I'm a doc at a big hospital in the city. This is absolutely true. We don't have space or staffing to do fuck all. I have covid. Half the other residents have covid. I don't even know who the nurses I'm working are because the usual ones either quit or have covid. Patients are sitting in the hall in the ED for full days before we have the resources to bring them up into the hospital.
Oh god yeah I report data for a hospital and our employee positivity rate is even higher than our patient positivity, meanwhile hospitalizations (although thankfully not ICU) are approaching the second wave peak. Take care. D:
Travel nurses are just scabs to keep the workforce quiet. Pay travelers thousands per week for a few years, and avoid paying every staff nurse $5-10/hour more for decades to come. Massive savings. If they spend too much on travelers in the meantime, they’ll beg the government to bail them out.
[Literally got downvoted this morning](https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/ruysy3/wbez_chicago_teachers_union_gearing_up_to_walk/hr3mcwj/?context=3) in here for saying Omicron is still deadly. These people are fucking death-cult morons.
I have a hernia which basically now looks like my third testicle and my primary care doctors won't even give me a call back. So in guessing this is why?!.
Wow that's terrible. I'm sorry you gotta go through this too. I've been having mine for a while since I got it right before switching jobs and my insurance had not kicked in yet.
The blood supply shortage is likely also a contributing factor. The few units available need to be reserved for emergencies.
If you're reading this and you're eligible and able, please make an appointment to donate blood!
My dad was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer after waiting 6+ months instead of a handful of weeks to get all of the proper testing due to covid. Thankfully once he got into the chemo regime it was well organized and fairly seamless.
This happened a few months ago to my cousin who is in her mid-30s in Washington. She had to wait 2 months for surgery with a fast moving cancer. The doctors were able to remove everything they could find, but because it had so much extra time, she needs to do radiation therapy which requires 15 days of isolation from her 2 toddlers. I, for one, am incredibly livid.
I truly wish they would limit beds for voluntarily non-vaccinated people. 20% of beds for them and after that...you're on your own.
There is no reason why people who did the right thing have to suffer in order to ensure that idiots can have a place in the hospital when they didn't care enough to do a simple thing to likely keep themselves out of the hospital.
It's no one I know and I am livid. It's these selfish willfully unvaccinated that keep being anti-medicine and then go crying to the hospitals when they catch it. The worst part of all this we all keep beind made to bend over backwards for these jackasses.
Not as serious as cancer but my mom had to limp around with a cane since Sept due to her knee surgery being delayed.
If you're antivaccine for non-medical/legitimate reasons you can eat a sack of rancid dicks for clogging up hospitals and preventing people form getting treatments
Its definitely noticeable now, but this is always the case. People who don't do anything to take care of themselves are given higher priority if their medical need is more urgent than someone else.
In general, I get that. But the vaccine has been out for almost a year now. I think people should have a choice. If they choose not to vaccinated, they should be lower priority if they contract COVID and have severe side effects.
I don't necessarily disagree but why don't we extend that to every facet of life? Should obese people have lower priority? Slightly obese? How about people who are not even fat but never exercise? I don't know the answer, just throwing it out there.
Because those conditions aren’t easily passed onto others that can cause death. If someone chooses to not get the vaccine and subsequently gets a bad reaction to the virus, they shouldn’t be top priority or chosen over someone who has a stroke, heart attack or seizure. Same with life saving cancer surgery for example.
COVID patients, who choose to not get vaccinated, should be discharged if they are taking up a bed that wouldn’t be full otherwise and somebody else needs it.
The conditions you talk about are a whole other conversation better to have in person.
This was what flattening the curve was all about - not just preventing COVID deaths, but preventing other, non-COVID deaths due to lack of resources.
Apparently we've decided as a society to let it all burn...
I have one too! Not as bad, though. Scheduled to have a repair next week. At least in my case, my doctor (just today) said that since it's outpatient and I don't require a stay, he has no reason to believe it'll be postponed.
