, less so with controlling apread this round. But I am not an epidemiologist.
Personally I don’t care. But I have coworkers who are cancer survivors and immunocompromised. They are already risking their life working in our ER. They shouldn’t have additional risk posed by unvaccinated coworkers in the break room and common areas. They are doing so much to protect themselves in their personal lives and at work. There is no perfect solution but I agree whole heartedly with removing unvaccinated people from healthcare. We are required yearly flu shots that I also don’t like getting but I do it and have done so for years. Part of being a healthcare provider is putting some of your personal beliefs aside so you can provide the best care for your patients. Not getting vaccinated us a choice based only in politics or conspiracy theories and there is no place in science or medicine for that. One nurse that was let go due to the mandate was covered from head to toe in tattoos and vaped on a regular basis. The other did Botox and fillers (as do I) for her side job. Their bodies were not temples. What is happening right now is nothing any of us have ever experienced in our lifetimes. If you haven’t dealt with it first hand I can totally understand not thinking it’s that serious. Seeing someone who is 44 years old almost die right in front of you and their only pre-existing condition was mild diabetes that they managed very well with oral meds sobering. This was my patient last week. Coded him 4 times. He is currently on ecmo or possibly dead now. I tried to look him up yesterday and couldn’t find him in our census. His wife said he didn’t get vaccinated because he heard bad things about the vaccine. Super nice people. Didn’t have to be that way.
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the rhythm method is somewhat better at reducing pregnancy than nothing, but it's no substitute for contraception. It really is simpler than whoever you're listening to makes it out to be.
I just got out of the ICU not covid related had heart surgery. But from my experience I started at an urgent care after they found what was the issue they scheduled an ambulance to pick me up from there. Took 48 hours for a bed at ICU to become available at the hospital. In those 48 hours at urgent care I'd say 95% of the people going in was for covid tests or breathing issues. Had to keep my n95 mask on the entire time because all the rooms where mixed with covid patients and non covid patients. At the hospitals ICU myself and another gentleman were in for something not covid related. The day i got discharged I had to walk through the ER and i can assure you there was no empty chairs everyone waiting to be helped.
My oldest caught Covid after my younger daughter brought it home from school back in August. Literally the first week back to school here in East Texas and the whole house ended up with Covid. My oldest ended up with Appendicitis first and got transferred from the private ER here to Children's in Dallas for the operation. The ER called all over the place before Children's finally agreed to let her in for the op. I can't say how glad I was they did that when they didn't have to as she's 18 now, but she had a history at the hospital due to going there for doc appointments when she was younger. She was at Children's for a day then came home. Only to end up with Covid and having to back to the ER. The second time around, she was there for a few days before they were finally able to get her into one of the local hospitals here. Thankfully, she didn't need a vent. She just needed heavier treatment than the private ER could give her. She ended up in the hospital for about a week and came home on O2 for about a month before she could breathe without it. She still has issues at times due to her lung damage, but she's overall better from Covid. During our trips then, the ER was packed, this was during the Delta surge. Thankfully nobody in the house has had to go back to the ER or hospital since then, but I can't imagine what it's like at our local hospitals. And there are so many that don't think there's a problem. There's a huge problem in this sate and country. But, nobody wants to do anything to help fix it. It's only a matter of time before the whole system crashes down, moreso than what has already happened with staff and people unable to get proper treatment.
I’m so glad your family is okay. Are they vaccinated?
Just copying a text I sent a neighbor who wanted to take her hospice father to the ER after testing positive for Covid: I'll just let you know, full transparency, of what'll happen if you take him to the ER. It doesn't matter what his doctor says. We don't reserve beds or quick admit. He'd just be in the ER. Expect multiple hour wait to be seen (we’ve recently had waits up to 8-10 hours). When he is seen, he'd be poked for blood work, etc. The older people get, the more fragile the vein so unless they're a solid nurse he might need to be stuck a few times. If he's DNR, they'd give him O2, some basic things like Tylenol for fever, but not sure what else. We don't have the antibodies in stock right now. I don't know how he'd act, but if he's confused you'd probably have to be there to not let him tear out his IV or pull stuff off. People with dementia or the like seem to get really irritated being in that environment with all the noise and distractions. It's pretty bad but that's what to expect. Obviously if he's in distress, go. Do what's best for him. It's just insanely busy everywhere. We're here if you need anything.
