The doctors are discussing who will be treated in the event of a pandemic and who will be left to die.
Fair warning, docs: You ignore the possibility of a rather hostile reaction from the family members of those you choose to let die at your peril. I am not saying that hard choices cannot be made. These decisions may have to be made.
But do not expect your calls as to who lives and who dies to sit well with those whose loved ones die as a result.
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Oh come on now, we already know who lives, and who dies. It's the same as today. Those who have the most money (i.e., the most guns at their disposal) live. Those who do not have money, die for lack of medical care. All you have to do is look at the lifespan numbers of the upper quartile vs. the lower quartile to see that.
And yeah, the lower quartiles aren't happy about that, but as Gov. Earl K. Long of Louisiana is reputed to have said about the Legislature ordering him to defy a federal desegregation order back in the 1950's, "What do you want me to do? We're talking about the federal government here, they got the goddamned ATOMIC BOMB." And, I might add, a lot of other very nasty military equipment. As long as the troops themselves and their families get the vaccine, the experience of Iraq seems to show that they'll obey any illegal orders they get as long as they come down properly through the chain of command from an elected President. And if you look at the demographics of today's Army, it's looking rather scary -- rural rednecks from the South (or places culturally in the South, like the central valley of California) and urban gang-bangers, all of whom like violence for the sake of violence. As in, the rednecks like to get into fights in bars just to fight even before they go into the military, and the gang-bangers... well.
So: If the rich live and the poor die *before* a pandemic, what happens when the medical system gets overwhelmed by a pandemic? Same old. Same old. We aren't doing anything about it now. What makes you think there would be any different response later?
- Badtux the Health Care Penguin
I'm just saying that if the docs start telling people "we had to let your mama die because she was too old," they might expect a hostile response.
I'm not saying that I'd frag the doc, if they chose to let my mother go untreated, but I'm not going to say that I wouldn't, either.
That's not how it'll work. The National Guardsmen posted around the hospital wouldn't let you in. Staff would come collect your mother at the door. Your mother would be taken in one door that you're not allowed to go through, the doc doing triage would look at your mother, point at another door, and your mother would be taken out another door to an auditorium or courtyard where those who've been condemned to die are taken. At some point her dead carcass would be hauled away to a crematorium and you'd get a phone call "I'm sorry, but your mother has died and we've been forced to cremate her due to public health reasons, you can pick up her ashes at XYZ Crematorium, box 53251." The death certificate would say "pneumonia" as cause of death.
My mother was a nurse for the state hospital system in Louisiana, which is why I know what their plans were/are for a pandemic. The only way to avoid this system is to have lots of money to fly your sick mother to one of the exclusive private hospitals that the rich use.
And BTW, the doctors and nurses are scared to death that they're going to have to do this at some point in the near future. My mother is now semi-retired (she works part time just enough hours to keep her license), but she works for a state center for the developmentally disabled and if her clients get sick in this kind of pandemic, her biggest concern is that she's going to be required to just watch them die. That's not what she signed up for when she became a nurse. The notion that a doctor or nurse is going to give a shit that you're threatening them, when they themselves will already be pretty damn well suicidal at having to go against everything that caused them to go into the medical field, doesn't pass the giggle test. But it won't get to that, because the National Guard won't let you near a doctor or a nurse in that situation.
- Badtux the Healthcare Penguin
Fine, I'll just whack the head of the hospital, if I'm in a mood to do that. That might even be a better choice than killing a doctor or a nurse who treats sick people.
Nobody's going to cry over a dead hospital administrator, I suspect.
Not saying I will.
Not saying I won't.
I'm just saying that if it comes to this, then they can expect some blowback.
The problem is that at the peak of the pandemic, physicians expect dozens of victims for each available respirator. How do you decide who gets the machine? Those who don't will die.
My advice is to be the first on your block to get the avian flu so that there are plenty of machines awaiting...
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