Yes, we all know the mental contortions you'll perform to label govt. overreach conservative.Sam Lowry said:It's called conservatism. Look into it.Mothra said:Ah yes, there's that incredible reasoning ability again. Yes, you're right, if the govt. mandate doesn't require govt. actors to hold you down and vaccinate you, you haven't been forced. LOL.Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:Then you must be happy. Thats exactly what is happening. Up until now, no one has been held down and vaccinated, Freedom of choice for you and me.Mothra said:It's not rejection of the vaccine that's important, but the freedom to do so. I am fine if others wanted to get vaccinated with a vaccine that has no long term data attached to it. I prefer to take a wait and see approach, and if the results in a few years show there is no adverse side effects long term, then perhaps I will get it myself. But as a conservative, I would prefer the govt. let me make that decision for myself.JXL said:
I cannot fathom why some people feel it is so important to reject a vaccine.
You have some of the dumbest takes on this board.
Project Veritas bringing the truth! Multiply this times the number of hospitals in U
4,713 Views |
66 Replies |
Last: 4 yr ago by 4th and Inches
LOL!Sam Lowry said:It's called conservatism. Look into it.Mothra said:Ah yes, there's that incredible reasoning ability again. Yes, you're right, if the govt. mandate doesn't require govt. actors to hold you down and vaccinate you, you haven't been forced. LOL.Limited IQ Redneck in PU said:Then you must be happy. Thats exactly what is happening. Up until now, no one has been held down and vaccinated, Freedom of choice for you and me.Mothra said:It's not rejection of the vaccine that's important, but the freedom to do so. I am fine if others wanted to get vaccinated with a vaccine that has no long term data attached to it. I prefer to take a wait and see approach, and if the results in a few years show there is no adverse side effects long term, then perhaps I will get it myself. But as a conservative, I would prefer the govt. let me make that decision for myself.JXL said:
I cannot fathom why some people feel it is so important to reject a vaccine.
You have some of the dumbest takes on this board.
"Stand with anyone when he is right; Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong." - Abraham Lincoln
Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
RD2WINAGNBEAR86 said:Not one or two million but I certainly believe there have been tens of thousands. For a little chill up your spine, you should read the latest data regarding Covid deaths in the UK and Israel. Something is amiss.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
If you have some documentation on tens of thousands of deaths traceable to the vaccine, I'd love to see it.
no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
There's a real disconnect from the truth if anyone thinks Covid is comparable to DUIs in terms of the burden on hospitals.4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
if that is what you got out of that then I cant help you..Sam Lowry said:There's a real disconnect from the truth if anyone thinks Covid is comparable to DUIs in terms of the burden on hospitals.4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
Enjoy your day
4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
https://apple.news/AEfjzV4cGRIyKfCrHjhGkrA
At an Overrun ICU, 'the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways'
BILLINGS, Mont. Nurses fill the hospital room to turn a patient from his stomach to his back. The ventilator forcing air into him is most effective when he's on his stomach, so he is in that position most hours of the day, sedated and paralyzed by drugs.
Lying on his stomach all those hours has produced sores on his face, and one nurse dabs at the wounds. The dark lesions are insignificant given his current state, but she continues just the same, gently, soothingly, appearing to whisper to him as she works.
The man has been a patient at Billings Clinic for nearly a month, most of that time in the hospital's intensive care unit. He is among other patients, room after room of them, with the same grim tubes inserted down their throats. They have covid-19 the vast majority unvaccinated against the virus, the hospital says. Visitors generally aren't permitted in these rooms, but the man's mother comes most days to gaze through a glass window for the allowed 15 minutes.
This all happened Friday. He was dead, at age 24, by Sunday morning.
The hospital's morgue cart arrived at the ICU as it frequently has these days then the room was sterilized, another patient took the man's place, and the cycle began again. In the past week, 14 people have died of covid here, the state's largest hospital.
"I do feel a little hopeless," said Christy Baxter, the hospital's director of critical care.
The situation has played out in hospitals around the nation since 2020. But now Montana is a national hot spot for covid infections, recording the highest percentage increase in new cases over the past seven days. The state announced 1,209 new cases on Friday, and Yellowstone County, home to Billings Clinic, is seeing the worst of it. Last week, the county had 2,329 active cases, more than the next two counties combined.
What's different from the early scenes of the pandemic is the public's response. Not so long ago, the cheers of community support could be heard from the hospital parking lot. Now, tensions are so strained that Billings Clinic is printing signs for its hallways, asking that the staff members not be mistreated.
The ICU here has space for 28 patients but last Friday was operating at 160% capacity, Baxter said. To handle the overflow, nurses elsewhere provide care beyond their training as covid patients fill other parts of the hospital. In the lobby of the emergency department, rooms roughly 6 feet by 6 feet have been fashioned with makeshift plastic walls. Ten members of the Montana Army National Guard arrived last week to help however they can. Hospital staffers volunteer to sit with dying patients. Beds line hallways.
"The problem is," said Brad Von Bergen, the hospital's ER manager, "we are running out of hallways."
The hospital announced it may soon implement "crisis standards of care," which basically means it will ration its equipment, staff and medicine, giving preference to those it can most likely save, regardless of vaccination status. It's an ugly system, abhorred by those who will wield it, with tiebreakers in place to decide who potentially lives and dies. Other hospitals in Montana have taken similar steps.
An overcrowded hospital also means that a person say, one injured in a car crash in rural eastern Montana and needing advanced hospitalization won't be able to get that care at Billings Clinic.
"We are at the point where we are not confident going forward that we can continue to meet all patients' needs," said Dr. Nathan Allen, the medical ethicist for Billings Clinic and its department chair for emergency medicine. "And that's heartbreaking."