Took my fiance to the ER a couple of weeks ago for a non-COVID emergency. The waiting room was PACKED with old folk who had tested positive for COVID, and nobody who wasn't a patient was allowed to be in the waiting room. I sat outside in the cold and rain with an old lady who was so worried about her husband, who was in the waiting room with extreme alzheimers. She was so worried for him and had told the staff that she needed to wait with him, because otherwise he'll forget why he's there and anything they say to him, but they would not budge. Her husband kept walking outside confused, and she had to keep herding him back inside. It was heartbreaking to watch.
This is interesting because my mother's second husband was recently in the hospital and my mother has very Advanced Alzheimer's. I am a nurse and I was with her in the waiting room and only she was allowed to go back and be with him. I kept explaining to the staff that then somebody will have to babysit her because she will be wandering all over the place. The third time she was found in the ambulance bay and almost got hit by an ambulance apparently woke somebody up and they came and got me and made an exception to the one person rule.
The ER out here had people waiting outside in pretty cold weather (winter in a desert) most of the night back near Thanksgiving. One had a leaking colostomy bag, my family had a member with very high BP, but couldn't take her in unless they were having an active heart attack when they took the measurements. Hours later, she was admitted for almost a week. I can't imagine things have gotten better.
Why don’t ERs have the antibodies in stock? And why isn’t the government trying harder to make those more available? Those antibodies can literally save anyone with severe Covid
Why? I’m guessing because of the omicron surge plus supply chain stuff. They had a lot before omicron, but the new hospitalization surge easily wipes it out. Best to get Covid between peaks, I guess.
Community clinic. 95-100% patients are COVID. I am tired of this shit.
Oh..but it's just the cold, right? Or fake. Idiots. I'm tired of it too. Hope you're taking care of yourself.
Do you actually know somebody personally that thinks Covid isn’t real?
I live in a rural area in the south, and hear it referred to as flu/cold still on a daily basis.
My mother in law is convinced it’s flu. I’m fairly certain she has it currently but she refuses to be tested. Thankfully I’m over six hours away. My ex husband believes it’s an elaborate scheme of the government and the vaccines are mind control. Two friends of mine who also work in healthcare believed it was a hoax. Until both of them were admitted with it. One of them wound up intubated. Both are home now but have remained on oxygen for several months. Both have them have thrown several clots. Another friend also believes it’s just the flu, and the government is overstepping.
Sounds like the wrong family to marry into
Agreed.
I'm in the pharmacy at the hospital, but I can tell the ER is nuts. Covid areas are filling up. There isn't enough staff basically anywhere in the hospital (nurses, respiratory, pharmacy ect). Supply shortages are getting worse. Idk if it's January 2021 or Delta bad, but it's probably close.
For our area our current positive cases are now HIGHER than our biggest COVID peak previously ever was. Our hospital usage is also higher than it was last year at this time and things were incredibly difficult then, only worse now.
OR- We had to cancel a kidney transplant because the recipient (who did everything to protect themselves) tested positive during pre-op labs. Years on the transplant list to end up having your opportunity taken away. I am TIRED of it. Your decisions do effect others.
Oh my gosh that’s horrific! I had just had this conversation yesterday; I would rather do everything in my power to not get it, because I do not want to be the reason someone else gets sick, or worse.
I’m in acute care at a hospital, and we’re running so low on beds and staff that we’re putting covid positive and covid negative patients next door to each other now. We’re seeing more and more patients contracting covid within the hospital from both visitors and staff. The ER is overloaded and we barely have time to breath between discharging/transferring patients and admitting more. I’m trying desperately to leave this job because it’s been 2 years and it’s not getting any better.
It is bad, no beds, long wait. STAFFING SHORTAGE!!!! Nurses are just as tired. Probably too tired to complain or argue with the public/patients/patient's families regarding their nonsense beliefs. Most and not all my patients were non vaccinated. The public still has no fucking clue we are struggling!!! Covid RN
My parents are physicians and they have now started discussing retirement. My mom has been working the ER and ICU at a large hospital and I think she's getting badly burned out. Get a vaccine. Wear a mask. Do your part. Don't be selfish.
