We had to kill our patients

[Rockstar]

Just remember, guys, there's a name for the tinfoil hat, there's-conspiracy-behind-every-tree, "we'll never really know the truth" crowd. They're called John Birchers. They were telling, as the truth, that Klinton had already signed an executive order to confiscate firearms and declare martial law, right before Y2K. The floods were caused by the Trilateral Commission. blah, blah, blah.

 

[Byron Quick]

Hope he's just as quick to charge the people involved in this one too. More people died and he's "investigating." Sounds to me like the hospital administrator should be next.

Many of the people posting here, judging from their reponses, have not the slightest idea of just how many people recover in hospitals only through the intervention of modern technology powered by electricity. People who WILL die if the electricity goes off. Some immediately. Some in a few hours. Some in a few days.

A large hospital could very easily have this many patients die within a couple of hours of power loss. Are you then going to use resources to evacuate the corpses...denying living patients at a hospital five miles away immedicate evacuation...or will you leave the corpses to a time when their recovery will not put living human beings in danger?


I've given morphine to a terminal patient who died shorty thereafter. Frail, elderly lady with cancer. The previous doses that the MD ordered did not control her pain. Both the physician and I informed her family, one of who held her healthcare power of attorney, that the dosage required to bring about pain relief would probably depress her breathing and lead to imminent death. The family decided that pain relief was more important than a few more hours of agonized breathing.

It's a very hard position to be in. One I hope that I never face.

 

[444]

I am certainly not defending anybodies actions in this particular situation but have you ever thought about what it would take to move the patients out of all the New Orlean's hospitals and nursing homes ? The vehicles and the personel ?
I have never been to New Orleans but I used to work in the private ambulance industry. I have been in hundreds of nuring homes and several dozen hospitals. Let's say that one hospital has 10 patients that are all on ventilators. First of all, hospital A would have to find another facility somewhere that has room for the patients: a place that also have ventilators. Then each patient is probably going to have to be transported in a seperate ambulance because most ambulances don't have ventilators: the patients are going to have to be manually ventilated and probably suctioned etc. on the way. If the other hospital is very far, that ambulance might be tied up for hours................................ If any of these patients have IV drips with medications that fall outside the paramedic protocols then the ambulance is going to have to be staffed by a nurse. If the patient is on a cardiac monitor then EMTs can't transport the patient, it would have to be at least one paramedic or a nurse.
That is one possible senario involving one fictional hospital ICU. This isn't counting the other patients in that one hospital that arn't ambulatory that all have to be transported by ambulance (liability wouldn't allow them to be taken by private car). Every patient in every nursing home would have to be taken somewhere (where ?) by ambulance or run the risk of abandonment.
The thought of this boggles my mind.
And so far we have heard about way less than 100 people so far that have slipped through the cracks.
I would be surprised if every ambulance in the area could handle such a load even if they quit responding to 911 calls in order to do so.

Around here, all the hospitals are filled to capacity with patients on beds in the hallways: 24/7/365. If some other town called and asked if they could transport several thousand patients here, there would be no where to put them. Point being, not only do these patients have to have transportation by a licensed ambulance company, the ambulance has to have somewhere to take these patients: a receiving hospital or nuring home that has room for them and the facilities and equipment to care for them.