Doctors or Nurses Connection

I have a friend who fell out of his tree-stand two weeks ago and broke every single rib. He’s lucky to have survived the fall and that he was able to make a phone call for help.

After initial care in the ER at a hospital in southwest Wisconsin, the standard course of treatment was hospitalization for a few days to limit movement and promote healing. However, there were no ICU beds available, so his option was to either be transported 3 hours to the nearest available bed or to go home and “be careful.” He went home.

Please wear a safety harness.
Please get vaccinated.

I feel educated. There really is a problem and the healthcare system around here is currently in distress. And I have a better understanding of why.
Be careful out there and don’t get hurt!

Sioux wrote:

I will also add, pre-covid, it was rare to have patients hospitalized for more than a week or two. These were either complex trauma patients or medically complex that required prolonged stays. Covid patients take up hospital beds and often icu beds for weeks at a time if not months. Normal patients can require icu care but would improve and transfer out. Now Covid patients just linger and linger without improvement. So one Covid patient can occupy an icu bed that could have otherwise provided care to multiple icu patients prior to this.

Please get vaccinated.

Prophylactic Shots aside and looking strictly at the problem of COVID patients already hospitalized and lingering- why aren’t all available treatment routes being considered? MAB + Ivermectin is affording speedy recovery in many of those who are fortunate to have doctors that are willing to prescribe. Still so many professionals are being discouraged from trying all available treatments. Why is that?

KPE wrote:

Prophylactic Shots aside and looking strictly at the problem of COVID patients already hospitalized and lingering- why aren’t all available treatment routes being considered? MAB + Ivermectin is affording speedy recovery in many of those who are fortunate to have doctors that are willing to prescribe. Still so many professionals are being discouraged from trying all available treatments. Why is that?

There is a big sign by the Urgent Care Center in St Cloud that says “Antibody Injections” and an arrow to where that is being done. Not sure what’s required to qualify to get them, but that was a good thing to see anyway. My neighbors both got Covid a month or so ago. Somehow their daughter was able to get ivermectin for them and they were better in like 2 days. Not sure how she acquired it however.

New “breakthrough” vaccine data from MN.

Over the past 4 weeks, fully vaccinated people represent:
44% of cases
34% of hospitalizations
44% of deaths

About 70% of ages 12+ are fully vaccinated.

MDH Source:

http://www.twitter.com/covid_clarity/status/1470820130296717319?s=20

Ivermectin is an antiparasitic with no use in this scenario. Even the manufacturer of the drug explicitly states there is no benefit for Covid. The few doctors who prescribe this are treating without evidence, against consensus recommendations of true experts, and are outliers in the medical field.

By the way, the last patient I put a tracheostomy and feeding tube in tried ivermectin unsuccessfully with one of these doctors.

Brad Dimond wrote:

At the risk of starting a flaming war, all four medical professionals told me that 90% of COVID patients in ICU are unvaccinated. Since only 40% of the population is unvaccinated, this is a scary number.

Those #’s are not supported by the #’s I’m seeing reported by so called professionals. I know fair amount of people who are fully vaccinated including the booster and still have tested positive for covid. I also know a fair # of people who have not received any vaccination and have never tested positive.

I’m starting to feel like if its your time to get this – your going to get it. Vaccinated or not !!!

BigWerm wrote:

“My pledge to you is to use the valuable time you are giving… to produce those ICU units, to produce the necessary PPE that keeps our neighbors safe”
-@GovTimWalz announcing stay@home order 3/25/20 👇

MN bed capacity 5/1/20: 10,307
MN bed capacity 12/1/21: 9,272 (-1,035)

This tells me everything I need to know about how much the leadership cares about Covid.

Actions speak way louder than words and this almost arises to negligence in my opinion. The fact you have had 2 years to combat this and have asked others to do their part, but failed to increase capacity but actually decrease is despicable.

Quote: Their RN’s start at $37.50 an hour with straight double time for any shifts picked up beyond FTE since Covid started. If you do the math, it’s pretty easy to make ~80k+ a year with only a little experience or the ability to pick up a shift or so each week. They’ve got tenured nurses with multiple levels of certification that are making far beyond 100k. The real dagger is that they have had a vacant position posted for 7 months with one applicant who changed their mind.

Why the hell did I fall in love with a public school teacher and not a nurse? Must have been headlights in my eyes.

