“C’mon Granny, just TRY to breathe on your own. You can do it!”/extreme sarcasm off
LLS
This is right up Dr. Zeke’s alley.....scarce resource???
Babies and Old People hit the skids first....
It is either a trial balloon to see how far they can push us, or an outright attack on freedom of assembly and movement.
We will see.
As harsh as this article may sound the practice makes sense. And while it has the potential for abuse, I think the possibility of poor decision making by impassioned family members is much more likely.
I wonder what criteria were used during polio epidemics when they rationed those old "iron lung" machines. They must have had some guidelines.
I also wonder what would happen to private insurance companies if a really bad flu epidemic hit the US. Would some insurance companies just declare bankruptcy and disappear in the night, the way some insurance companies do after earthquakes or hurricanes? Or would the government pick up the tab for preventing and treating the flu since it's a communicable disease?
You have to plan for overwhelming emergencies.
There could be a situation where there are more people who need ventilators than there are machines, in any particular hospital.
What bugs me is that the government wants to make the rules. I’d prefer to leave it to the doctors—with the courts following up if they behave with clear injustice.
Headlines in the newspaper "WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE......) someday..
“Flu Nightmare: In Severe Pandemic, Officials Ponder Disconnecting Ventilators From Some Patients”
In severe fascism, citizens ponder ventilating politicians and bureaucrats...
Well, how very OBAMA of them!
Here's the problem. We have managed care, down to where there is no excess capacity in the system. New York only has enough ventilators to handle a 17% (15%/85%) increase over normal. Certainly not a pandemic.
I think the rationing plan is necessary. But the public would be better served by a plan to obtain and store excess ventilators and/or a plan to ramp production of ventilators. I see a new respiratory ventilator on Froogle for $2000.
Solution 1:Buy another 5000 machines for a cost of $10,000,000 and put them in storage. Then you would at least have a reasonable hedge.
Solution 2: For a cost of 17,000*$2,000= $34,000,000 you'd have all 18,000 machines available. It's probably not reasonable given the probable availability of vaccines.
Solution 3: Work with the manufacturer to develop plans for rapid ramping of production of the machines and/or possible cheaper stop-gap models.
The cost is probably neglible compared the lost taxes if those people die.
How many ventilator patients can your local hospital sustain? One poor Brit teen in Greece I read about has been on life support for months.
death panels
Congressmen, senators and those who donated to Obama go to the head of the line.
Do the senior citizens who voted for Obama know this?
Now Mrs. Brown, how did your husband vote in the last election? Did your family make the right campaign donations? We’ll make our decision after we have read through all of your husband’s e-mails, blogs and social networking sites as well as telephone records and text messages.
In India if you don't have enough money to get into the hospital to be placed on a ventilator the physicians will intubate you but your family members must take turns to squeeze the ambu bag to keep you alive.
Liberals writing rules just in case they have a good excuse to kill a lot of old people and take over family decisions.
Canada is running around dropping off body bags in areas of the country just in case the global warming watermelons there strike gold with the swine flu.
So what would you suggest? We have X number of ventilators.
In a real nasty pandemic we might have 5X patients needing ventilators. Triage is a reality in any mass casualty situation.