We have now passed 675,000 dead from COVID, a marker that surpasses the Spanish Flu of 1918, and there doesn’t seem to be a sign it is going to stop anytime soon, in part due to the fact we have a large pushback by anti-vaccination advocates, We have people who cough on others, and there are, unfortunately several of those instances, and those who are advocating wild treatments and threatening to sue hospitals that are slammed if they don’t get that exact, non-approved therapy. When hospitals don’t provide this kind of treatment, workers who are doing the best they can receive threats, and the hospitals face bomb threats and intruders who refuse to leave. We have to admit, openly, we are a nation in triage; a nation that faces serious issues. Triage is not the same as wishing someone dead. Understanding triage doesn’t mean that you are hoping for someone to get sick, or that you are working to deny service. It means that you hit a tipping point and you have to start working as best you can in order to save all of the lives you can. That is a simple fact.
Comedians, like Howard Stern, have made jokes about providing service in order of need to those who received the vaccination first, and to those who have actively refused the vaccine second in order. They have also, like Jimmy Kimmel, said that those who actively refused the vaccine and taken alternate treatment are fools, and should not be at the front of the line. They were making jokes, and good taste or bad taste, what they were really discussing is something that every American should think about; that is how do you effectively triage a nation where there are severe problems being faced in hospitals that are increasingly flooded with cases and death, often by those who refuse to vaccinate. Understanding triage is not, in any way, the same as wishing someone death. It is a system designed to save as many lives as possible. I am an advocate, and always will be, of universal health care — one that works for everyone, regardless of their political affiliation. I feel healthcare is a fundamental right of all individuals and that they are entitled to good heatlhcare, that our hospitals should be staffed with excellent practitioners who are paid well and aren’t crushed by college debt, giving them a path to serve their community. If you voted for Trump in 2020 or 2016, I still want to see you have treatment. As the death toll mounts, we have to take a really hard look at what we do next.
Let’s face it; we are a LONG way from a time when the Trump administration believed that their leader could prevent a virus from spreading.
If we want to save the most lives possible, we have to accept that yelling and screaming at a virus is not a fundamentally strong strategy. Yelling and screaming at hospital workers also is not effective, from Med Page Today:
One of Wolski's supporters on Telegram wrote in her channel, "The receptionist hung up on me ... as soon as I said Veronica Wolski's name. How freakin rude. We need to start a campaign THAT NO ONE . IF THEY CAN at all HELP it BE ADMITTED TO THAT HOSPITAL."
Another wrote on September 12, "Resurrection has horrible reception, likely on purpose. Cannot understand menu. CALL POLICE INSTEAD!!!!!!"
Other commenters shared the physical address of the hospital.
What is effective is understanding triage. From Very Well Health:
Triage is used when the medical-care system is overloaded, meaning there are more people who need care than there are available resources to care for them.1 There may be mass casualties in a war zone, terrorist incident, or natural disaster that results in many injuries. There may be a need for triage when a school bus accident or a large pile-up of cars on a highway results in too many injured people for too few ambulances or EMTs.
In the United States, emergency rooms may be full of people who need immediate attention plus people who are seeking treatment for less serious conditions. The department may be staffed just to meet the expected need. When there are too many patients arriving and not enough personnel or other resources, triage is used to determine who gets care first. This ensures the patients who need lifesaving treatment or hospital admission are seen before those who may be presenting for a less serious condition
The video above does a great job explaining the American accepted triage system in most emergency rooms. If you go into an emergency room for a tetanus shot — an experience I had recently, and you appear on your own, you will be classified as green — low priority — in most cases. You need to be seen, but someone suffering a serious injury — yellow or red — will always come first. You will, however, be seen, even if you both show up at the same time.
Now, we need to apply this standard to what COVID means and where we are today, with the death count we have today. Hospitals are being forced to make tough choices, and sometimes that means turning patients away, as was discovered by an elderly man who had a heart attack and was unable to get treatment in any ICU in Alabama nearby, forced to go 200 miles for treatment. Why would that happen? Unfortunately, the hospital and doctors likely had to make a tough call; they did not have beds available for him, and he would potentially risk exposure to COVID there; at his age, with a heart attack, and the state of their hospital, he would fall in the “black” coding — too difficult to save his life in the current state of the hospital.
This is a case of serious medical ethics. Should hospitals turn people away? No. Hospitals should do everything possible to help people and to serve communities, and hospitals do not care about political affiliation nor should they suddenly care.
Hospitals fill up and can face difficult choices. Nurses evaluate patients and determine course of treatment. Patients who suffer heart attacks and strokes are just as entitled to a bed in a hospital as someone with COVID. A patient who was in a car crash, a home fire, or a workplace injury can need serious treatment and may survive. These difficult decisions are in the hands of practitioners; who are battling the constant feeling of a major battle that refuses to stop.
Those who are unvaccinated still have people around them who love them, care for them, and will miss them every day they are gone. This story from the Salt Lake Tribune really hammers that home.
Utah’s coronavirus deaths have overwhelmingly befallen the unvaccinated. Of nearly 1,200 Utahns who have died since Jan. 1, only 80 were fully vaccinated, according to the Utah Department of Health.
Anti-masker, anti-vaccine advocates want to make statements by comedians about progressive desire to hate Republicans or wish them death. Every Democratic governor wants everyone to get vaccinated. They want to see even the people who hate them get treatment. They do it because they value our nation as a whole, and the impact you can have on the lives of others, the loved ones left behind.
If you choose to seek alternative treatment, and find yourself going to a hospital too far gone; in a state where you refuse proper healthcare treatment and demand a treatment of your own, there is nothing a hospital can do or say for you. In that case, the best a nurse or staff can do may be to tell you that they cannot treat you as you desire, and to realize you have made the active choice to be classified as a code black — unlikely to survive if treated. Unlikely to survive because you have chosen your treatment method. Your family will mourn you; and trust me, there will be a nurse at the hospital who will go home with tears — and I say this not as a joke — about patients that they lost or are losing due to any illness, from COVID to cancer.
America is a nation in triage. Pointing it out is not a political act. Realizing this means that some can put themselves in a place where their treatment denies treatment of other, and their decision to act as their own doctor may endanger others is something hospitals have to consider.
Republicans, if only you had universal health care and wiped out college debt or made a contract of service with our healthcare workers, how different our country could be right now. These are the results. I know Republicans will point out how many have put out pro-vaccine advertisements. Do more. Speak to your base, and make it clear where you stand. If you don’t, you are the one creating the problem.
And morally, that is far more unspeakable than what two comedians have done in addressing the problem.