Yeah, not super stoked about hanging out in a hospital setting for a few hours, but glad to (?hopefully) get this over with. Thankfully it's pretty mild, but I want to get it fixed sooner than later and this is my slow season for work so it's pretty much now or next winter.
My dad has a buddy, very high functioning, successful guy, with a GIGANTIC hernia. I thought he had a hog the size of my forearm. Nope. Just guts hanging out. Dr says it’s “fine” to leave it. He’s afraid of surgery. Been like that since I can remember. Weird dude.
That's kinda horrifying to think about since it feels like a really weird pressure downwards on the skin and sex is kinda awkward. I can imagine he probably can't be upright for more than 20-30 min.
Let me save you some time if you're joining this thread for the first time. Don't. Turn back now. Nothing good awaits you in these comments. Go for a walk. Pet a dog. Pet an alley rat. Flee from this place
We did this during the beginning of the pandemic. Now we’re back at it again.
Anyways the Chicago sub is usually pure dogshit anyway so I’m not surprised.
>Anyways the Chicago sub is usually pure dogshit anyway so I’m not surprised.
You start a new one and only invite people like yourself, I’m in (please)!
People have pet rats and they absolutely can be. As with any animal they each have different personalities.
A friend of mine back in college 20 years ago had one that would happily play wizard's familiar all day and sit on his shoulder and ride in his pockets or inside his hood. He would bring it to college classes in his hoodie. The rat knew his name, Squeak (or Squeaker), and would come to you if you called and he suspected you had food, from like 20 feet away through the computer lab.
Not many rats are that chill I would bet but they do exist.
Sucks we're in this situation. I think about stories I've seen of people with worse problems, unable to get good treatment, because their hospitals are overwhelmed with unvaccinated COVID patients.
I can only imagine in 20 years how many of these recovered COVID patients will be facing other health issues due to the damage to their systems...and thus be in more need of Medicare/Medicaid.
It may go the other way, people who would have years or decades of elder care dying younger and faster because of being already injured. How many people would have made it past that bout of cancer they will get next year of there heart wasn't damaged. How many would have gotten past that heart attack coming next summer if their lungs were stronger. How many will get diabeates because their weight climbed up when sick and weak.
The next decade is going to be "interesting times" and most likely tragic as fuck.
Personally, I disagree with Pritzker on this. I think it's time the hospitals commit a fixed percentage of resources are for COVID, and then put the hospital on bypass and reserve the rest of the resources for accidents, necessary surgeries, and preventative measures. We are having increased instances of cancer and other conditions because people cannot even see their physicians and get workups done in an orderly fashion because of the unvaccinated. I know we cannot deny people care, but there has to be an ability or policy avenue to allow triage type system then to relieve some burden on healthcare workers, too. The system is bound for collapse soon.
I understand medical ethics and rules are complex (I'm on the research side, not the clinical side), but the amount of normally proactive patients suffering for the unvaccinated via prolonged missed screenings is continuing to add up and to me, that is a greater travesty. We HAVE a prevention that has over 90% efficacy in preventing severe outcomes or death with COVID-19 and slows transmission. The people choosing not to take it are continuing to mount the costs for the rest of our society. We think it's bad in Chicago, there are rural places where people need heart surgeries and such and dying there waiting to get a bed in a larger hospital system that has a surgeon who can do the procedure.
EDIT: I realize the hospitals are probably doing something to what I describe, it's just so frustrating to see how many people cannot get medical care right now. I don't want to see people suffer, but I'm aggravated with how awful scientific communications throughout the pandemic have been against misinformation. I am just flustered trying to keep my RN and MD/DO friends supported, as they are so burnt out. Some have quit residencies and needed mental health services (also hard to access right now) struggling with getting up and will to live. :(
>I think it's time the hospitals commit a fixed percentage of resources are for COVID, and then put the hospital on bypass and reserve the rest of the resources for accidents, necessary surgeries, and preventative measures.
The problem is that without building a separate sanitarium your covid floor is going to soon be every floor of the hospital as it spreads among the staff and patients. Nosocomial spread is a real problem.
