Since coronavirus reared its viral head in the U.S. months ago, and is causing havoc, pandemonium, bedlam and chaos, hospitals, by virtue of the federal government not providing enough funding for ALL who are going to need medical care, are going to start deciding who gets treatment and who merely receives palliative care.
It’s no different from New York: ‘Urban centers nationwide gird for catastrophic virus outbreak
Underscoring the precarious situation in Detroit, the Henry Ford Health System drafted a grim letter to patients and their families explaining the hospital’s calculations if it doesn’t have enough equipment to treat everyone.
“Some patients will be extremely sick and very unlikely to survive their illnesses even with critical treatment,” the letter explained. “Treating these patients would take away resources for patients who might survive.”
Among those who would not be eligible were those suffering severe heart, lung, kidney or liver failure, as well as those with terminal cancer. They would get palliative care, the letter said.
For those of you who don’t know what palliative care is, it is merely keeping the dying as comfortable as possible as they breathe their last.
And so, we have come to the dreaded Sarah Palin ‘death panels’; the making of decisions on who receives treatment based on their condition and if their condition is already fucked up, those patients will receive NO care if they are hospitalized with coronavirus.
Remember this little gem from what we all assumed was dizzy ass herself, Sarah Palin? She doesn’t sound so dizzy now, does she? Those ‘death panels’ of hers were considered to be a myth, but they are a ‘myth’ no more, at least in Detroit.
Death panel” is a political term that originated during the 2009 debate about federal health care legislation to cover the uninsured in the United States.[1] Sarah Palin, former Republican Governor of Alaska, coined the term when she charged that proposed legislation would create a “death panel” of bureaucrats who would decide whether Americans—such as her elderly parents, or children with Down syndrome—were “worthy of medical care”.[2] Palin’s claim has been referred to as the “death panel myth”,[3] as nothing in any proposed legislation would have led to individuals being judged to see if they were worthy of health care.[4]
Let me focus on the last sentence for a minute. “Palin’s claim has been referred to as the “death panel myth,” as nothing in any proposed legislation would have led to individuals being judged to see if they were worthy of health care.
Hmmmm..Now let’s read what’s coming out of the Henry Ford Health System again, shall we?
“Some patients will be extremely sick and very unlikely to survive their illnesses even with critical treatment,” the letter explained. “Treating these patients would take away resources for patients who might survive.” Among those who would not be eligible [to receive care for their coronavirus symptoms would be those who] were suffering severe heart, lung, kidney or liver failure, as well as those with terminal cancer. They would get palliative care, the letter said.
Now after reading the above in italics, what would you call what is about to go down? An act of kindness? Weeding out the wheat from the chaff? Making sure that only the strong survive? “Death panels” by ‘virtue’ of a hospital’s decision as to who is too sick to receive care for their coronavirus symptoms thanks to a dearth of needed medical supplies? It would appear that ‘death panels’ wins, hands down and the other questions, get in line.
According to the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, these drastic measures must be taken since the federal government has been derelict in its duty to provide hospitals with the essential equipment they need to meet the needs of ALL sick patients regardless of their condition upon admission during this pandemic. In other words, only the strong will survive. Those who are weak as in immunocompromised or with other underlying health conditions will be allowed to die without receiving any necessary care whatsoever in attempts to cure them of coronavirus.
So to those of you out there who have any of the medical conditions that I have mentioned, remain indoors and away from any contact with persons who have been out and about and who have not heeded ‘shelter in place’ orders as you will be the first ones to be allowed to die without any attempts at any pretense of treating your coronavirus symptoms if you come down with coronavirus. This shit is serious and no amount of pretending that it isn’t is going to make this shit go away.
This government and capitalism, and that includes corporate big heads that control and run this shithole and our dependence on that which we should never have become dependent on, is going to cause the demise of millions. There will not be enough N95 masks, surgical masks, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes or other PPE (personal protection equipment) or ventilators to go around, despite what lying Donald Trump says to the contrary. Hospitals everywhere in Amerikkka are rationing those as I type this and there is no containment of this virus in sight. In fact, quite the opposite. So this pandemic is going to get worse, not better!
Read this and weep(some more)!
Spread of coronavirus accelerates in U.S. jails, prisons
Inmates have no access to gloves or proper masks and have only cold water to wash their hands, said Sean Hernandez, an inmate at Riker’s Island jail system who was convicted of attempted murder and has served eight years. He said inmates watched on Thursday as a guard coughed, her cheeks turned red and she collapsed to the ground.
As of Friday, at least 80 staff and 103 inmates at jails across New York City had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The virus appears to be spreading quickly through a jail system famous for its overcrowded cell blocks. Since Sunday, jails have reported 104 staff and 146 inmates with confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Now couple that with the fact that this shithole incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world, and there is your recipe for further disaster. According to the article, as of 2017, there are nearly 2.3 million mostly American descendants of slaves behind bars. What is being done to protect inmates, especially since the article also states that since some jails are letting prisoners go, they are not testing them to see if they are being released all eaten up with coronavirus? What do you think is going to happen when those prisoners are released and are standing next to you in a grocery store or in a drug store or in the few remaining businesses that are open since they have been deemed, “essential?” They are not going to just take coronavirus home to their loved ones, they are going to deposit coronavirus on buses and light rails, subways and any other means of public transportation that is still up and running. And since we ALL need food, they are going to be standing beside you and behind you in the grocery store check-out because we all know that symptoms of the virus don’t tend to show up overnight.
Folks, the writing is on the wall. You are going to be holed up for quite some time because the U.S. has put in place the “Perfect Storm” for pandemics to ravage this country, unabated since private sector businesses run this shithole and the private sector is all about profits over people. That’s capitalism for you. Every single public sector entity that was formed to aid and assist in times of horrific crises were de-funded by damn near every single Republican Administration. At least Obama created and funded an agency tasked to act in times of a pandemic crisis and along comes Donald Trump to de-fund and eliminate it right before a pandemic struck. You see, Donald Trump is a ‘private sector business’ kinda guy. Ain’t it just wonderful to have THAT in charge? This is why Sarah Palin’s ‘death panels’ are REAL. This is why there will be a rationing of care which will lead to health care workers deciding who is too sick to make it and so just let them die already. Never mind the fact that there may have been a sliver of a chance that some poor schmuck would have made it, we won’t ever know because the decision is not in our hands. Your grandmother’s life is going to become a roll of the dice. Is she a viable candidate to survive the virus with her underlying health conditions? Yes? No? Make her as comfortable as you can while she lies on that stretcher and breathes her last; palliative care. This is what we as a society has come to. We are why we have come to this and so don’t now turn around and say that you weren’t warned because even dizzy ass Sarah Palin called it when she said that ‘they’ would create a “death panel” of bureaucrats [aka health care workers in this instance] who would decide whether Americans—such as her elderly parents, or children with Down syndrome—were “worthy of medical care”.[2]
Sound familiar? Yeah, it does! Sarah Palin may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but “even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
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