My wife and 2 of my daughters plus 3 sister-in-laws and a b-I-l are RNs or higher in health care. A niece is an ER physician. Believe it. A patient from Roseau was turned away from 5 hospitals due to no ICU beds and was flown to St Paul. Normal ICUs are being turned into Covid units. Nurses are very stressed. And the same hiring problems that we all see are happening in hospitals. My wife works in coronary intervention. She is continually trying to get enough nurses on board. Always short staffed. The news you see and hear is accurate. People are waiting for beds in the ER or after getting a stent, etc. The new reality applies to every walk of life not just tungsten ice jigs.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Brad Dimond wrote:</div>
At the risk of starting a flaming war, all four medical professionals told me that 90% of COVID patients in ICU are unvaccinated. Since only 40% of the population is unvaccinated, this is a scary number.

Those #’s are not supported by the #’s I’m seeing reported by so called professionals. I know fair amount of people who are fully vaccinated including the booster and still have tested positive for covid. I also know a fair # of people who have not received any vaccination and have never tested positive.

I’m starting to feel like if its your time to get this – your going to get it. Vaccinated or not !!!

Vaccinated people getting breakthrough infections – absolutely. The 90% number is COVID patients in ICU who are not vaccinated. Vaccination doesn’t absolutely prevent COVID infection but it dramatically reduces the seriousness of those breakthrough infections.

What I’ve seen in my hospital is absolutely horrid staffing leading to unused beds because there’s no one to care for any more patients. Our ICUs are indeed full, but they tend to always be full even before Covid, in the cities anyway. Something else the media never mentions.

You can’t generalize this situation though, because even though my hospital doesn’t have many Covid cases the smaller hospitals in the rural areas are getting hit hard from what I’ve heard throughout our system.

They are very short staffed, no question.

I had 1 day spinal surgery 11/18. It had been scheduled for 3 months. My surgical nurse said he was a Cardiac surgery nurse and said most of their surgeries had been canceled if medication could control issues for a while. He thought I was lucky that they didn’t cancel mine since it wasn’t life threatening. He was filling in for a short staffed Neurosurgery dept. since they didn’t have any Cardiac Patience that day.

Most heart attack patience that require bypass need ICU for a few days. Those were top priority, but ICU beds were limited. If it was determined they could delay for a while they would.

I asked him if the Covid vaccine Mandate by this certain facility caused Nurses and Doctors to leave and he said that most had had enough early Spring and retired early. They hadn’t seen many leave since they mandated vaccines this Fall.

Jo

JoJo wrote:

I asked him if the Covid vaccine Mandate by this certain facility caused Nurses and Doctors to leave and he said that most had had enough early Spring and retired early. They hadn’t seen many leave since they mandated vaccines this Fall.

Jo

It’s definitely not because of the mandate. It’s because we are all sick and tired of working our tails off, for mostly ungrateful people, and even more importantly ungrateful and incompetent leadership. If there’s one thing this pandemic has made even more clear, it’s that the administrations of hospitals don’t give a damn about their staff or their patients when it comes to saving a $.

I’ve been in the medical field (ambulance and hospital) for 15 years. I’m trying to get out of the field completely like many of my coworkers.

Wow, thanks for posting this question, Suzuki. Like you, I’ve learned a lot reading through this. My eyes are opening up.

I’m curious what kind of suggestions people have to get out of this mess. What needs to be done?

To those that have stuck it out thus far, you have my appreciation. I wouldn’t expect anyone to work under those conditions for this long.

Unless of course you were born in the year 1900.

biggill wrote:

I’m curious what kind of suggestions people have to get out of this mess. What needs to be done?

To those that have stuck it out thus far, you have my appreciation. I wouldn’t expect anyone to work under those conditions for this long.

Unless of course you were born in the year 1900.

Healthcare leaderships need to start supporting their staff and doing it by making hospital/company decisions based on needs of the staff, patients, and hospitals. Contrary to what they are saying, they are not hurting for money. Every procedural decision or hospital change that we’ve had over the last 3-4 years has added one more step to getting the job done. Never do they make our job easier. This is what creates burnout. That creates staffing shortages, and the staffing shortages create even more burnout. It’s a vicious cycle.

The hospitals are still in big pharma’s and politicians pockets and vice versa. That cord needs to be severed.

