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So, they were not overwhelmed?
by fooker 6y ago
So, they were not overwhelmed?
- sndean 6y agoThat specific hospital wasn't. But, again: > At the peak they needed about double the normal number of beds. If they had not been able to annex a portion of the hospital for more beds, they probably would've been overwhelmed. Most of the people with normal things (heart attacks, severe diabetes-related issues, alcohol withdraw, etc.) stayed home, so they were able to create more capacity. I think every hospital did the same, so there's no good control group.
- simonh 6y agoCompleting 12 hour shifts without a moments break isn’t overwhelmed? Read this article about two of the nurses in NY that committed suicide due to the stress of watching patients die and not having the resources to help them, then tell me those people were not overwhelmed. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/28/emts-a28.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/28/emts-a28.html
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoWaving people's deaths around like this is crass and offensive. It's very sad that these nurses died, but when people say "overwhelmed" in this context they mean that people cannot obtain healthcare.
- simonh 6y agoOh I see, the human cost to health care workers doesn’t count. Got it. Maybe your threshold for what counts as ‘getting health care’ is different from mine. For me it amounts to more up than just being physically in a hospital. If the people described below were your family, would you be satisfied with their health care? "Some of them, bless their souls, can't do anything for themselves," she said. "How can I take care of 14 people when I have one tech and they have 30 patients. It's so bad here you guys." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-new-york-nurse-breaks-down-cries-dead-covid19-patients-a9460301.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronaviru...
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoYou know you're being dishonest here and I'm not going to engage.
- simonh 6y agoThat’s a real shame. I just don’t understand at all where you’re coming from, or in what way I’m being dishonest. To me is seems straightforward to say that a system that is no longer able to provide an acceptable standard of care to a majority, or large minority if it’s patients, has been pushed beyond its capacity.
- TeaDrunk 6y agoI’m under the impression that this is in fact what an overwhelmed health care system looks like. That the people in the system would rather die than continue being in it. This is also how we measure the despair of poverty.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 6y ago> when people say "overwhelmed" in this context they mean that people cannot obtain healthcare. The “no non-COVID patients” part didn't happen because suddenly no one needed ICU care or other hospitalization for non-COVID reasons, it happened because people were systematically excluded starting with methods from soft (discouragement to seek care) to hard (bans on classes of procedures, triage prioritization, etc.) from hospital care for non-COVID reasons. Hospitals in and around NYC were, like those in Italy at the peak of the crisis, using criteria beyond medical need to allocate ventilators because medical need exceeded supply. That's overwhelmed, and ant standard which suggests it isn't is a dumbass standard.