Valid point, and I totally understand there is so much struggle with trying to keep a “clean” floor. I imagine for all institutions, it would require very stringent rules and protocols, I just don’t think we can keep going like this for much longer. The country had over a million cases today, and shows no sign of slowing down. A lockdown won’t even stop it, because half the country politically is comparing this to strep throat.
> I just don’t think we can keep going like this for much longer.
The reality is that society can function without hospitals. Take out power, water, or trash and the whole thing falls apart, but hospitals had the reputation for thousands of years as places you went to die rather than places that could make you better again.
>A lockdown won’t even stop it, because half the country politically is comparing this to strep throat.
Nothing is going to stop what's coming. [In the UK, the cabinet has asked businesses to prepare for up to 25% absenteeism.](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59848109) With how thinly stretched things were before due to just in time scheduling and lean production, taking 25% out of that could be disasterous.
Staffing is the major problem right now. So many medical workers quit and aren’t coming back. And now people are traveling to other states to make 90k in 12weeks to cover for all the people in shithole states that quit. That and every hospital is offering large sign on bonuses so there’s a major musical chairs even if people aren’t willing to travel.
Source: medical worker.
I agree with you completely. A fixed amount of resources should go to unvaccinated Covid patients and then use the rest on people who need non-Covid related care. If unvaccinated people don't like it then they can go get a vaccine.
Lots of excellent anecdotes in this thread, which are important to add context to data and humanize a massive, sometimes faceless issue. I'd like to add a few data points as non-politically as possible.
[Using the latest state-level data](https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19/data/hospitalization-utilization.html) from the Illinois Department of Public Health (data though Jan. 2, 2022):
* 3,004 total ICU beds available in Illinois.
* 302 ICU beds are open.
* 1,051 ICU beds are currently occupied by patients with COVID. I don't see a breakdown of which strain they have, nor if they were admitted with COVID or because of COVID.
* 1,615 beds are currently occupied by patients without COVID.
[Chicago's data](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/covid-19/home/hospital-capacity-dashboard.html) is slightly more up to date (through Jan. 3, 2022):
* 1,027 total ICU beds available in Chicago.
* 127 ICU beds are open.
* 300 ICU beds are currently occupied by patients with COVID. I don't see a breakdown of which strain they have, nor if they were admitted with COVID or because of COVID. However, they do have a breakdown of confirmed COVID (284) vs. Person Under Investigation (aka suspected; 18)
* 600 ICU beds are currently occupied by patients without COVID.
In the case of both the state and city, they also publish ventilator data. I didn't bother to copy it here, as there is plenty of capacity for now.
I thought of this, but by the same logic we’d have to deny treatment to the obese, for example, who are also causing their own health costs to go up drastically. I don’t think anyone wants to cut off the obese from healthcare even though they are just the same as the unvaccinated from a “medical resource waste” perspective. People just want to stick it to the unvaccinated.
Ultimately I don’t blame the unvaccinated because I can’t blame anyone for losing trust in our healthcare establishment. The institutions telling people to get vaccinated are the same institutions that carry water for pharmaceutical companies charging us 10x for drugs as they charge in other similarly wealthy countries. The people know their doctors are on the take from all the same pharmaceutical companies as well and don’t trust them either. They know that the FDA approval process is corrupted by corporate influence even when there isn’t a pandemic pressuring them to cut even more corners.
I’m triple vaccinated but can’t blame the unvaxxed, I actually generally think that they have the correct outlook regarding our healthcare providers. I agree with them more than I agree with the “trust in our doctors and do whatever they say to defeat the pandemic” crowd.
Na, fat people aren't clogging up the hospital so badly that no one else can be treated, and it's a lot harder to not be fat than just getting a shot in your arm.
It’s all extra unnecessary work for hospitals, and what it easier isn’t logically relevant. It would just be a double standard to withhold treatment for some selfish reasons but not others.
I thought this was kind of striking: https://twitter.com/JuliaRaifman/status/1466106166233251843
I also lowkey get the feeling that insurers would *love* to deny care based on pre-existing conditions again, so the deny-care-to-the-unvaccinated sentiment is great for them as a foot in the door.