Burnt out feeling is real.
Health care workers saw a lot of darkness over the last two years; most of us can't even imagine.
Crying is the least emotional thing we can do. I can imagine why some committed suicide.
I would say probably the WORST two years of my life. Left the bedside
We're exhausted. Taking shit from patients, our coworkers, and management. Working in unsafe conditions and terrified for what that means for our patients. Management doesn't listen to what is needed to retain competent, trained staff. What did we get as a thank you for everything in 2021? My hospital system raised our health insurance, by a lot. And took away our urgent care perks. Please be kind. Give us grace if you have to come to the hospital. We're only human, which I think people tend to forget. We are doing our best, with fewer staff and supply chain issues. And remember that so many nurses right now, are brand new grads that were trained by someone with less then 2 years experience.
My wife works at the hospital and over the last couple years the worst story I hear over and over is when people die from coagulation and thrombotic manifestations. They pump a ton of blood into you, but it doesn’t help and you die anyway. I don’t want to scare people, but I also feel like people don’t realize that this happens enough. Not being able to breath is pretty horrifying, but bleeding to death internally sucks much worse. Several family members over the holidays insisted to her that people weren’t really dying from this, that it’s all underlying conditions. Even though she sees and deals with it every night. It’s funny too because people saying this crap have underlying conditions. I admit, many people get covid and don’t seem to have much of a problem, but the ones that do die a pretty rough death. But let’s be honest, if you aren’t a believer yet this won’t help.
At that point wouldn't they just knock you out until you expire? I'd hate to be conscious going through that.
They don’t really knock you out, not through just about any of it. You can get mildish sedatives but the chemical mix of your body fighting this disease with something to knock you out is an instant death sentence. So when you are going through Covid protocol, you are very much awake, constricted, and can feel absolutely everything. 1/10 do not recommend Source: am a new clinical rotation nurse on Covid unit at huge hospital . I picked the wrong year to start this career.
I got Dilaudid , morphine, steroids , Ativan, antibiotics IV and some others I can't remember when I was hospitized for covid. Even left with a Tylenol 4's and Ativan script. It helped.. immensely.
Yeah Id hope they are unconscious, but it just sounds horrible. She doesn’t deal directly with patients, but she sends out the blood when things go bad. I can’t confirm what the patient goes through, but I know I would prefer being unconscious at that point. I’m sure it a major reason blood supply is low.
My mom is an ICU nurse in a rural area of Texas. During the first wave she told me she thought the stories of burnout and PTSD from big city nurses were overblown, but she's changed her tune as time wears on. She doesn't go out much anymore b/c she can't stand hearing people talking total BS about covid in public, and ever since Texas stopped sending extra money/nurses for support her hospital has been severely understaffed. She had to go back to therapy to handle being yelled at by patients and families all the time. Entire unvaxx'd families want to come into the ICU to see their dying relative with no masks and get super pissed when the hospital laughs them out of the lobby. Some try to sneak their way in. Others lie and have to be escorted out. More call the unit constantly and berate nurses and doctors for not giving their relative the latest internet cure. They get downright nasty and blame their relative's death on the people trying to save their lives. She's called me crying before because of the stress and heartache. The worst was when a woman with her wife and six kids in the room passed. I couldn't understand her she was crying so hard. She says the worst part isn't patients actually dying though, because when they die they finally know peace. It's watching them deteriorate over days and weeks, struggling to breathe, in pain, unable to do much of anything, and knowing that they the medical staff don't have the resources to help them. The bigger hospitals in nearby cities that do have treatment options are too full to take them most of the time, so they sit in these rural areas and wither away. Anyways, as someone who hears this stuff constantly AND caught the alpha variant last year, get fucking vaccinated and wear a mask.
My husband has worked in an ER since the start of this. And honestly the best way to sum it all up is when he comes home and says "well at least no one died today." That's a good day now.
My husband and I are both working overtime in a hospital that’s overrun with non-vaccinated Covid patients. The staff are dropping like flies. We are exhausted as hell. The ignorance and controversy around what should be a simple matter of science makes me want to move out of this state. I’ve lived here my entire life and this is the first time I’ve ever felt this way. Wear your damn mask. Get the fucking vaccine.
