Re: What's annoying you today?
Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:28 pm
The 27th was a long night. It turned out to be not quite as bad as it first appeared, she did suffer a break at her elbow but the specialist that saw her today took off the fiberglass cast and said her specific break shouldn’t be immobilized because it would heal and greatly limit her range of motion going forward.
I learned a lot of interesting things from that episode talking with a few hospital employees....
They (Kaiser) has shuttered many of their smaller offices and hospitals (I had to take her to a hospital much further away then the one near us which is closed to non-Civid cases) not because of Covid infections but because they drastically downsized their workforce the past month. This is primarily because they are losing a lot of money not doing the majority of regular office visits, lab work, elective and even some needed surgeries and procedures due to fed/state decree that all medical resources must be focused on Covid-care. Thus, a lot of regular doctors and other medical staff that aren't respiratory/covid specialized have no work and have been furloughed. Network pharmacies have been consolidated to key facilities that remain open in whatever capacity to enable fully closing other facilities. The admitting guy who was standing around outside screening incoming patients said he was lucky to still be working and surmised that it was likely some hospitals will be permanently shuttered once the dust settles to save money going forward.
Hospitals are counting and reporting anyone that remotely falls into the Covid category regardless of test results because the Feds are reimbursing for Covid treatment cases. So for example, someone comes in to an ER with flu-like symptoms serious enough for admittance, they're counted and reported as Covid patients before any test results come back which is usually at least a few days at this point.
Alarmingly, the quality of "protection" for patients at least at this place was wildly inconsistent. According to my wife, while there was only 6 people in the ER waiting area when I brought her in, at least one had a fever and severe cough - no separation, just "social distancing" and face masks. The hospital was *very* understaffed even for the small number of patients at the time. The person that set her arm and did the cast was woefully under qualified and even incorrectly noted it was her wrist that was broken in the report. When she was released, they just "let her walk out," no escort, nothing to make sure she had a ride. She just texted me saying she was outside the ER exit (I was in the other parking lot). When I had to get her prescription, I was able to walk in (had to wear a mask at least) to the 24 hour pharmacy on the other side of the same building.
I think at least in the Kaiser healthcare network and apparently a lot of other "group" health networks nationwide, have really handled the non-Covid aspect of this very poorly mainly due to looking at their bottom line - $$$$.
I learned a lot of interesting things from that episode talking with a few hospital employees....
They (Kaiser) has shuttered many of their smaller offices and hospitals (I had to take her to a hospital much further away then the one near us which is closed to non-Civid cases) not because of Covid infections but because they drastically downsized their workforce the past month. This is primarily because they are losing a lot of money not doing the majority of regular office visits, lab work, elective and even some needed surgeries and procedures due to fed/state decree that all medical resources must be focused on Covid-care. Thus, a lot of regular doctors and other medical staff that aren't respiratory/covid specialized have no work and have been furloughed. Network pharmacies have been consolidated to key facilities that remain open in whatever capacity to enable fully closing other facilities. The admitting guy who was standing around outside screening incoming patients said he was lucky to still be working and surmised that it was likely some hospitals will be permanently shuttered once the dust settles to save money going forward.
Hospitals are counting and reporting anyone that remotely falls into the Covid category regardless of test results because the Feds are reimbursing for Covid treatment cases. So for example, someone comes in to an ER with flu-like symptoms serious enough for admittance, they're counted and reported as Covid patients before any test results come back which is usually at least a few days at this point.
Alarmingly, the quality of "protection" for patients at least at this place was wildly inconsistent. According to my wife, while there was only 6 people in the ER waiting area when I brought her in, at least one had a fever and severe cough - no separation, just "social distancing" and face masks. The hospital was *very* understaffed even for the small number of patients at the time. The person that set her arm and did the cast was woefully under qualified and even incorrectly noted it was her wrist that was broken in the report. When she was released, they just "let her walk out," no escort, nothing to make sure she had a ride. She just texted me saying she was outside the ER exit (I was in the other parking lot). When I had to get her prescription, I was able to walk in (had to wear a mask at least) to the 24 hour pharmacy on the other side of the same building.
I think at least in the Kaiser healthcare network and apparently a lot of other "group" health networks nationwide, have really handled the non-Covid aspect of this very poorly mainly due to looking at their bottom line - $$$$.