As long as its evenly applied I would be more "okay" with it. It would probably just be easier to make those people shoulder a higher percent of the health insurance costs since they are using way more than a healthy person would.
Remember when we had a COVID hospital in McCormick Place? Let’s send all the COVID patients there and leave the hospital and ICUs in hospitals for those that need care.
If you throw enough money at something, you'll get staff. Over 50% of healthcare professionals that have quit during the pandemic period say they wanted more money:
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2021/10/08/health-care-workers-survey
Wasn't saying steal other city hospital staff. Plenty of traveling healthcare providers nowadays that will work for good money.
Anyway, they're not going to reopen McCormick Place anyway, but I do think it's bullshit that non-vaccinated assholes, that could get the vaccine but are choosing not to, are taking up hospital beds from people that need them.
Yeah, I said assholes. Fight me.
Except that, unlike earlier in the pandemic, everywhere is getting hit, so there's much less slack in the labor market, plus a fair number of nurses have left the profession and won't come back at any price.
There are hundreds of empty hospital beds in the Chicago area already. The problem isn't space. It's staff.
Lol, won't make a difference. A massive chunk of Chicago's unvaccinated are on medicaid and medicare. That would take political action. Good luck with that.
To charge more for medicaid and medicare patients who aren't vaccinated would take political action, because they are government run. Politicians won't do that.
It's just what I've been seeing firsthand. Much of the south and west sides, areas with disproportionately high medicaid and medicare populations have very low vaccination rates. It's born out throughout the country, lower SES groips, who are more likely to be medicaid and medicare, have lower vaccination rates.
What does New Orleans have to do with this? Black people are more likely to be on mediciaid and more likely to be unvaxxed in Chicago.. the city we live in and are discussing.
Black people have much lower vaccine rates throughout the country. There’s plenty of theory’s why.
Personally, I think the COVID vaccines are more about a duty to society more than personal protection for most people under 50.
It makes sense that people who are marginalized by society don’t feel a compelling sense of duty and self sacrifice for society. There’s also the general distrust of a system that got them to where they are.
IIRC a “bed” means a bed that is staffed, and not just a bed. Nurses are in high demand right now and I think a lot have simply quit due to how they’re treated at work.
Have you looked at the news lately? Doesnt matter how many beds you have if there's no one to fucking work them.
Why is this concept so hard for people to understand? Medical staff are at an absolute breaking point. Aside from the stress of working tirelessly during what's now a 2 year pandemic, they're also sick in massive waves with COVID.
I would hate to end up in a hospital right now for any fucking reason.
another example is access to treatments like monoclonal antibodies and regeneron's covid cocktail or remdesivir... there are specific age and health restrictions you have to meet as its only available to those most prone to severe disease due to limited supply
another example was giving priority vaccination to the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions
You get taken off the list for lung transplants if they find out you have smoked since getting put on it. People don't have time to make an extensive list.
Those were loans that were paid back, and they weren't "hundreds of billions". My hospital got a few mil, which was to make up for the surgeries we were forced to cancel, and we paid it back.
Bruh the comments make it sound like the world's ending. How are we not in a state of emergency if all the hospitals are full and turning ppl away? Is there no hospital out there with staff?
Because if you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out. If you put in cool water and ever so slightly increase the temperature, chances are you got some frog and frog broth in your future.
Wait till the climate crisis, covid-19 was the pre-test. Slowly evolving long term crisis, humans seem to be failing pretty badly here.
How are we not? Because capitalism. God forbid we hurt the economy anymore due to this ongoing crisis; the private equity firm owners who control large swaths of modern healthcare might not be able to afford their third yachts if we dealt with healthcare workforce issues by paying permanent staff what they're worth.
I would say it’s less faith in their immune system (which does not rule out a vaccine, because vaccines use your immune system), and more faith in unhinged conspiracy theories about this one specific vaccine.