"Nobody wants to be in a position where we may have to ration health care and potentially remove a ventilator from one patient who would likely die and give it to another," said Dr. Scott Ellner, the hospital's CEO. "Are we there? I would say we are very close."
To some extent, that rationing is already happening. A patient still hospitalized here with covid might have benefited from a machine, known as an ECMO machine, needed to keep his heart and lungs functioning. Operating that machine, though, requires at least one nurse, 24 hours a day, usually for two to three weeks. Typically, it would be a last-ditch effort for the most critical of patients. Even with that care, the prognosis for the middle-aged man would be poor. Without it, Baxter said, he will assuredly die.
"The reality is I can't staff that," Baxter said. "Do you give that optimal care to one patient or do you give great care to five?"
Billings Clinic would hire more than 100 additional nurses if it could. The staffing shortage is not unique to this hospital; it's nationwide, meaning the needed help isn't arriving anytime soon. Baxter tells the story of a young nurse who quit, saying he had grown tired of lying to patients he knew would die.
"The patients look at you with that fear in their eyes and say, 'Am I going to make it?'" Baxter said. "You want to encourage them to not give up hope, but you also know the chances of survival are going to be slim."
Recently, a patient's dying wish was to have their preschool-age child come and sit with them, to see them one last time. That typically wouldn't be allowed, but an exception was made, with staffers at the hospital draping the child in oversized protective clothing, goggles and an N95 mask. Afterward, the nurse and doctor sobbed with the patient.
"The moral distress of working in health care is for many, many people extremely high right now," said Allen.
Intensifying that, he said, are patients or their loved ones mistreating doctors and nurses. Threats have on occasion required a police response. Screaming, profanity-laden insults are a daily occurrence. One patient threw his own feces at a doctor. Some, even in the face of an intubation tube, question the need to be vaccinated or the effectiveness of the medicine being prescribed.
Dr. Sara Nyquist, an emergency medicine physician, said she has been asked by a patient if she is a Republican or a Democrat.
"I said, 'I am your doctor,'" she recalled. "You do wonder how we got here."
Ellner, the clinic's CEO, said he doesn't understand what happened to civility. "There is a part of the society that wants to pretend that the covid surge isn't really happening," he said. "But this is our reality every single day."
Jennifer Tafelmeyer, a nurse in the hospital's cardiovascular unit, said the best part of her job before the pandemic was helping patients improve, walking them down hallways, talking about diet and exercise, and eventually escorting them to the front door. That hasn't happened in a long time.
"We just don't get the wins," she said.
As she told the story, she stopped to wipe a tear. Moments before, she had learned that one of the patients on this floor was not expected to survive the night.
Allen predicted Billings Clinic hasn't yet seen the worst of the recent surge in infections.
"We are still seeing growing numbers in community cases," he said. "And we know hospitalizations lag behind new diagnoses. Unfortunately, it can absolutely get worse than where it is at."
In the meantime, he said, he expects the doctors and nurses here will rally as they have, taking comfort from words of thanks from many patients and gestures like a father bringing pizza to the emergency department as a show of appreciation for the care given his child.
"The most difficult things have been the big things," Allen said, "and the most inspiring things have been the little things."
It's not all. Naturally I couldn't help noticing the insistent, almost manic focus on perception over reality that is the hallmark of Covid skeptics. The idea, for example, that a slightly overheated news report from a year ago is somehow significant compared to the reality of overcrowded hospitals in the many months since. Or that overestimation of the problem by some portion of respondents in a poll diminishes the problem itself. It's as if the pandemic is just an emotional phenomenon, easily dispelled with soothing statistics no matter how irrelevant they may be. The trouble is that while you're busy fighting Coviphobia, we still have to deal with Covid.4th and Inches said:if that is what you got out of that then I cant help you..Sam Lowry said:There's a real disconnect from the truth if anyone thinks Covid is comparable to DUIs in terms of the burden on hospitals.4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
Enjoy your day
Okay, done now.
Nope. Just like all the beds aren't taken up by non-vaccinated Covid patients. Nice try though.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
The real disconnect is acting like a virus that has killed less than .093% of the population below age 75 is on the verge on wiping out every human on the entire planet. But hey, it's people like you that government is counting on so they can use the virus to grab more power, circumvent the constitution and squash civil liberties - more and more each daySam Lowry said:There's a real disconnect from the truth if anyone thinks Covid is comparable to DUIs in terms of the burden on hospitals.4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
But hey, we get it. You'd rather slowly give up your real freedom for fake security.
so vaccines are the answer, just not the 3 we have in circulation right now?Florda_mike said:
Stating the obvious.....
We need new vaccines, STAT!
The ones we have don't work!
"civil liberties" oh yeah, it is Covid that is damaging those good callRawhide said:The real disconnect is acting like a virus that has killed less than .093% of the population below age 75 is on the verge on wiping out every human on the entire planet. But hey, it's people like you that government is counting on so they can use the virus to grab more power, circumvent the constitution and squash civil liberties - more and more each daySam Lowry said:There's a real disconnect from the truth if anyone thinks Covid is comparable to DUIs in terms of the burden on hospitals.4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
But hey, we get it. You'd rather slowly give up your real freedom for fake security.
i swear the snowflakes of the right freak me out, the hyperbole is astounding
bularry said:so vaccines are the answer, just not the 3 we have in circulation right now?Florda_mike said:
Stating the obvious.....
We need new vaccines, STAT!
The ones we have don't work!
What do you think?
Rawhide said:Nope. Just like all the beds aren't taken up by non-vaccinated Covid patients. Nice try though.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
I wasn't the one who made the absurd comparison between Covid patients and DUI victims.
