Italy: No Longer Offering Respirators to Those Over 60 (insurance, dollars, elect)
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What do you think is going to happen here when we run out of ventilators? This is not a rhetorical question... what do you seriously think is going to happen?
I'm expecting we'll triage based on "most likely to recover", and provide opioids for the rest. Just like on a battlefield.
And how many private companies are coming thru for the over 60 crowd? How many corporations are retooling to accommodate?
Many. Many more than you think.
It's a factory, not a text message. You don't get retooled in 0.33 seconds.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dman72
Can't let go of ideological stupidity even now. I guess the "magic" of the free market would have had more ventilators available now....
...newsflash, there would be even less as there were more than demand called for, and that's a no no for profits.
You couldn't be more wrong.
Italy and Spain are not 1st World Countries. They claim to be, but if you've ever spent any time there, and I have, you'd know they have one foot in the 2nd World and one foot in the 3rd World with a veneer of 1st World.
Both countries have a North-South Dichotomy. Northern Italy is wealthy, while southern Italy is dirt-poor. You laugh at Mississippi and Alabama, well obviously you haven't been to southern Italy.
Same for Spain.
Spain has a British-style NHS, while Italy just has universal coverage.
However, both are unitary States and that's problematic.
Unitary States typically spend all the tax dollars on the capital city, because it's the showplace usually.
Romania is a unitary State. Go to Buchareti, it's nice. Go to Iasi, Arad or Satu Mare, and it's like you're on a another planet.
In Italy, the money for the healthcare budget is all spent in Rome. Rome has the most modern hospitals with the most modern equipment and it's staffed at 100%.
Where are your news reports coming from? Not Rome. They're coming from the places where the government doesn't spend any healthcare dollars. What little isn't spent in Rome goes to the North and they throw the South a bone. Those hospitals are decrepit with 1970s equipment and lucky to be staffed at 80%.
Same with Spain. All the money is spent in Madrid. Yeah, Barcelona, but that's only because Barcelona had the Olympics, and, you know, gotta make it look nice for the tourists.
In medical contexts, a ventilator is a machine that either assist the patient breathing or can be set up to breath completely for the patient. Oxygen is bleed in (connected to the vent tubes) and then the ventilator pumps oxygen into the lungs, it also expands the lungs and removes carbon dioxide through a tube on exhalation (pressure changes). The insertion of a tube into a person’s windpipe (trachea) is called intubation and then the ventilator tubing is hooked up to the tube. If someone has a trach the ventilator will be connected to the trach to ventilate.
A ventilator basically mimics natural breathing, assisting in breathing (partial or complete) by using inspiratory and expiratory pressures with O2 bleed in. As Trump said, it is a complicated machine.
COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, and it can cause lung inflammation / congestion (pneumonia), which makes breathing difficulty for patients. That’s why ventilators are needed to help treat some patients with the infection. Bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics, viral pneumonia is not responsive to antibiotics and very hard to treat, many time having to run it's course.
The ventilator provides life support while treatment is given.
Italy and Spain are 1st World Countries. Google for a list of 1st world countries.
I think people in Italy and Spain are heavy smokers. If this is true then this increases the risk and can change outcomes because of lung issues that already existed.
Israeli doctor Gai Peleg, who is currently working to save lives in Parma, Italy, told Channel 12 that things are only getting worse as the number of patients keeps growing.
As his department receives coronavirus patients who are terminally ill the focus is to allow patients to meet loved ones and communicate with them during their last moments despite the quarantine regulations. Other reports claim that, as the numbers of dead increases, some families find themselves unable to secure a proper burial for their loved ones.
Peleg said that, from what he sees and hears in the hospital, the instructions are not to offer access to artificial respiratory machines to patients over 60 as such machines are limited in number.
I'm confident in believing that certain people over 60 would have access.
Healthcare is rationed everywhere in good times and bad. How it’s rationed is the variable.
If there’s only one respirator and 5 people need it, there needs to be an objective protocol as to who gets it.
Age and underlying health condition are factors to be considered.
It becomes a slippery slope when one gets into the weeds of the value of any given life. Does an otherwise healthy 30 year old gang banger with multiple violent felonies trump a 67 year old who lived his life, paid taxes, stayed out of trouble but has a multitude of preexisting health conditions?
Are you going to run criminal background checks and FICO scores?
Anyone think Ivanka Trump won’t get a ventilator before average guy of same age and health, in the remote case it is necessary?
Anyone think some people don’t have a $35.000 ventilator in their possession and are capable of creating their own ICU, if necessary?
It becomes a slippery slope when one gets into the weeds of the value of any given life. Does an otherwise healthy 30 year old gang banger with multiple violent felonies trump a 67 year old who lived his life, paid taxes, stayed out of trouble but has a multitude of preexisting health conditions?
Are you going to run criminal background checks and FICO scores?
Anyone think Ivanka Trump won’t get a ventilator before average guy of same age and health, in the remote case it is necessary?
Anyone think some people don’t have a $35.000 ventilator in their possession and are capable of creating their own ICU, if necessary?
When Bill was president and Hillary was pushing Hillarycare, she said that nurses were undereducated, over paid and needed to do more but when her dad became ill shortly after, he had an entire fully staffed floor in the hospital. I'll never forget it, I was working NICU when that came out and the nurses were fuming. They posted the article on the bulletin board.
Israeli doctor Gai Peleg, who is currently working to save lives in Parma, Italy, told Channel 12 that things are only getting worse as the number of patients keeps growing.
As his department receives coronavirus patients who are terminally ill the focus is to allow patients to meet loved ones and communicate with them during their last moments despite the quarantine regulations. Other reports claim that, as the numbers of dead increases, some families find themselves unable to secure a proper burial for their loved ones.
Peleg said that, from what he sees and hears in the hospital, the instructions are not to offer access to artificial respiratory machines to patients over 60 as such machines are limited in number.
I'm confident in believing that certain people over 60 would have access.
This is a second hand report from a foreign doctor working in Parma, Italy.
Healthcare is rationed everywhere in good times and bad. How it’s rationed is the variable.
If there’s only one respirator and 5 people need it, there needs to be an objective protocol as to who gets it.
Age and underlying health condition are factors to be considered.
In 20 plus years I've never seen healthcare rationed. They make decisions based on potential outcome, legal directives and family. If someone has 5 bullet holes in them and their prognosis is extremely poor they will still treat until they can not get the heart beating again, or directives state no extraordinary measures. If the hospital is unable to handle more patients they'll find a hospital that can take them and send them there, many times they'll life flight them.
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