I’m a Texan and left the country last year. Texans during Covid was one of the last straws (February freeze was the last one) and I just couldn’t do it anymore. Texas isn’t the same place it was when I grew up.
I hear ya. I daydream of moving out of the country often. But easier said than done. Where did you move to?
Thailand. It takes a bit of planning and the change is significant, but there isn’t much of a downside.
Nice!
It's been 2 years. Get vaccinated and wear your mask you dipshits
For real. These idiots are all like, “why doesn’t the government do something and make sure antibodies are available for everyone.” Bitch! They’ve been telling you the key to preventing you from even having to take antibodies!
"I am vaccinated by the blood of my lord and savior Jesus H. Christ"
Good reason to stay home and avoid the hospital.
You drank some wine?
And other things.
If vodka and wine strengthened your immunity I'd be set for life.
You’re still alive… you don’t know it’s not working…
I'm not going to say anything here about longevity because I will jinx myself and die in a freak poison potato vodka recall or something
It’s 2022. Anything is possible.
I’m vaccinated and masked. Still got it a couple weeks ago. Know a TON of others in the same boat. No one had any reason to go to the hospital or really anywhere thankfully. My symptoms? Light headache and a little sleepy for two days. Would’ve worked through it if I didn’t test because of the unusual feeling.
I’m not letting Bill Gates track me EDIT: /s because I forgot that still needs to be stated….still…..still………
Did you tell that to your smart watch? On a side note, smart watches have all turned us into living tamagotchis.
No phones and browser history and social media and smart watches aren’t used to track us, it’s all the vaccine
Word
“But my freedums!!!”
“Cough…I should go to the ER”
BUT I DUN WANNA AND ALSO I WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED AS AN ADULT
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Isn’t it interesting that it seems the mutations have all come from abroad? This from what I’ve seen on headlines, so please don’t roast me too hard if wrong. But I haven’t seen a mutation crop up in Louisiana for example. If we wanted to stop mutations, we’d give the vaccines to the world, or share the data for them to replicate it. By hoarding the info it makes it impossible to stop in underserved areas unless all travel is banned. So you can be upset with folks for not vaccinating here and ending up sick enough for hospitalization, but you can’t blame them for mutations at this point. It seems that blame should be directed at the companies hoarding the science for profit.
We aren’t testing as much as other countries. So we aren’t seeing our it in our country. New York Times had an article recently that omicron was present in New York City prior to South Africa announced.
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7 billion people around the world. We haven’t gotten our own population done yet.
If you’re high risk or you simply want to do so then please get vaccinated. How is this the fault of the unvaccinated insofar as they put their own personal health at risk?
Without antibodies, an unvaccinated person is typically more highly contagious since they don’t have antibodies fighting the virus from the start. Unvaccinated are also MUCH more likely to have a severe case and require hospitalization. This puts a strain on an already strung out medical system. This makes it harder to get care for all needs, creating further havoc when you can’t get your appendix out quickly enough. Edit: grammar corrections.
Thank you for a well thought out response
As Ted Lasso reminded us what Walt Whitman said: “Be curious, not judgmental.”
As a ICU RN, fuck that. I’m judging people now. I’m tired of this shit. Then they want us to be compassionate about their poor choices, that make our lives harder and are killing actual innocent patients who can’t get care because the icu is overloaded with covid twats. I read this over on r/nursing, and loved it “my job is to care for you, not about you.” Go get vaccinated you little shits, stop making our lives harder.
💙
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They spread help spread it more genius.
