This makes me sad...and so not surprised
Oct. 22nd, 2009 02:33 pmThe memory still bothers Ken Keller: A panicked ambulance crew had a critically ill patient, but the man weighed more than 1,000 pounds and could not fit inside the vehicle. And the stretcher wasn't sturdy enough to hold him.
The crew offered an idea to Keller, who was then an investigator with the Kansas Board of Emergency Medical Services. Could they use a forklift to load the man - bed and all - onto a flatbed truck? Keller agreed: There was no other choice.
I'm going to point you back to a post I made some time ago: This is not about the pretty.
Because here it is again. And this time, it's going for the pocketbook, without shame.
*reads article again* Over $1,000 to simply move someone to the hospital. Yikes. And let me remind you that the worst bill to get covered by Medicare is ambulance rides. When they finally do pay? Company has either gone out of business or is on their way out. I swear most of the ambulances in San Bernardino county have at least five coats of paint on them as they change hands over and over again, bankruptcy to bankruptcy.
And before you jump in there with the 'UNFAIR TO THE - ' cries, I might remind you of the biggest 'invisible disability' around.
Burnout. And if you work in the healthcare profession, it's estimated that it occurs 100% of the time. (Kind of like riding a motorcycle. Do it enough, and it'll kill you - statistically speaking.)
Trying to cope with this one specific challenge - over and over again - you see it, you know you can do nothing about it, and you've seen both the short-term and long-term. You know what's coming. And it's not cancer. It is a chronic condition, with pitiful little support or sympathy.
I won't say this one issue causes burnout in health care professionals by itself; but damn, it sure is the one I hear responsible for most of the 'problems facing Americans today' when the educational films are shown.
Burnout ruins a lot of people - and it's so common, nobody even notices. They just keep going to work because that's what they're supposed to do.
So yeah. Not with the surprise here, because we're dealing with two things here - a poorly reimbursed service that's vitally necessary and worn-out care providers thinking where to place the blame, going for the -ahem- largest target. (And honestly, the one that scares them the most.)
So very broken. So very, very broken...this is.
The crew offered an idea to Keller, who was then an investigator with the Kansas Board of Emergency Medical Services. Could they use a forklift to load the man - bed and all - onto a flatbed truck? Keller agreed: There was no other choice.
I'm going to point you back to a post I made some time ago: This is not about the pretty.
Because here it is again. And this time, it's going for the pocketbook, without shame.
*reads article again* Over $1,000 to simply move someone to the hospital. Yikes. And let me remind you that the worst bill to get covered by Medicare is ambulance rides. When they finally do pay? Company has either gone out of business or is on their way out. I swear most of the ambulances in San Bernardino county have at least five coats of paint on them as they change hands over and over again, bankruptcy to bankruptcy.
And before you jump in there with the 'UNFAIR TO THE - ' cries, I might remind you of the biggest 'invisible disability' around.
Burnout. And if you work in the healthcare profession, it's estimated that it occurs 100% of the time. (Kind of like riding a motorcycle. Do it enough, and it'll kill you - statistically speaking.)
Trying to cope with this one specific challenge - over and over again - you see it, you know you can do nothing about it, and you've seen both the short-term and long-term. You know what's coming. And it's not cancer. It is a chronic condition, with pitiful little support or sympathy.
I won't say this one issue causes burnout in health care professionals by itself; but damn, it sure is the one I hear responsible for most of the 'problems facing Americans today' when the educational films are shown.
Burnout ruins a lot of people - and it's so common, nobody even notices. They just keep going to work because that's what they're supposed to do.
So yeah. Not with the surprise here, because we're dealing with two things here - a poorly reimbursed service that's vitally necessary and worn-out care providers thinking where to place the blame, going for the -ahem- largest target. (And honestly, the one that scares them the most.)
So very broken. So very, very broken...this is.