Covid isn't damaging civil liberties, it's the gov't, dumbassbularry said:"civil liberties" oh yeah, it is Covid that is damaging those good callRawhide said:The real disconnect is acting like a virus that has killed less than .093% of the population below age 75 is on the verge on wiping out every human on the entire planet. But hey, it's people like you that government is counting on so they can use the virus to grab more power, circumvent the constitution and squash civil liberties - more and more each daySam Lowry said:There's a real disconnect from the truth if anyone thinks Covid is comparable to DUIs in terms of the burden on hospitals.4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
But hey, we get it. You'd rather slowly give up your real freedom for fake security.
i swear the snowflakes of the right freak me out, the hyperbole is astounding
You were the one that made the absurd comparison between Covid patients and car accident victims, so there's that.JXL said:Rawhide said:Nope. Just like all the beds aren't taken up by non-vaccinated Covid patients. Nice try though.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
I wasn't the one who made the absurd comparison between Covid patients and DUI victims.
Rawhide said:You were the one that made the absurd comparison between Covid patients and car accident victims, so there's that.JXL said:Rawhide said:Nope. Just like all the beds aren't taken up by non-vaccinated Covid patients. Nice try though.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
I wasn't the one who made the absurd comparison between Covid patients and DUI victims.
I was answering the question about why worry about unvaccinated people - because they can fill up ER's ANF ICU units unnecessarily,
I then posted an article about an ICU unit being overrun with unvaccinated Covid patients, demonstrating what I was talking about.
If you'd like to continue the comparison, please feel free to post an article about a U.S. hospital being overrun with DUI victims.
Still an absurd comparison. But I'll play.....JXL said:Rawhide said:You were the one that made the absurd comparison between Covid patients and car accident victims, so there's that.JXL said:Rawhide said:Nope. Just like all the beds aren't taken up by non-vaccinated Covid patients. Nice try though.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
I wasn't the one who made the absurd comparison between Covid patients and DUI victims.
I was answering the question about why worry about unvaccinated people - because they can fill up ER's ANF ICU units unnecessarily,
I then posted an article about an ICU unit being overrun with unvaccinated Covid patients, demonstrating what I was talking about.
If you'd like to continue the comparison, please feel free to post an article about a U.S. hospital being overrun with DUI victims.
First all, no matter how bad you want it to be true, non-vaccinated Covid haven't taken up all ICU beds. Second, you made a stupid comparison to Covid patients by using car wrecks. I made a comparison that dealt with your comparison.
Sorry buttercup, but you jumped the shark first.
nope, the 3 we have are good.. just take one every couple of months for the rest of your life or until "science" says something else in the near future..bularry said:so vaccines are the answer, just not the 3 we have in circulation right now?Florda_mike said:
Stating the obvious.....
We need new vaccines, STAT!
The ones we have don't work!
if it makes you feel any better I will switch sides and I will now only post about how good the vaccine is and everybody should take it so you no longer have to fight me.Sam Lowry said:It's not all. Naturally I couldn't help noticing the insistent, almost manic focus on perception over reality that is the hallmark of Covid skeptics. The idea, for example, that a slightly overheated news report from a year ago is somehow significant compared to the reality of overcrowded hospitals in the many months since. Or that overestimation of the problem by some portion of respondents in a poll diminishes the problem itself. It's as if the pandemic is just an emotional phenomenon, easily dispelled with soothing statistics no matter how irrelevant they may be. The trouble is that while you're busy fighting Coviphobia, we still have to deal with Covid.4th and Inches said:if that is what you got out of that then I cant help you..Sam Lowry said:There's a real disconnect from the truth if anyone thinks Covid is comparable to DUIs in terms of the burden on hospitals.4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
Enjoy your day
Okay, done now.
Now, all you have to do is convince the other four people that post on this message board and then you'll have nothing left to talk about because everybody will agree with you.
JXL said:4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
https://apple.news/AEfjzV4cGRIyKfCrHjhGkrA
At an Overrun ICU, 'the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways'
BILLINGS, Mont. Nurses fill the hospital room to turn a patient from his stomach to his back. The ventilator forcing air into him is most effective when he's on his stomach, so he is in that position most hours of the day, sedated and paralyzed by drugs.
Lying on his stomach all those hours has produced sores on his face, and one nurse dabs at the wounds. The dark lesions are insignificant given his current state, but she continues just the same, gently, soothingly, appearing to whisper to him as she works.
The man has been a patient at Billings Clinic for nearly a month, most of that time in the hospital's intensive care unit. He is among other patients, room after room of them, with the same grim tubes inserted down their throats. They have covid-19 the vast majority unvaccinated against the virus, the hospital says. Visitors generally aren't permitted in these rooms, but the man's mother comes most days to gaze through a glass window for the allowed 15 minutes.
This all happened Friday. He was dead, at age 24, by Sunday morning.
The hospital's morgue cart arrived at the ICU as it frequently has these days then the room was sterilized, another patient took the man's place, and the cycle began again. In the past week, 14 people have died of covid here, the state's largest hospital.
"I do feel a little hopeless," said Christy Baxter, the hospital's director of critical care.
The situation has played out in hospitals around the nation since 2020. But now Montana is a national hot spot for covid infections, recording the highest percentage increase in new cases over the past seven days. The state announced 1,209 new cases on Friday, and Yellowstone County, home to Billings Clinic, is seeing the worst of it. Last week, the county had 2,329 active cases, more than the next two counties combined.
What's different from the early scenes of the pandemic is the public's response. Not so long ago, the cheers of community support could be heard from the hospital parking lot. Now, tensions are so strained that Billings Clinic is printing signs for its hallways, asking that the staff members not be mistreated.
The ICU here has space for 28 patients but last Friday was operating at 160% capacity, Baxter said. To handle the overflow, nurses elsewhere provide care beyond their training as covid patients fill other parts of the hospital. In the lobby of the emergency department, rooms roughly 6 feet by 6 feet have been fashioned with makeshift plastic walls. Ten members of the Montana Army National Guard arrived last week to help however they can. Hospital staffers volunteer to sit with dying patients. Beds line hallways.