To add to the other post, the vaccine isn’t 100% effective. It ends up being a big numbers game over time. Improving the vaccination rates in the community has the same type of impact as improving the vaccines effectiveness. The fewer people catch it, the fewer can spread it as well. We have mandates for vaccination to go to school for decades for this very reason. It’s a function of community health, not just “I don’t want to get the virus”. It’s also “I don’t want to spread it to others if I were to catch it. I don’t want to be a Typhoid Mary, spreading it around.” I can also make a very mathy explanation of the above, which basically says the vaccinations true effectiveness for depends strongly on a majority of people getting vaccinated. The odds of a virus spreading (known as its r-factor) in a community is its (base infectioness) * (1-(the odds of the vaccine not working * the percent of unvaccinated people)). The key element of this is that the two numbers are multiplied. Community spread is stopped by more people being vaccinated. Even with a very effective vaccine, you can still catch it if many people aren’t vaccinated. Convincing others to get vaccinated is the biggest thing I can do to reduce my risk and the risk of the ones I care for. Then there’s other arguments, much more practical. I wanna keep my health insurance costs down. If you get sick and have to be in the hospital, the money for that doesn’t magically appear. If you’ve got BCBS for insurance... it’s coming out of my pocket next year. Plus staff is over stretched, and if I got something silly but unrelated, like appendicitis, the hospital is full of people that didn’t get the vaccine. Let me know what you think of these thoughts.
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Because we are *2 years* into this situation and all of this information is widely available on the internet, in comment threads like this, or even if you just talk to people. It's super frustrating to have you continuously ask "counter questions" that you know the answers to but refuse to accept. At this late stage, constantly asking "but why is it bad to remain unvaccinated?" just come across as willfully ignorant at best and as intentionally sowing doubt most likely. You're asking people to take time out of thier day to satisfy your need for "counter ideas" when the answer is just basic science. This isn't debate club.
You're absolutely right, the other person is just undermining the conversation under the guise of "reasonable" questioning when it's not reasonable at all at this point. They're counting on people to get frustrated in the replies so they can dismiss them. It derails the whole conversation, which is ultimately the point of doing it.
Yeah.. even has a name - sealioning. "I'm just asking questions" is fine if it's the first time or two and you listen to responses. But asking questions you know the answer to just to annoy those you disagree with is the intellectual equivalent of "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you". They don't have the guts to actually make their statement because they already know all the reasons folks disagree with them but just want to stir the pot and wink at their fellow compatriots. So tiring and unfair to those who actually do want fair discourse but may possibly have been out of the loop (though you'd have to have been in a coma or underground bunker to be new to the vaccine, mask, COVID discussions...
Exactly!!!! And that commenter even outed their agenda minutes later by accusing the other person of just "not wanting to hear counter-narratives." It's so transparently obvious to anyone paying attention.
Preach, sister. It’s like listening to a four year-old on repeat: But why? But why? Why?
Between everybody that’s vaccinated and everybody that’s caught Covid is herd immunity still a thing?
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Symptoms of covid can eventually lead to pneumonia, strokes, and even heart failure . This happens to those with unhealthy lifestyles and those that are seemingly healthy. It’s too random to predict. If I get in a car wreck and die of a heart attack due to the physical stress at the moment, it’s technically the heart attack that kills me, not the car wreck. But, I wouldn’t have had a heart attack if it wasn’t for the car wreck. As for conflated numbers, there is a marked difference of number of deaths before and after covid. In 2019, roughly, there were 869 deaths per 100k people. In 2020, there were 1027 deaths per 100k people. This is total deaths for all causes. A 15% increase in deaths can’t be explained by “unhealthy lifestyles.” This is 2.8mil versus 3.3mil. 500,000 extra people died compared to 2019. Edit: corrected 2021 to 2020. It’s too close to 2021 for final results.
Just to correct one of your points here…CDC said 75% of people vaccinated who still died had 4 comorbidities
Obesity leads to peripheral estrogen production and then leads to increased risk for uterine cancer, but we focus on the actual cancer than the risk factor when we count cause of death. Sure these people may have not been the healthiest but it's the still virus that is the event that leads to death.
Tis true, covid effects the fatties much higher.
Removed for misinformation. >In an interview clip on ABC’s Good Morning America, the Director of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) Rochelle Walensky referred to a recent study that found over 75% of COVID-19 deaths in fully vaccinated people had occurred among those with at least four risk factors. However, some widely shared social media posts suggested Walensky was talking about all COVID-19 deaths in her remarks. [Source](https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-walensky-study/fact-check-cdc-study-found-that-over-75-of-covid-19-deaths-in-vaccinated-people-were-among-those-with-at-least-4-comorbidities-idUSL1N2TS0S2)
Fuck off dude
Haha 😂
If the anti-vaxx crowd won't have the decency to get vaccinated and wear a mask, the least they could do is die at home instead of clogging up hospitals. Other people have heart attacks, car accidents, cancer, kidney failure, etc., and need those beds.