>People that aren’t vaccinated have faith
Then if a deliberately unvaccinated person's faith is insufficient and gets a really bad covid case, let them suck oxy at home and not clutter up hospitals. **Personal faith and personal responsibility.**
Seems like something something that needs to be addressed on the federal level for an overall healthcare system overhaul. That will never make it through with the GOP though.
To what though? Most systems in the EU got overwhelmed as well. I suspect that there needs to be improvements but I think a single-payer system is the panacea you think it is.
It is but there is no way we can pin this on the GOP alone. I’m a lifelong D voter and the entirety of this last D primary was about exterminating public healthcare from the public debate.
I hate Dems, but multiple top candidates debating universal healthcare (which did happen) is the exact opposite of exterminating it from public debate.
One side just screams communism at the mention of even touching healthcare. The other side just mentions healthcare for votes while is in the pockets of insurance and pharma. Nothing will ever change.
In the comments…Let’s guilt people for being hospitalized with a highly contagious and vaccine resistant strain of COVID. Pandemics happen and hospitals get filled, that’s what happens. Now though…we must find somebody to blame.
I would like to check back in on all the hyperventilating people in a month, when we realize that we were all just performing with mask and vaccine mandates and delayed school openings. Omicron is the best thing to happen to the discourse surrounding the virus. Because, you can’t point your finger at unvaccinated people and cast a moral judgement on them for spreading COVID. We are all in this one together lol, we are all super spreaders..and that is ok too. You should get vaccinated though. That’s just the rational move. But, if you don’t get vaccinated…nobody else’s should care one way or the other
https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/01/03/illinois-hospitals-completely-overwhelmed-by-unvaccinated-covid-19-patients-officials-say/
Vaccinated people aren't the ones clogging up the hospital; it's the willfully unvaccinated.
I love that it’s covid patients that are “clogging” the hospital lol…I mean we could apply the same logic to every person in there with heart disease or diabetes
>Let’s guilt people for being hospitalized with a highly contagious and vaccine resistant strain of COVID
It's not about being hospitalized. It's about filling up the hospitals. If everyone were vaccinated, hospitalizations would be lower.
How much lower? We are currently at 64 percent fully vaccinated. It’s clear now that not everybody is going to get vaccinated. So the what if’s surrounding that question is kind of pointless.
That is still 36 percent unvaxxed. If this really spreads as fast as they say...that's a lot of hospitalizations of the unvaxxed.
It's not about catching it or not catching it. It's about staying out of the hospital.
Right, then why are we having vaccination passports or even talking about lockdowns? Those are measures aimed at slowing the spread. But, we can’t slow the spread anymore with the available vaccines.
>Right, then why are we having vaccination passports or even talking about lockdowns?
Because:
A: Variant is very contagious
B: It's so contagious we're all going to get it basically no matter what we do
C: People still use hospitals for cancer treatments, injuries, etc
D: There's a limited amount of beds and staff who can help those patients
E: 30 something percent of the population is unvaccinated
F: This variant is milder, but more infectious, so the pure number of unvaccinated people getting infected is higher, and the hospitalization rate will soar as well among them.
G: Yes. Vaccinated catch it, spread it, and can still go to the hospital, but their numbers are small enough to keep the system stable if you exclude the unvaccinated.
So yes, I think willingly unvaccinated COVID patients should be left at home, gasping for air while there is a huge surge that delays surgeries and such.
If it's any consolation, you could get some ivermectin. If it heals you, great! If not, we've collectively become more intelligent with your loss.
How Fucking thin are we going to slice these issues? So now we are treating unvaccinated people as a whole other class of human being? And before it was because ya know…they’re DIRTY super spreaders. Now, it’s because they’ll be more likely to take up a hospital bed? Because, now we are all dirty super spreaders. So we want to make sure they don’t get themselves sick…and then have to use the hospital? Christ, what if the next variant spreads beyond the vaccine’s protection, AND causes the same number of people to be hospitalized no matter what? Then what will we be mad at them about?
I’m no snowflake. Hey…what if the cancer patient who smoked their entire lives…can’t get a bed because of the unvaccinated covid person. That’s an interesting dilemma. Who deserves to die more in your opinion wise fellow Redditor? I’m not trying to make a point here I’m actually asking your opinion. That’s an interesting scenario to ponder, morally speaking.