"The problem is," said Brad Von Bergen, the hospital's ER manager, "we are running out of hallways."
The hospital announced it may soon implement "crisis standards of care," which basically means it will ration its equipment, staff and medicine, giving preference to those it can most likely save, regardless of vaccination status. It's an ugly system, abhorred by those who will wield it, with tiebreakers in place to decide who potentially lives and dies. Other hospitals in Montana have taken similar steps.
An overcrowded hospital also means that a person say, one injured in a car crash in rural eastern Montana and needing advanced hospitalization won't be able to get that care at Billings Clinic.
"We are at the point where we are not confident going forward that we can continue to meet all patients' needs," said Dr. Nathan Allen, the medical ethicist for Billings Clinic and its department chair for emergency medicine. "And that's heartbreaking."
"Nobody wants to be in a position where we may have to ration health care and potentially remove a ventilator from one patient who would likely die and give it to another," said Dr. Scott Ellner, the hospital's CEO. "Are we there? I would say we are very close."
To some extent, that rationing is already happening. A patient still hospitalized here with covid might have benefited from a machine, known as an ECMO machine, needed to keep his heart and lungs functioning. Operating that machine, though, requires at least one nurse, 24 hours a day, usually for two to three weeks. Typically, it would be a last-ditch effort for the most critical of patients. Even with that care, the prognosis for the middle-aged man would be poor. Without it, Baxter said, he will assuredly die.
"The reality is I can't staff that," Baxter said. "Do you give that optimal care to one patient or do you give great care to five?"
Billings Clinic would hire more than 100 additional nurses if it could. The staffing shortage is not unique to this hospital; it's nationwide, meaning the needed help isn't arriving anytime soon. Baxter tells the story of a young nurse who quit, saying he had grown tired of lying to patients he knew would die.
"The patients look at you with that fear in their eyes and say, 'Am I going to make it?'" Baxter said. "You want to encourage them to not give up hope, but you also know the chances of survival are going to be slim."
Recently, a patient's dying wish was to have their preschool-age child come and sit with them, to see them one last time. That typically wouldn't be allowed, but an exception was made, with staffers at the hospital draping the child in oversized protective clothing, goggles and an N95 mask. Afterward, the nurse and doctor sobbed with the patient.
"The moral distress of working in health care is for many, many people extremely high right now," said Allen.
Intensifying that, he said, are patients or their loved ones mistreating doctors and nurses. Threats have on occasion required a police response. Screaming, profanity-laden insults are a daily occurrence. One patient threw his own feces at a doctor. Some, even in the face of an intubation tube, question the need to be vaccinated or the effectiveness of the medicine being prescribed.
Dr. Sara Nyquist, an emergency medicine physician, said she has been asked by a patient if she is a Republican or a Democrat.
"I said, 'I am your doctor,'" she recalled. "You do wonder how we got here."
Ellner, the clinic's CEO, said he doesn't understand what happened to civility. "There is a part of the society that wants to pretend that the covid surge isn't really happening," he said. "But this is our reality every single day."
Jennifer Tafelmeyer, a nurse in the hospital's cardiovascular unit, said the best part of her job before the pandemic was helping patients improve, walking them down hallways, talking about diet and exercise, and eventually escorting them to the front door. That hasn't happened in a long time.
"We just don't get the wins," she said.
As she told the story, she stopped to wipe a tear. Moments before, she had learned that one of the patients on this floor was not expected to survive the night.
Allen predicted Billings Clinic hasn't yet seen the worst of the recent surge in infections.
"We are still seeing growing numbers in community cases," he said. "And we know hospitalizations lag behind new diagnoses. Unfortunately, it can absolutely get worse than where it is at."
In the meantime, he said, he expects the doctors and nurses here will rally as they have, taking comfort from words of thanks from many patients and gestures like a father bringing pizza to the emergency department as a show of appreciation for the care given his child.
"The most difficult things have been the big things," Allen said, "and the most inspiring things have been the little things."
It's gonna be tougher for the ill when they have even less care givers due to the decision of the uneducated
Such is America though.
Rawhide said:The real disconnect is acting like a virus that has killed less than .093% of the population below age 75 is on the verge on wiping out every human on the entire planet. But hey, it's people like you that government is counting on so they can use the virus to grab more power, circumvent the constitution and squash civil liberties - more and more each daySam Lowry said:There's a real disconnect from the truth if anyone thinks Covid is comparable to DUIs in terms of the burden on hospitals.4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
But hey, we get it. You'd rather slowly give up your real freedom for fake security.
Yep. Pretty much if you don't live in a nursing home in a state run by a murderous Democrat socialist, you're more likely to some day die of being struck by lightning.
But get the vax, then the second vax, then boosted, then another booster and another and then a flu shot and then your HPV vaccine and then pay a little more tax to end global warming in the next 12 years
Man, I love you but please stop the good cop/ bad cop act. Enough. You need to kill off Freedomb3er!Freedomb3ar said:JXL said:4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
https://apple.news/AEfjzV4cGRIyKfCrHjhGkrA
At an Overrun ICU, 'the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways'
BILLINGS, Mont. Nurses fill the hospital room to turn a patient from his stomach to his back. The ventilator forcing air into him is most effective when he's on his stomach, so he is in that position most hours of the day, sedated and paralyzed by drugs.
Lying on his stomach all those hours has produced sores on his face, and one nurse dabs at the wounds. The dark lesions are insignificant given his current state, but she continues just the same, gently, soothingly, appearing to whisper to him as she works.