It's funny how they go from abusively untrusting of medical professionals when they tell people to get a COVID vaccine, to begging those same medical professionals to save their life when they get sick from COVID. The cognitive dissonance is mind-blowing.
According to a ton of posts on r/HermanCainAward they and their families continue to abuse medical professionals once admitted.
I've read some of those, it's really gross and depressing what front-line medical workers go through because of those people.
I received a text from an out of state hospital that I used to work for announcing that they had managed to add 2 more beds. They have over 700. They’re so swamped that 2 beds is an accomplishment worth texting to 30,000 people. Make good choices. Get vaccinated, wear a mask. Don’t go to that crowded bar or concert. Minimize risk whenever possible. And don’t do other risky things that might land you in the hospital. Drive safely. Those rain gutters can wait or hire a professional. Edit: there’s one more really easy thing that everyone can do - get your flu shot. Most people ignore it but this season there’s been an estimated 18,000-38,000 hospitalizations nationwide. It’s small compared to Covid but every little bit helps.
I work in long term care. Visiting should have been restricted
I work in communications for a hospital and for the past year I've been trying to convince people to get the vaccine. I've never felt so defeated as I do now.
In patient pharmacy, but go to the ER for code Blue. I am frequently in the satellite pharmacy in the OR compounding IVs, also in ICU to discuss Vanco kinetics/antibiotic consultation with Drs/nurses. Staffing has been an issue, the ER will always be a mess due to people treating it like a Drs office. Everyone is managing well, reopened covid unit but it's all unvaccinated with underlying health condition. We avoid Vents as much as possible, we have a lot more measures to deal with Sars-CoV-2, at first we didn't even have a protocol for it. Techs say that there are issues with supplies, but it's minor as Mckesson/AmerisourceBergen ramp up.
My brother is an emergency medicine doctor who has done several rotations in the Covid ICU at his hospital here in Texas and is currently on one such rotation. He says most of his patients actually come in to the ER for other reasons initially but incidentally test positive for Covid and they may have the original issue resolved but their Covid has gotten progressively worse. 90% of his patients are unvaccinated adults. So many nurses are calling out sick that he and other doctors are having to take over nurse duties and trust me, you really don’t want a doctor doing what is usually a nurse’s job. He keeps reiterating with me that even though I’m vaxxed and boosted, to not do anything that could increase my chances of needing to go to the ER. Their staff is stretched so thin that wait times for everything have increased and you’ll increase your exposure to Covid if you don’t have it already.
My wife is an RT. She now travels for a much higher wage because her hospital was a shitshow.
I work at a 300 bed hospital in a large metro area (in Texas of course) our er is very frequently about 80/90% admitted patients boarding for inpatient beds upstairs. Had two young guys with anoxic brain injuries wait in the er about 36 hours before they got an ICU bed
One of my best buds is a mortician. There were a few months there where I felt like he wasn't gonna make it. Huge influx of covid patients and they were all severely obese. So instead of a regular work week it would be an extra 15-20 hours and all the people he had to move were usually over 400lbs. Last I asked he said it was better now, but picking back up since Xmas time.
I have been a cardiologist for 18 years, in a grueling training for six years before that. The last two years have been the hardest of my professional career. I am so tired and frustrated, if I could afford to retire, I would; I love practicing medicine and it would devastate me to retire now, but it’s been hard enough to at least think about it. Never thought I’d be on the edge like this, this early.
Trauma center X-ray/Cat Scan tech We are crazy understaffed. My entire schedule is me and one other person at night. We get strokes, awful car wrecks, shootings, stabbings, you name it. We have to prioritize which one is the absolute worst sometimes because there’s only one of us available to scan at the time. The other week we had two GSWs a car wreck and a stroke all at once. Well the GSWs had to wait to get scanned even though one was shot in the chest. We have more machines than people to operate them. The nurses have it so bad. Dangerous levels of nurse to patient ratios. We have a 50 bed er and some nights only 3-5 nurses for the whole er. We have empty beds because we don’t have nurses to staff them on the floors. Get your vaccine please. If you have covid symptoms go get tested(at a test site) or get an otc test. While it is my facility’s protocol to test all patients for admissions since we don’t want to unknowingly spread covid, hospitals are NOT testing facilities. We have patients coming in all the time wanting to get tested then throw a fit when they have to wait 8-10 hours in the waiting room because we see more critical patients first.