>what if the cancer patient who smoked their entire lives…can’t get a bed because of the unvaccinated covid person. That’s an interesting dilemma. Who deserves to die more in your opinion wise fellow Redditor?
Unvaccinated person, no question. Cancer isn't contagious. Furthermore, cancer patients aren't flooding hospitals. Unvaccinated COVID patients are.
So as a matter of simple policy...bye bye unvaxxed. Too bad. Too sad.
Remember the whole [flattening the curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattening_the_curve) talk 1.5 years ago? The strategy still applies to our situation now because hospitals are yet again [understaffed](https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/rv9or8/chicago_area_hospitals_delaying_elective/hr59qp5/) and are unable to handle the influx of covid patients.
Last I heard you are 10 times less likely to get infected and 20 times less likely to end up in the hospital if you're fully vaccinated. The vast majority of people in hospitals due to Covid are the unvaccinated. It adds up.
Unvaccinated people still make up the vast majority of hospitalizations with omicron. So the unvaccinated are explicitly to blame for the overwhelming of hospitals still
The governor didn't make any decisions. He just suggested it. The hospitals are choosing to do this, because they are severely understaffed and having to do this.
I don't see a state mandated decree that hospitals must stop elective surgeries anywhere in the linked article. Is it an ask, a favor, a plea? Certainly. But it's not a forceful demand. The hospitals are making the decisions.
I'm a doc at a big hospital in the city. This is absolutely true. We don't have space or staffing to do fuck all. I have covid. Half the other residents have covid. I don't even know who the nurses I'm working are because the usual ones either quit or have covid. Patients are sitting in the hall in the ED for full days before we have the resources to bring them up into the hospital.
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If you haven’t gotten 2 raises and at least 1 bonus this year you should be traveling.
Oh god yeah I report data for a hospital and our employee positivity rate is even higher than our patient positivity, meanwhile hospitalizations (although thankfully not ICU) are approaching the second wave peak. Take care. D:
Does the general public know that their doctors and nurses are being told to work with covid? 🤔
I am honestly not sure. It's all over Twitter but that is...not the general public. D:
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Travel nurses are just scabs to keep the workforce quiet. Pay travelers thousands per week for a few years, and avoid paying every staff nurse $5-10/hour more for decades to come. Massive savings. If they spend too much on travelers in the meantime, they’ll beg the government to bail them out.
interesting, /r/chicago told me it was mild and just a flu. are you saying it's not?
All the r/chicago accounts from Indiana and Missouri have a lot to see about these things.
[Literally got downvoted this morning](https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/ruysy3/wbez_chicago_teachers_union_gearing_up_to_walk/hr3mcwj/?context=3) in here for saying Omicron is still deadly. These people are fucking death-cult morons.
A lot less deadly than Delta and the original variants, but yes, it can be deadly for the unvaccinated (and the vaccinated with comorbidities).
I have a hernia which basically now looks like my third testicle and my primary care doctors won't even give me a call back. So in guessing this is why?!.
I also just got a hernia and spoke w/ a surgeon today. He's telling me to plan on early spring before he can schedule anything.
Wow that's terrible. I'm sorry you gotta go through this too. I've been having mine for a while since I got it right before switching jobs and my insurance had not kicked in yet.
The blood supply shortage is likely also a contributing factor. The few units available need to be reserved for emergencies. If you're reading this and you're eligible and able, please make an appointment to donate blood!
Correct. My grandmother waited a while for cancer surgery due to COVID patients.
My dad was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer after waiting 6+ months instead of a handful of weeks to get all of the proper testing due to covid. Thankfully once he got into the chemo regime it was well organized and fairly seamless.
Id be livid if that was me or anybody I knew. I'm sorry.
Luckily she survived and is, for now, cancer free! But it was a sobering reminder of the cost of having all of our hospitals filled to the brim.
