2020.05.02 02:54
‘Our patients are dropping like flies’: 16,000 dead from COVID-19 in U.S. nursing homes
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/05/01/coronavirus-nursing-homes-more-states-pressured-name-facilities/3062537001/
2020.05.02 03:18
2020.05.02 05:04
You may not have known.
But this is the way the U.S. geriatric medicine's goal of getting rid of the disabled,
the sick, and socially dependent senior population as fast as possible.
It is nauseating to hear but it is true.
You know our medicare does not pay for the PSA testing so that we can not make an early
diagnosis of prostatic cancer that is the major part of senior mortality.
The Corona Virus is the God-given pleasure for the geriatric society and Medicare.
(I do not know if they cover the PSA test nowadays. They didn't a few years ago.)
Addendum: Try to keep your money so that you can stay in your home till you die.
Keep and save enough money to hire a full-time personal caretaker in your own home.
Once your money goes to your children, it's not yours anymore and you have no control where you live.
Don't go to a nursing home just because Medicare and Medicaid or MediCal cover you 100%.
2020.05.02 05:49
https://news.joins.com/article/23767849?cloc=joongang-home-newslistleft
끔찍"…당국이 13명 숨졌다던 뉴욕 요양원, 98명 집단 사망
[출처: 중앙일보] "끔찍"…당국이 13명 숨졌다던 뉴욕 요양원, 98명 집단 사망
I do not know exactly what is going on in other parts of the American health care system,
but I have seen enough how wasteful it has been in the operating room. How many
unnecessary hysterectomies were done until the early 1980s? How about tonsillectomies and
making a hole in the eardrum on poor children? All of sudden those were disappeared.
Nowadays, we hardly see them doing it. Another laughing stock is the oral surgery. In the early 1980s,
oral surgeons were doing operations to correct prognathism for years. The oral surgeon said that
teeth would be ruined if it is not corrected. One day, they were not doing it. Health insurance
no longer covered it. It required nasotracheal intubation. Airway could easily be compromised
if extubation was prematurely done because of swelling.
It did not matter if it generated money. How about craniotomies on intracerebral hemorrhages,
intracranial gunshot wounds, and brain tumors?
Even if those unnecessary surgeries are largely gone, there are new kinds of unnecessary
surgeries are being done. How about spine surgeries on low back pain, arthroscopies, joint
replacement surgeries?
How about preoperative lab tests? The majority of them are useless. Of course, a lot of good
things are done for patients in the OR, but it is just not cost-effective and driven
by profit-taking. In other words, it is more like a factory than the hospital for patient care.
2020.05.03 01:40
Health insurance is the culprit as Dr. Ohn correctly pointed out, giving the incentive on the financial benefits with no doubts. But I didn't see such wild blatant unethical practice in our area! Although my own experiences are too limited in academic institute to have enough bird eyes view across the medical practice throughout the country, I didn't see any intentional misapplication though some were involved to overdoing we interpreted as a overzealous self defense - I got involved to the Society to serve for medicolegal committee for decades! -. But, heard about such accusation as unethical behaviors. So a few rotten apples in the bushel ruined the reputation as a whole, I believe. However with my liberal(?) view on the issue of euthanasia, this country should abandon such stoic attitude and let the 'dying' old people die as they wish and stop to keeping the meaningless (?) lives. Indeed, the first thing I did when I reached to Age 80 was to stop routine follow up by my urologist on my prostate known with precancerous lesion on the biopsies, including the PSA and told him I am ready to take it's natural course!
BB Lee
This is a shame, indeed.
A quarter of all deaths from COVID19 took place in US nursing homes.
The virus is having a feast on humans there.
When you realize the US nursing homes have been short of manpower
along with shortage of equipment such as PPE, etc., this massive deaths
in ECF of this country is no surprise to physicians like ourselves.
Why US nursing homes are short of practically everything for decades as long as I remember?
Of course, that's because they are all managed by profit only minded business men
hired by publicly or privately owned, share owner interest first, companies,
whose stocks are traded in Wall Street.
This is only one of numerous complications of a capitalistic country, I suppose.
You realize why we need democrats who will never stop trying to regulate to prevent
the disaster like this, although this Pandemic is too much to be prepared for any capitalistic
country in the world except South Korea and a few others.