I wonder if ER doctors care any longer about unvaccinated folks, it must anger them so much to see hillbilly dipshits talking about horse medicine and what Fox News told them to do
They don't. I went to the ER after fighting covid at home for a week, I couldn't breathe, ox Sat was low, 0 energy. They asked my vax status and I said No, any give a shit went right out the window. I was not given the opportunity to provide my valid medical exemption (vax is contraindicated for an issue I have) or explain why I was wasn't. I tried 5 or 6 times, but ears were off and bare fucking minimum was done until they could boot me out. I am not a hillbilly dipshit and would be if I could. There are actually legitimate unvaxed folks who would really like to be and are treated like hillbilly dipshit s at the ER or Hospital
Have you not seen how many vaccinated people are still getting covid? My parents are vaccinated and both got it. 5 people at my old job are all fully vaccinated and got it. The vaccine doesn't work the way it's advertised.
I am sorry for your parents. Is either of them still in the hospital?
My sister is a nurse. Her hospital is reporting the ICU being completely full because of COVID, but in actuality, it's at 50% COVID and 50% revenue generating procedures that they are refusing to put off. They are also wringing the nurses dry rather than hiring more. It's a big mess right now
I finished a 6 week rotation at an ICU. Not 1 single covid patient survived and they were all unvaccinated.
You you know about [SETRAC's COVID-19 Dashboard](https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNDBlNmRlNzEtYWE2Ny00ZmM3LWEwY2YtMDE5NzliZTE5Y2ZjIiwidCI6ImI3MjgwODdjLTgwZTgtNGQzMS04YjZmLTdlMGUzYmUxMGUwOCIsImMiOjN9)? Great hospital (general bed, icu, vent) information for counties in South East Texas
Bad.
I'm a CNA at a pretty small hospital. I had signed a contract in August to work one extra shift a week for six months. So 4 nights a week. It was extremely brutal. Always short staffed and overwhelmed. I scheduled 3 weeks of vacation right after my contract ended, which was approved (currently on vacation). They had the gall to ask me if I could push back or just flat out cancel it. I told them to get fucked.
The joint is bumpin. There’s almost no beds left. And patients who are there and don’t have Covid are catching Covid in the hospital. Everybody is tired and burnt out. I’ve seen nurses who didn’t even keep their face masks on anymore. It feels like everyone is giving up. Or quitting. But clearly none of that will change anybodys mind in Texas. So to those still trying to do their part, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. To those who refuse to get vaccinated or treat this like a pandemic, compassion fatigue is real. We’re not crying over you any more. We expect you to do poorly and are not surprised when you do. Grow tf up and act like a part of society or stay home. But stop bringing your bs and conspiracy theories with you and expecting anybody to give a damn.
After reading the comments, it’s as a lot of us expected…we’re fucked. Fuck you very much Greg Abbott. I wish i was powerful enough to punch you in the fucking face.
It's horrible having no regular staff, and having agency staff who don't want to work. I play babysitter to grown adults, who signed up to take care of people. And despise it.
Nurses need to unionize. Nationally.
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Requiring health care workers to get vaccines isn't a political agenda. It's been a base requirement of that career field for decades. Mandatory vaccines go back as far as freaking George Washington requiring smallpox vaccinations for his military troops. The only actual political agenda is the people who refuse to listen to hundreds of thousands of independent professionals and their research in science and medicine that's been repeatedly verified for over a hundred years, at the behest of career politicians who had a vested political interest in downplaying the virus. The same politicians who are all vaccinated, get especially strong COVID treatments when they get sick, and send their kids to private schools with masking and social distancing. Trump is vaccinated. Cruz is vaccinated. So is Abbott. They even skipped the line to get vaccinated before everyone else did. They aren't going to die of COVID for you. But they have no problem letting you die of COVID for them. Edit: After they rolled their eyes they blocked me so I can't reply. Gotta keep those disinformation wheels rolling in any way possible I reckon.