Oh this should be good… popcorn popping. I know one thing I hope I don’t have to go to the hospital any time soon. I know several that have for various reasons. I hope it ain’t me.

Maybe we need a government mandate for all healthcare facilities to install UV-C in their HVAC systems to control viruses and see who complains

mahtofire14 wrote:

It’s because we are all sick and tired of working our tails off, for mostly ungrateful people

I’m still grateful for your work and your work ethic. I hope others here are too.

gimruis wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>mahtofire14 wrote:</div>
It’s because we are all sick and tired of working our tails off, for mostly ungrateful people

I’m still grateful for your work and your work ethic. I hope others here are too.

Many people are, unfortunately those aren’t the people we see in the hospital or run our hospitals.

Not to take anything away from this but if you ever had family that was a medic during war time what we are going threw is not that bad. I appreciate all that have put extra time in during this crisis.

supercat wrote:

Not to take anything away from this but if you ever had family that was a medic during war time what we are going threw is not that bad. I appreciate all that have put extra time in during this crisis.

I don’t think anyone here is comparing this to war……

mahtofire14 wrote:

The hospitals are still in big pharma’s and politicians pockets and vice versa. That cord needs to be severed.

So long as we live in a country that runs strictly on bribery, nothing is going to change in that regard, unfortunately.

Totally agree with all you said and is consistent with what I have been reading. I just don’t see anyone providing any real answers. Especially those doing the finger pointing.

What is the average hours these nurses/doctors/hospital staff are putting in a week?

BigWerm wrote:

New “breakthrough” vaccine data from MN.

Over the past 4 weeks, fully vaccinated people represent:
44% of cases
34% of hospitalizations
44% of deaths

About 70% of ages 12+ are fully vaccinated.

I’m not going to fact check because nobody likes a fact checker but using only this data, an unvaccinated person is 345% more likely to be hospitalized. In the past 4 weeks.

I should also clarify that I used the % of the entire population vaccinated rather than the 70% used above.

Deuces wrote:

What is the average hours these nurses/doctors/hospital staff are putting in a week?

I would estimate 40-60/week. I do 32/week, but I don’t pick up OT like many do.

Deuces wrote:

No doubt there are hospitals that are full. But I always ask the deeper question of what they are full with? What exactly does “full” mean? Before the pandemic it was stated by many healthcare professionals that these places ran at capacity most of the time bc an empty bed is a bed not making money. How many of these beds that are occupied really need to be occupied rn? I think we all know family members or even ourselves where they want to keep folks for observation when it’s really overly precautious.

Questions go on and on, it’s unfortunate there are no media sources that answer these so we can get a true picture of what’s going on.

Beads my FW had a cancerous kidney removed on Oct. 26th. Was told the hospital stay would be 4 to 7 days after surgery. They sent her home in 48 hours after surgery. I don’t think hospitals keep people just to fill a bed for $$$ anymore with insurance companies running our Healthcare. JMO

MX1825 wrote:

Beads my FW had a cancerous kidney removed on Oct. 26th. Was told the hospital stay would be 4 to 7 days after surgery. They sent her home in 48 hours after surgery. I don’t think hospitals keep people just to fill a bed for $$$ anymore with insurance companies running our Healthcare.

My Uncle who has a terrible heart went in with serious issues on Thanksgiving, his daughter who is longtime RN said it didn’t look good, but he also didn’t have a bed at the hospital he went to.

In the past I’ve personally been kept for observation much longer than needed, close family members and friends all same.

Just asking questions that’s all. Insurance and health care systems are hand in hand, I’m not indicting anyone of anything but things need to be considered.

biggill wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>BigWerm wrote:</div>
New “breakthrough” vaccine data from MN.

Over the past 4 weeks, fully vaccinated people represent:
44% of cases
34% of hospitalizations
44% of deaths

About 70% of ages 12+ are fully vaccinated.

I’m not going to fact check because nobody likes a fact checker but using only this data, an unvaccinated person is 345% more likely to be hospitalized. In the past 4 weeks.

I should also clarify that I used the % of the entire population vaccinated rather than the 70% used above.

I would really like to see that ‘math’. Approximately 30% of the population is unvaxxed (UV) and 70% is vaxxed (V). Approximately that same 30% of UV is represented in the hospitalization % and yet you come to the conclusion that the UV are 345% more likely to be hospitalized? What am I missing…?