The man has been a patient at Billings Clinic for nearly a month, most of that time in the hospital's intensive care unit. He is among other patients, room after room of them, with the same grim tubes inserted down their throats. They have covid-19 the vast majority unvaccinated against the virus, the hospital says. Visitors generally aren't permitted in these rooms, but the man's mother comes most days to gaze through a glass window for the allowed 15 minutes.
This all happened Friday. He was dead, at age 24, by Sunday morning.
The hospital's morgue cart arrived at the ICU as it frequently has these days then the room was sterilized, another patient took the man's place, and the cycle began again. In the past week, 14 people have died of covid here, the state's largest hospital.
"I do feel a little hopeless," said Christy Baxter, the hospital's director of critical care.
The situation has played out in hospitals around the nation since 2020. But now Montana is a national hot spot for covid infections, recording the highest percentage increase in new cases over the past seven days. The state announced 1,209 new cases on Friday, and Yellowstone County, home to Billings Clinic, is seeing the worst of it. Last week, the county had 2,329 active cases, more than the next two counties combined.
What's different from the early scenes of the pandemic is the public's response. Not so long ago, the cheers of community support could be heard from the hospital parking lot. Now, tensions are so strained that Billings Clinic is printing signs for its hallways, asking that the staff members not be mistreated.
The ICU here has space for 28 patients but last Friday was operating at 160% capacity, Baxter said. To handle the overflow, nurses elsewhere provide care beyond their training as covid patients fill other parts of the hospital. In the lobby of the emergency department, rooms roughly 6 feet by 6 feet have been fashioned with makeshift plastic walls. Ten members of the Montana Army National Guard arrived last week to help however they can. Hospital staffers volunteer to sit with dying patients. Beds line hallways.
"The problem is," said Brad Von Bergen, the hospital's ER manager, "we are running out of hallways."
The hospital announced it may soon implement "crisis standards of care," which basically means it will ration its equipment, staff and medicine, giving preference to those it can most likely save, regardless of vaccination status. It's an ugly system, abhorred by those who will wield it, with tiebreakers in place to decide who potentially lives and dies. Other hospitals in Montana have taken similar steps.
An overcrowded hospital also means that a person say, one injured in a car crash in rural eastern Montana and needing advanced hospitalization won't be able to get that care at Billings Clinic.
"We are at the point where we are not confident going forward that we can continue to meet all patients' needs," said Dr. Nathan Allen, the medical ethicist for Billings Clinic and its department chair for emergency medicine. "And that's heartbreaking."
"Nobody wants to be in a position where we may have to ration health care and potentially remove a ventilator from one patient who would likely die and give it to another," said Dr. Scott Ellner, the hospital's CEO. "Are we there? I would say we are very close."
To some extent, that rationing is already happening. A patient still hospitalized here with covid might have benefited from a machine, known as an ECMO machine, needed to keep his heart and lungs functioning. Operating that machine, though, requires at least one nurse, 24 hours a day, usually for two to three weeks. Typically, it would be a last-ditch effort for the most critical of patients. Even with that care, the prognosis for the middle-aged man would be poor. Without it, Baxter said, he will assuredly die.
"The reality is I can't staff that," Baxter said. "Do you give that optimal care to one patient or do you give great care to five?"
Billings Clinic would hire more than 100 additional nurses if it could. The staffing shortage is not unique to this hospital; it's nationwide, meaning the needed help isn't arriving anytime soon. Baxter tells the story of a young nurse who quit, saying he had grown tired of lying to patients he knew would die.
"The patients look at you with that fear in their eyes and say, 'Am I going to make it?'" Baxter said. "You want to encourage them to not give up hope, but you also know the chances of survival are going to be slim."
Recently, a patient's dying wish was to have their preschool-age child come and sit with them, to see them one last time. That typically wouldn't be allowed, but an exception was made, with staffers at the hospital draping the child in oversized protective clothing, goggles and an N95 mask. Afterward, the nurse and doctor sobbed with the patient.
"The moral distress of working in health care is for many, many people extremely high right now," said Allen.
Intensifying that, he said, are patients or their loved ones mistreating doctors and nurses. Threats have on occasion required a police response. Screaming, profanity-laden insults are a daily occurrence. One patient threw his own feces at a doctor. Some, even in the face of an intubation tube, question the need to be vaccinated or the effectiveness of the medicine being prescribed.
Dr. Sara Nyquist, an emergency medicine physician, said she has been asked by a patient if she is a Republican or a Democrat.
"I said, 'I am your doctor,'" she recalled. "You do wonder how we got here."
Ellner, the clinic's CEO, said he doesn't understand what happened to civility. "There is a part of the society that wants to pretend that the covid surge isn't really happening," he said. "But this is our reality every single day."
Jennifer Tafelmeyer, a nurse in the hospital's cardiovascular unit, said the best part of her job before the pandemic was helping patients improve, walking them down hallways, talking about diet and exercise, and eventually escorting them to the front door. That hasn't happened in a long time.
"We just don't get the wins," she said.
As she told the story, she stopped to wipe a tear. Moments before, she had learned that one of the patients on this floor was not expected to survive the night.
Allen predicted Billings Clinic hasn't yet seen the worst of the recent surge in infections.
"We are still seeing growing numbers in community cases," he said. "And we know hospitalizations lag behind new diagnoses. Unfortunately, it can absolutely get worse than where it is at."
In the meantime, he said, he expects the doctors and nurses here will rally as they have, taking comfort from words of thanks from many patients and gestures like a father bringing pizza to the emergency department as a show of appreciation for the care given his child.
"The most difficult things have been the big things," Allen said, "and the most inspiring things have been the little things."
It's gonna be tougher for the ill when they have even less care givers due to the decision of the uneducated
Such is America though.