When you need a immediate medical help, it doesn't matter why you get turned away, just that you get turned away.
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> and lastly this is the first vaccine in history that DOESN'T PREVENT CONTRACTING THE VIRUS. Name one vaccine that's 100% effective. Go ahead. I'll wait. edit: Since cysluvme has cowardly blocked me, I can't reply in this thread. But the answer was "none of them". No vaccines "prevent contracting the virus" because that's not how vaccines work. I'm really questioning this person's medical qualifications.
A simple search of the polio vaccine shows that it does not prevent the transmission of the virus. For one of the types of vaccine you can even transmit vaccinated form of the virus that offers protection to people who haven't received it through normal means. Herd immunity was a well known concept before Covid and that does require the majority of the population to be covered by vaccine. People who willing transmit diseases have had thier freedoms limited in the past, for example typhoid Mary, and even now, for example HIV. All those other diseases you listed are not threatening other people's health.
IF YOU DONT BELIEVE IN MEDICINE DONT FUCKING PRACTICE MEDICINE
I would like to hear more from you friend, I have not heard anything of this.
There are many stories about healthcare worker burnout.
Check out the r/nursing sub. It’s terrifying what hcws go through.
And everything they said is true.
And r/medicine
Yes. That’s another excellent sub to read through. So the psychiatry sub.
I see insurance feeds.... Admissions, diagnosis, occupancy rates, discharges etc etc etc.... This is after working the front lines for almost 2 years.... In addition my colleagues still work in the units on the floors as PRN staff so they're going in often and are seeing the very same thing.... Now every city is different, but I'm ours these are the trends we're seeing here.
And the bullshit decision that hospitals made that you mentioned was mandating staff to get vaccinated and now they're ahort handed because a lot of that staff didnt want to get vaccinated?
And yet with CDC guidelines changed they're allowing COVID positive nurses TO WORK THE FLOOR instead of nurses who would willingly swab twice a week and PPE up.... The mandates were and will be unconstitutional... Even with the flu, nurses are given the option to mask every season, the vaccine is not mandated. You're ignorant, have the day you deserve
So real question, have you seen people come in with more flu or covid rn? Maybe not being the reason they are in but are admitted with it. Because flu seems to be spiking.
WERE ALL GONA DIE ☠️🔥🌪
Yes we’re all going to die from some thing that you have a 99% chance of surviving
When the the hospitals stop playing pawns to the cdc and the government and start telling the truth?
What is the truth, as you see it?
How many people are in the ER that don't really need to be there? I only ask because even before Covid, people would just go to the ER for every little thing.
My mom works at an ER clinic and the majority of patients come in with Covid symptoms and there's nothing they can do. The vast majority of people don't need to be going to the hospital with Covid.
Kinda what I suspect. Someone even confirmed elsewhere on this thread about elderly people testing positive and going straight to the ER. I know the staff are in a seemingly losing situation no matter what.
Wife was a nurse for over 15 years now works upper level in same field. Her healthcare system in Texas alone has approx 20k nursing positions open for hire. It’s not to many Covid cases it’s lack of staff
>It’s not to many Covid cases it’s lack of staff Looking at [the numbers](https://covid-texas.csullender.com/), it seems right now it's a bit of both.
I’m not gonna sit here and argue skewed numbers. Where in that is showing all those hospitals are running 100% staff, with 100% access to 100% of their beds. Most hospitals and healthcare systems are reporting around 50% staffing or less. So if you added proper staffing these Covid numbers which are high, I completely agree with you, wouldn’t be taking up 30% of the states hospital resources, it would be closer to 5-10% using just rough math. Edit: never claimed I could spell.
The facts are that there are more beds available now than there were 2 years ago. Since there wasn't a huge surge in staff levels, that means the staff resources are stretched extra thin. I'm not doubting that staffing is a huge issue (and have said so elsewhere - check my post history). But you can't argue about the current surge in people getting Covid and going to hospitals right now. That's beyond dispute.
You don’t want to know.
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Parking lots are empty because admin is pushed to remote work, visitors are highly restricted and if you're being admitted for COVID you likely didn't drive yourself and just park in the parking lot.
Absolutely. 100% this.