PSA: a Hurricane Helene effect on healthcare

[ride_4ever]

This is a direct quotation from the DW of squidgiepdx who is in the healthcare field:

For those of you not in the medical field, as an FYI if you have any elective medical procedures you're planning, you might want to press pause. The factory where 1.5million bags of IV fluids are produced daily was taken out by Helene. Right now, nearly every hospital and health system in the US (possibly Canada & Mexico, too) are starting to feel the effects of rationed IV fluids. We used to use cases of fluid every day, but because of Helene, we are down to 40% of what we used to get.

Because I work in Healthcare IT, it fell on me and my coworkers to carry the brunt of all the changes that had to be made. Used to be that you'd show up for your procedure and they'd automatically start an IV drip. Everything we have built for physicians supported that model. Now? We had to redesign not only surgery and procedures workflows, but we also had to programatically ration IV fluids the best way we could.

This information is slowly starting to get out to the public, and trust me - there will be people that will be negatively impacted by this. Maybe not die (though severe trauma patients may not be able to get all the fluids they need, and they might not make it) but not necessarily have the best outcome, either.

Hug your local healthcare worker. This is gonna be bad for the next while. They're saying 6 months before we can expect relief.

Comments

[verushka70]

Egad... I'm not in a position where I need to start an IV on every patient coming through our doors, anymore (yay, outpatient clinic work)...

But when I worked pre-op and recovery, every person got an IV prior to surgery like the forwarded post was. Holy crap, I didn't even realize that was one of the things Helene took out. It is going to really suck for everyone going to ERs, to surgeries, etc.

And here comes Milton. But "there's no such thing as climate change - it's a hoax." /sarcasm

Hurricane season continues to Nov 1 (traditionally).

[ride_4ever]

Marjorie Taylor Greene just said "the Democrats control the weather and it's ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can't be done". So there are Republicans who don't deny that the climate has changed. *moar sarcasm*

[verushka70]

It seems so easy for the average person walking down the street to be thrown in a psych facility - certainly it was with those who were actively psychotic, when I worked ER (of course, with all the appropriate paperwork, the ER doctor's signature, a judge's signature... So "easy" is relative, but I'm saying, we literally did it all the time - yet totally mentally ill politicians like her just get to stay out in the world, spewing their insanity for millions to read and believe. I just can't believe the irrational insanity. I mean, I can - I have seen it in a couple friends - but I've learned using logic, reason, & rational thinking with them does not work because their beliefs have nothing to do with rational thought, logic or reason. They are beliefs - more akin to religious beliefs (or cult brainwashing) than to anything normal and rational.

Of course, the millions of Putin's X/IG/Telegram bots (and China's and Iran's...) will keep putting the insanity out there on social media... And those prone to it will read it and believe it, without any questioning or skepticism.

[ride_4ever]

Have you seen where the journalistic "clean-up" of some of those politicians' crazy-cakes remarks is being called "sane-washing"?

[verushka70]

Because it IS sane-washing.

[verushka70]

...and, you know, in the beginning, it when the media started doing it with Dump word salad 9 years ago, I thought they were just trying to make sense of the word salad and make it into the short, succinct sound bites they're so fond of.

But over time it's become so egregious, and expanded to so many more politicians on the crazy end of the spectrum, that I eventually concluded they really were sane-washing it. After all, there's no reason to think the press is any less divided than the rest of the population. And, like any other field, there are more and (much, much) less scrupulous devotees to the ideals of the profession.

Bottom line, viewers/eyeballs (which=$) trump everything. They don't want to lose viewers/readers, and truthfully reporting the insanity might do that. That's what happens with a corporate controlled so-called free press: when money becomes the deciding factor, truth will always fall by the wayside.

Funny thing - I read an article in Wired about the UAEs attempts to change weather and literally make rain... And they're not actually doing very well at it.

But the article said that after those running the program reported success to UAE leaders some years running now, they now can't backtrack and be truthful that it isn't really working. I have read similar things about American, South African, and Russian attempts to control (or even just mitigate) weather, although at least the NWS and NOAA aren't prepared to report anything but factual weather, meteorology, and atmospheric information.

But if Dump/Vance can implement Project 2025, and get rid of all the nonpartisan government employees in high positions who keep their jobs (and keep doing them) regardless of who is in the White House, and make them instead majority political appointees... There will be no NWS/NOAA left as we've known them our entire lives. They'll just say whatever lies the president wants them to say.

Plus the absolute hubris to think that we puny humans can do anything to control the natural forces of the planet that have existed since before we evolved sentience is staggering. Why anyone would think we can control weather, any more than we can control volcanoes or earthquakes, is utterly beyond me. Because if history is anything to go by (side-eyeing the Army Corps of Engineers...), not only will we fail to do so, but there is every reason to think we'll fuck it up when we try... Just as with the government's early 20th century levee projects (which, rather than mitigating flooding along the Mississippi valley, only worsened it into manmade disasters like the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927), we humans never know or understand nearly as much as we think we do about controlling forces of nature.

[ratcreature]

I think saline was actually scarce before this. Here during the summer there were already news about supply problems with IV fluids and more recently it was news that hospitals had been only getting 80% of the IV fluids they needed for some time. I think there's some sort of world wide issue with the production that this is landing on top of.

[ride_4ever]

Your comment adds to my knowledge of the situation.

[adafrog]

Yep. Remember when the last nasty hurricane hit Puerto Rico? That's where they made the bags for the fluids. Oh, and prosthetics, for some reason.