RD2WINAGNBEAR86 said:Man, I love you but please stop the good cop/ bad cop act. Enough. You need to kill off Freedomb3er!Freedomb3ar said:JXL said:4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
https://apple.news/AEfjzV4cGRIyKfCrHjhGkrA
At an Overrun ICU, 'the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways'
BILLINGS, Mont. Nurses fill the hospital room to turn a patient from his stomach to his back. The ventilator forcing air into him is most effective when he's on his stomach, so he is in that position most hours of the day, sedated and paralyzed by drugs.
Lying on his stomach all those hours has produced sores on his face, and one nurse dabs at the wounds. The dark lesions are insignificant given his current state, but she continues just the same, gently, soothingly, appearing to whisper to him as she works.
The man has been a patient at Billings Clinic for nearly a month, most of that time in the hospital's intensive care unit. He is among other patients, room after room of them, with the same grim tubes inserted down their throats. They have covid-19 the vast majority unvaccinated against the virus, the hospital says. Visitors generally aren't permitted in these rooms, but the man's mother comes most days to gaze through a glass window for the allowed 15 minutes.
This all happened Friday. He was dead, at age 24, by Sunday morning.
The hospital's morgue cart arrived at the ICU as it frequently has these days then the room was sterilized, another patient took the man's place, and the cycle began again. In the past week, 14 people have died of covid here, the state's largest hospital.
"I do feel a little hopeless," said Christy Baxter, the hospital's director of critical care.
The situation has played out in hospitals around the nation since 2020. But now Montana is a national hot spot for covid infections, recording the highest percentage increase in new cases over the past seven days. The state announced 1,209 new cases on Friday, and Yellowstone County, home to Billings Clinic, is seeing the worst of it. Last week, the county had 2,329 active cases, more than the next two counties combined.
What's different from the early scenes of the pandemic is the public's response. Not so long ago, the cheers of community support could be heard from the hospital parking lot. Now, tensions are so strained that Billings Clinic is printing signs for its hallways, asking that the staff members not be mistreated.
The ICU here has space for 28 patients but last Friday was operating at 160% capacity, Baxter said. To handle the overflow, nurses elsewhere provide care beyond their training as covid patients fill other parts of the hospital. In the lobby of the emergency department, rooms roughly 6 feet by 6 feet have been fashioned with makeshift plastic walls. Ten members of the Montana Army National Guard arrived last week to help however they can. Hospital staffers volunteer to sit with dying patients. Beds line hallways.
"The problem is," said Brad Von Bergen, the hospital's ER manager, "we are running out of hallways."
The hospital announced it may soon implement "crisis standards of care," which basically means it will ration its equipment, staff and medicine, giving preference to those it can most likely save, regardless of vaccination status. It's an ugly system, abhorred by those who will wield it, with tiebreakers in place to decide who potentially lives and dies. Other hospitals in Montana have taken similar steps.
An overcrowded hospital also means that a person say, one injured in a car crash in rural eastern Montana and needing advanced hospitalization won't be able to get that care at Billings Clinic.
"We are at the point where we are not confident going forward that we can continue to meet all patients' needs," said Dr. Nathan Allen, the medical ethicist for Billings Clinic and its department chair for emergency medicine. "And that's heartbreaking."
"Nobody wants to be in a position where we may have to ration health care and potentially remove a ventilator from one patient who would likely die and give it to another," said Dr. Scott Ellner, the hospital's CEO. "Are we there? I would say we are very close."
To some extent, that rationing is already happening. A patient still hospitalized here with covid might have benefited from a machine, known as an ECMO machine, needed to keep his heart and lungs functioning. Operating that machine, though, requires at least one nurse, 24 hours a day, usually for two to three weeks. Typically, it would be a last-ditch effort for the most critical of patients. Even with that care, the prognosis for the middle-aged man would be poor. Without it, Baxter said, he will assuredly die.
"The reality is I can't staff that," Baxter said. "Do you give that optimal care to one patient or do you give great care to five?"
Billings Clinic would hire more than 100 additional nurses if it could. The staffing shortage is not unique to this hospital; it's nationwide, meaning the needed help isn't arriving anytime soon. Baxter tells the story of a young nurse who quit, saying he had grown tired of lying to patients he knew would die.
"The patients look at you with that fear in their eyes and say, 'Am I going to make it?'" Baxter said. "You want to encourage them to not give up hope, but you also know the chances of survival are going to be slim."
Recently, a patient's dying wish was to have their preschool-age child come and sit with them, to see them one last time. That typically wouldn't be allowed, but an exception was made, with staffers at the hospital draping the child in oversized protective clothing, goggles and an N95 mask. Afterward, the nurse and doctor sobbed with the patient.
"The moral distress of working in health care is for many, many people extremely high right now," said Allen.
Intensifying that, he said, are patients or their loved ones mistreating doctors and nurses. Threats have on occasion required a police response. Screaming, profanity-laden insults are a daily occurrence. One patient threw his own feces at a doctor. Some, even in the face of an intubation tube, question the need to be vaccinated or the effectiveness of the medicine being prescribed.
Dr. Sara Nyquist, an emergency medicine physician, said she has been asked by a patient if she is a Republican or a Democrat.
"I said, 'I am your doctor,'" she recalled. "You do wonder how we got here."
Ellner, the clinic's CEO, said he doesn't understand what happened to civility. "There is a part of the society that wants to pretend that the covid surge isn't really happening," he said. "But this is our reality every single day."
Jennifer Tafelmeyer, a nurse in the hospital's cardiovascular unit, said the best part of her job before the pandemic was helping patients improve, walking them down hallways, talking about diet and exercise, and eventually escorting them to the front door. That hasn't happened in a long time.
"We just don't get the wins," she said.
As she told the story, she stopped to wipe a tear. Moments before, she had learned that one of the patients on this floor was not expected to survive the night.
