Posted on 03/08/2018 5:23:02 AM PST by Kaslin
Not long ago I waited for a flight to board. The plane took off 45 minutes late. There were only two attendants to accommodate 11 passengers who had requested wheelchair assistance.
Such growing efforts to ensure that the physically challenged can easily fly are certainly welcome. But when our plane landed -- late and in danger of causing many passengers to miss their connecting flights -- most of the 11 wheelchair-bound passengers left their seats unassisted and hurried out. It was almost as if newfound concerns about making connections had somehow improved their health during the flight.
Two passengers had boarded with two dogs each. No doubt the airlines' policy of allowing an occasional dog on a flight is understandable. But now planes are starting to sound and smell like kennels.
Special blue parking placards were initially a long-overdue effort to help the disabled. But these days, the definition of "disabled" has so expanded that a large percentage of the population can qualify for special parking privileges -- or cheat in order to qualify.
In California, 26,000 disabled parking placards are currently issued to people over 100 years of age, even though state records list only about 8,000 living centenarians.
Current crises such as homelessness and illegal immigration did not start out as much of a public concern.
Originally, progressive politicians felt that cities should bend their vagrancy laws a bit to allow some of the poor to camp on the sidewalks. Bathroom and public health issues were considered minor, given the relatively small pool of so-called "street people."
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
This
The Rapid ‘Regress’ of Regressivism
Fixed the title.
If fliers request wheelchair assistance they get to board first. It doesn’t let them deplane any sooner. though, so they don’t need it to get off.
I was homeless and living in a mission once. The wheelchairs, walkers and crutches that individuals so desperately clung to because it got them to the front of the meal line ended up in a pile by the wall once these folks got their monthly dose of gubmint money. Money cures! Who knew?
Just an FYI. I need two knee replacements. I do not have a handicap placard. I can walk, but I do use wheelchairs in airports. When my plane comes in at a gate that it a 15 minute walk for healthy people, I cannot walk the distance to the next plane. I am very slow and use a cane. I do get off the plane with everybody else, but I do slow them down. My husband does try to get seats as close to the front of the plane as possible. And he always drops me off at the front of any store where we shop. I do use the electric carts at the store, if available. If not, I put my cane in the shopping cart and lean heavily on the cart as I slowly make my way around the store. I do not shop for long, but I do need to go to the grocery store every week. Yes, I have put off the replacement surgery for too long. But I am frightened as my mom suffered with a staph infection that the Dr took into her knee, when he put in the replacement. This is not uncommon, but they had to take her knee replacement out and she walked with a brace and walker for the last ten years of her life. I just wanted you all to hear from someone who is using the wheelchairs at the airports. In the end, yes I can walk. But it is very painful and I am very slow. Please be kind.
At least half of the physical challenges are self-inflicted, when individuals are too damned fat to walk aboard.
People at airports use wheelchairs to cut in line at TSA checkpoints.
This Way To The Regress
That was then. This is now: "Most surgeons will therefore accept an average rate of deep infection of between 0.25% and 1.0% at one year after primary hip replacements and between 0.4% and 2% at one year after primary knee replacements"
The 2009 paper I am looking at goes on to say that prophylactic antibiotics cut those infection rates down to practically nothing.
My mom lived out the rest of her life without her knee. She was in a nursing home after the removal of the implant, where she then contracted a Pseudomonas infection through her Hickman catheter. She was moved to a major university for a month, complaining about her shoulder. They then discovered that the Pseudomonas had slowly eaten through her clavicle, which they then removed. The possibility of infection is still there. Still a frightening prospect.
That said, you will have to evaluate your hospital and surgeon choices and find The ones that takes infections seriously.
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