Unrelated to your post, Honeysuckle, but yours was the most recent when I started typing.
From Karl Denninger’s blog:
Most of you all here know where this is coming from...copied and pasted.
“IM Doc
October 27, 2021 at 2:33 pm
I feel like I need to give an update from my world. Many things are happening all at the same time.
In brief, I feel that the troubles have started in earnest now in medicine in ways I did not see coming just weeks ago. What we in medicine are simply not going to be able to abide right now is a surge like we saw last winter.
First of all, as a PCP, I have always had the ability to zap small non-invasive skin cancers. We do that with liquid nitrogen. We have been out of this for a week or so now. Sourcing a new supply is now virtually impossible. And the amounts being asked for what is left are so astronomically high that we simply cannot afford it. Medicare reimbursement (which is most of these patients) will not even come close to recovering the cost. I understand from the supplier that the same issues are occurring to some degree with dry ice and more ominously liquid oxygen (used in hospitals of patient oxygen). I heard from 2 different suppliers the reason why this seems to be happening but the reason is so tin foil that I am not going to repeat it here until I can confirm this more reliably.
I know there are lots of biomedical folks here in labs that are frequent commenters.Are any of you having the same problems?
If this becomes a pattern, I would recommend to all to get your derm visit scheduled ASAP my understanding is this will not be temporary.
Our hospital staff is so diminished that my clinic employees are constantly being pulled to cover issues there. Outpatient clinical medicine is no longer organized here it has become a frantic triage. Right now, I would urge all Americans to not take their anger and temper out on medical office employees. They and their physicians are absolutely overwhelmed.
That problem however is minor. The hospital system pre-COVID was a disaster area it is now officially a **** show. The discharge process is now turned into a complete cludge. The problem in brief is that the companies that do home health and home oxygen and nursing home care have had their staffs now vanish to unworkable levels. Much of this has to do with exhaustion. But it is also the vaccine mandates. These are all national corporations so they instituted mandates weeks ago. And promptly lost large segments of their staff. Enough time has now passed for the remaining employees to experience complete exhaustion. You can only do so many 80 hour work weeks after all. So now there is nowhere for these discharging patients to go that is safe. They are having to stay in the hospital but that is simply not going to be workable for long. The hospital too has had its staff decimated.
I have sat through a whole 4 months or so of patients condescendingly tell me they would never allow an unvaccinated HCW to touch them. Over and over. My constant refrain was to be very careful about that feeling you may have NO health care workers to touch you if you keep that up. And we are slowly but surely arriving at that destination. At least two of these patients stuck in the hospital are two who could not bash the intransigent HCWs enough. They have now received their wish. Payment in full.
My niece just graduated from nursing school in June. Immediately hired on a COVID unit in a major hospital in one of our big cities. She has been there three months as dozens and dozens of nurses, MAs and RTs have left. My mind was completely and totally blown when she called to ask my advice last night THEY HAD JUST OFFERED HER THE JOB OF FLOOR CHARGE NURSE in her hospital a 3 month nurse a job that in other times was given to grizzled veterans.
I am not sure we are going to have to wait for judicial input into these vaccine mandates. The slow motion implosion has already begun at least in medicine. I am hearing the same stories if not worse from colleagues everywhere.
I am not trying to alarm or scare. I am presenting my world as it is. I do not believe most Americans understand how dire this situation really is.”
We’ve just received word that the House of Representatives could vote on its budget reconciliation bill as soon as this evening. We need your urgent phone calls NOW!
Please call your Rep. using the Capitol Switchboard and express your opposition the budget reconciliation amnesty!
Capitol Switchboard — (202) 225-3121
Despite a ruling from the Senate Parliamentarian saying that giving green cards to illegal aliens through budget reconciliation would violate Senate rules, the House has decided to still move forward with the plan.
The House Budget Reconciliation bill would:
Grant amnesty to an estimated 7.9 million illegal aliens who have been in the U.S. since at least 2010
“Recapture” and issue an estimated 630,000 so-called “unused” green cards from both the employment and family categories dating all the way back to 1992
Award green cards to visa lottery winners who were denied entry as a result of Pres. Trump’s travel ban or COVID-19 entry ban
Allow aliens with an approved green card petition who have been on the visa waiting list for at least two years and are legally present in the United States to buy a green card regardless of whether one is currently available under the annual numerical limits
Again, please call and tell your U.S. Representative to oppose the budget reconciliation amnesty!
Capitol Switchboard — (202) 225-3121