Allen predicted Billings Clinic hasn't yet seen the worst of the recent surge in infections.
"We are still seeing growing numbers in community cases," he said. "And we know hospitalizations lag behind new diagnoses. Unfortunately, it can absolutely get worse than where it is at."
In the meantime, he said, he expects the doctors and nurses here will rally as they have, taking comfort from words of thanks from many patients and gestures like a father bringing pizza to the emergency department as a show of appreciation for the care given his child.
"The most difficult things have been the big things," Allen said, "and the most inspiring things have been the little things."
It's gonna be tougher for the ill when they have even less care givers due to the decision of the uneducated
Such is America though.
Damn. That seems extreme
You let enough uneducated bureaucrats make political health decisions and you run off people that otherwise would stay and do the jobs they've been doing.
Kinda like corporate American and its wokeness.
Running off the good people who don't really have to come into work every day so they leave to go make even more money elsewhere. What a punishment!
Lol
Except in this case, people that need these nurses have and will die because they forced a vax on people that they don't need.
Florda is all we need. You can give Freedomb3ar the boot. It is time.Freedomb3ar said:RD2WINAGNBEAR86 said:Man, I love you but please stop the good cop/ bad cop act. Enough. You need to kill off Freedomb3er!Freedomb3ar said:JXL said:4th and Inches said:no but some are.. cumulative effect just like not all the ICU beds are full of covid patients. I remember a time last year when mclennan county had 54 iCU beds and 9 of them were Covid, at least 40 of them were other things yet it was reported that covid is filling ICUs which is technically true but also not completely accurate.JXL said:Rawhide said:What about if you get in a car wreck because someone was driving under the influence? Maybe we should bring back prohibition?JXL said:Rawhide said:If the vaccine works so well, why worry about the boob that didn't get one? After all, you've had the jab, you should be good to go.JXL said:Florda_mike said:
It's in OP but the same characters here refuse to even watch 10 minutes
Heck 2 minutes is sufficient!
Since the vaccines are so dangerous and 181 million people in the United States have been vaccinated, there have probably been at least one or two million deaths as a result, right?
What if I get in a car wreck but all the ICU beds are taken up by the boobs who didn't get a shot?
Are all the ICU beds taken up by patients caused by alcohol?
When the average American thinks that Covid hospitalizes 40% of those infected, we have a real disconnect from the truth. In reality, it is approximately .25% of known active USA Covid cases that are critical care hospitalized right now.
https://apple.news/AEfjzV4cGRIyKfCrHjhGkrA
At an Overrun ICU, 'the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways'
BILLINGS, Mont. Nurses fill the hospital room to turn a patient from his stomach to his back. The ventilator forcing air into him is most effective when he's on his stomach, so he is in that position most hours of the day, sedated and paralyzed by drugs.
Lying on his stomach all those hours has produced sores on his face, and one nurse dabs at the wounds. The dark lesions are insignificant given his current state, but she continues just the same, gently, soothingly, appearing to whisper to him as she works.
The man has been a patient at Billings Clinic for nearly a month, most of that time in the hospital's intensive care unit. He is among other patients, room after room of them, with the same grim tubes inserted down their throats. They have covid-19 the vast majority unvaccinated against the virus, the hospital says. Visitors generally aren't permitted in these rooms, but the man's mother comes most days to gaze through a glass window for the allowed 15 minutes.
This all happened Friday. He was dead, at age 24, by Sunday morning.
The hospital's morgue cart arrived at the ICU as it frequently has these days then the room was sterilized, another patient took the man's place, and the cycle began again. In the past week, 14 people have died of covid here, the state's largest hospital.
"I do feel a little hopeless," said Christy Baxter, the hospital's director of critical care.
The situation has played out in hospitals around the nation since 2020. But now Montana is a national hot spot for covid infections, recording the highest percentage increase in new cases over the past seven days. The state announced 1,209 new cases on Friday, and Yellowstone County, home to Billings Clinic, is seeing the worst of it. Last week, the county had 2,329 active cases, more than the next two counties combined.
What's different from the early scenes of the pandemic is the public's response. Not so long ago, the cheers of community support could be heard from the hospital parking lot. Now, tensions are so strained that Billings Clinic is printing signs for its hallways, asking that the staff members not be mistreated.
The ICU here has space for 28 patients but last Friday was operating at 160% capacity, Baxter said. To handle the overflow, nurses elsewhere provide care beyond their training as covid patients fill other parts of the hospital. In the lobby of the emergency department, rooms roughly 6 feet by 6 feet have been fashioned with makeshift plastic walls. Ten members of the Montana Army National Guard arrived last week to help however they can. Hospital staffers volunteer to sit with dying patients. Beds line hallways.
"The problem is," said Brad Von Bergen, the hospital's ER manager, "we are running out of hallways."
The hospital announced it may soon implement "crisis standards of care," which basically means it will ration its equipment, staff and medicine, giving preference to those it can most likely save, regardless of vaccination status. It's an ugly system, abhorred by those who will wield it, with tiebreakers in place to decide who potentially lives and dies. Other hospitals in Montana have taken similar steps.
An overcrowded hospital also means that a person say, one injured in a car crash in rural eastern Montana and needing advanced hospitalization won't be able to get that care at Billings Clinic.
"We are at the point where we are not confident going forward that we can continue to meet all patients' needs," said Dr. Nathan Allen, the medical ethicist for Billings Clinic and its department chair for emergency medicine. "And that's heartbreaking."
"Nobody wants to be in a position where we may have to ration health care and potentially remove a ventilator from one patient who would likely die and give it to another," said Dr. Scott Ellner, the hospital's CEO. "Are we there? I would say we are very close."
To some extent, that rationing is already happening. A patient still hospitalized here with covid might have benefited from a machine, known as an ECMO machine, needed to keep his heart and lungs functioning. Operating that machine, though, requires at least one nurse, 24 hours a day, usually for two to three weeks. Typically, it would be a last-ditch effort for the most critical of patients. Even with that care, the prognosis for the middle-aged man would be poor. Without it, Baxter said, he will assuredly die.
"The reality is I can't staff that," Baxter said. "Do you give that optimal care to one patient or do you give great care to five?"
Billings Clinic would hire more than 100 additional nurses if it could. The staffing shortage is not unique to this hospital; it's nationwide, meaning the needed help isn't arriving anytime soon. Baxter tells the story of a young nurse who quit, saying he had grown tired of lying to patients he knew would die.
"The patients look at you with that fear in their eyes and say, 'Am I going to make it?'" Baxter said. "You want to encourage them to not give up hope, but you also know the chances of survival are going to be slim."
Recently, a patient's dying wish was to have their preschool-age child come and sit with them, to see them one last time. That typically wouldn't be allowed, but an exception was made, with staffers at the hospital draping the child in oversized protective clothing, goggles and an N95 mask. Afterward, the nurse and doctor sobbed with the patient.
"The moral distress of working in health care is for many, many people extremely high right now," said Allen.
Intensifying that, he said, are patients or their loved ones mistreating doctors and nurses. Threats have on occasion required a police response. Screaming, profanity-laden insults are a daily occurrence. One patient threw his own feces at a doctor. Some, even in the face of an intubation tube, question the need to be vaccinated or the effectiveness of the medicine being prescribed.
Dr. Sara Nyquist, an emergency medicine physician, said she has been asked by a patient if she is a Republican or a Democrat.
"I said, 'I am your doctor,'" she recalled. "You do wonder how we got here."
Ellner, the clinic's CEO, said he doesn't understand what happened to civility. "There is a part of the society that wants to pretend that the covid surge isn't really happening," he said. "But this is our reality every single day."
Jennifer Tafelmeyer, a nurse in the hospital's cardiovascular unit, said the best part of her job before the pandemic was helping patients improve, walking them down hallways, talking about diet and exercise, and eventually escorting them to the front door. That hasn't happened in a long time.
"We just don't get the wins," she said.
As she told the story, she stopped to wipe a tear. Moments before, she had learned that one of the patients on this floor was not expected to survive the night.
Allen predicted Billings Clinic hasn't yet seen the worst of the recent surge in infections.
"We are still seeing growing numbers in community cases," he said. "And we know hospitalizations lag behind new diagnoses. Unfortunately, it can absolutely get worse than where it is at."
In the meantime, he said, he expects the doctors and nurses here will rally as they have, taking comfort from words of thanks from many patients and gestures like a father bringing pizza to the emergency department as a show of appreciation for the care given his child.
"The most difficult things have been the big things," Allen said, "and the most inspiring things have been the little things."
It's gonna be tougher for the ill when they have even less care givers due to the decision of the uneducated
Such is America though.
Damn. That seems extreme
You let enough uneducated bureaucrats make political health decisions and you run off people that otherwise would stay and do the jobs they've been doing.
Kinda like corporate American and its wokeness.
Running off the good people who don't really have to come into work every day so they leave to go make even more money elsewhere. What a punishment!
Lol
Except in this case, people that need these nurses have and will die because they forced a vax on people that they don't need.
"Stand with anyone when he is right; Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong." - Abraham Lincoln
Freedumb3ar is all right. Like Florda, but now with 50% less crack.
Sam Lowry said:
Freedumb3ar is all right. Like Florda, but now with 50% less crack.
Of Course Freedomb3ar is all right. He's never wrong.
Just facts, data and real life stories for the 10 people here's consideration
Okay, 40%.Freedomb3ar said:Sam Lowry said:
Freedumb3ar is all right. Like Florda, but now with 50% less crack.
Of Course Freedomb3ar is all right. He's never wrong.
Just facts, data and real life stories for the 10 people here's consideration
Freedomb3ar said:Sam Lowry said:
Freedumb3ar is all right. Like Florda, but now with 50% less crack.
Of Course Freedomb3ar is all right. He's never wrong.
Just facts, data and real life stories for the 10 people here's consideration
I thought 10 was high then I counted those on this thread and it was 16! I was surprised to see that many
Maybe Sam will lower my crack rating, like he did for you? Naaaaawww .......
of those 16, how many are socks for other screen names.. 10 may still be rightFlorda_mike said:Freedomb3ar said:Sam Lowry said:
Freedumb3ar is all right. Like Florda, but now with 50% less crack.
Of Course Freedomb3ar is all right. He's never wrong.
Just facts, data and real life stories for the 10 people here's consideration
I thought 10 was high then I counted those on this thread and it was 16! I was surprised to see that many
Maybe Sam will lower my crack rating, like he did for you? Naaaaawww .......
I didn't -- never mind.Florda_mike said:Freedomb3ar said:Sam Lowry said:
Freedumb3ar is all right. Like Florda, but now with 50% less crack.
Of Course Freedomb3ar is all right. He's never wrong.
Just facts, data and real life stories for the 10 people here's consideration
I thought 10 was high then I counted those on this thread and it was 16! I was surprised to see that many
Maybe Sam will lower my crack rating, like he did for you? Naaaaawww .......
Sam Lowry said:I didn't -- never mind.Florda_mike said:Freedomb3ar said:Sam Lowry said:
Freedumb3ar is all right. Like Florda, but now with 50% less crack.
Of Course Freedomb3ar is all right. He's never wrong.
Just facts, data and real life stories for the 10 people here's consideration
I thought 10 was high then I counted those on this thread and it was 16! I was surprised to see that many
Maybe Sam will lower my crack rating, like he did for you? Naaaaawww .......