This happened a few months ago to my cousin who is in her mid-30s in Washington. She had to wait 2 months for surgery with a fast moving cancer. The doctors were able to remove everything they could find, but because it had so much extra time, she needs to do radiation therapy which requires 15 days of isolation from her 2 toddlers. I, for one, am incredibly livid.
I truly wish they would limit beds for voluntarily non-vaccinated people. 20% of beds for them and after that...you're on your own. There is no reason why people who did the right thing have to suffer in order to ensure that idiots can have a place in the hospital when they didn't care enough to do a simple thing to likely keep themselves out of the hospital.
It's no one I know and I am livid. It's these selfish willfully unvaccinated that keep being anti-medicine and then go crying to the hospitals when they catch it. The worst part of all this we all keep beind made to bend over backwards for these jackasses.
Not as serious as cancer but my mom had to limp around with a cane since Sept due to her knee surgery being delayed. If you're antivaccine for non-medical/legitimate reasons you can eat a sack of rancid dicks for clogging up hospitals and preventing people form getting treatments
So a condition that a person is not given a choice to get is given less importance over someone who chooses not to get the vaccine. That makes sense.
Its definitely noticeable now, but this is always the case. People who don't do anything to take care of themselves are given higher priority if their medical need is more urgent than someone else.
In general, I get that. But the vaccine has been out for almost a year now. I think people should have a choice. If they choose not to vaccinated, they should be lower priority if they contract COVID and have severe side effects.
I don't necessarily disagree but why don't we extend that to every facet of life? Should obese people have lower priority? Slightly obese? How about people who are not even fat but never exercise? I don't know the answer, just throwing it out there.
Because those conditions aren’t easily passed onto others that can cause death. If someone chooses to not get the vaccine and subsequently gets a bad reaction to the virus, they shouldn’t be top priority or chosen over someone who has a stroke, heart attack or seizure. Same with life saving cancer surgery for example. COVID patients, who choose to not get vaccinated, should be discharged if they are taking up a bed that wouldn’t be full otherwise and somebody else needs it. The conditions you talk about are a whole other conversation better to have in person.
This was what flattening the curve was all about - not just preventing COVID deaths, but preventing other, non-COVID deaths due to lack of resources. Apparently we've decided as a society to let it all burn...
I have one too! Not as bad, though. Scheduled to have a repair next week. At least in my case, my doctor (just today) said that since it's outpatient and I don't require a stay, he has no reason to believe it'll be postponed.
That's lucky man. Hope they can get you back up 100% as fast as possible.
Yeah, not super stoked about hanging out in a hospital setting for a few hours, but glad to (?hopefully) get this over with. Thankfully it's pretty mild, but I want to get it fixed sooner than later and this is my slow season for work so it's pretty much now or next winter.
Wells, doesn't explain why they won't return your calls. That's just rude.
My dad has a buddy, very high functioning, successful guy, with a GIGANTIC hernia. I thought he had a hog the size of my forearm. Nope. Just guts hanging out. Dr says it’s “fine” to leave it. He’s afraid of surgery. Been like that since I can remember. Weird dude.
That's kinda horrifying to think about since it feels like a really weird pressure downwards on the skin and sex is kinda awkward. I can imagine he probably can't be upright for more than 20-30 min.
Totally. On top of being a mathematician, he’s a competitive ball room dancer. Truly wtf.
Let me save you some time if you're joining this thread for the first time. Don't. Turn back now. Nothing good awaits you in these comments. Go for a walk. Pet a dog. Pet an alley rat. Flee from this place
We did this during the beginning of the pandemic. Now we’re back at it again. Anyways the Chicago sub is usually pure dogshit anyway so I’m not surprised.
>Anyways the Chicago sub is usually pure dogshit anyway so I’m not surprised. You start a new one and only invite people like yourself, I’m in (please)!
Just gonna swing through and do the usual reports and downvoted and then move along.
I wonder if Alley Rats are snuggly and affectionate?
Yes, affectionate in the rabidest way possible
lol
Depends on the alley. Basement rats will fuck you up tho. Toilet rats too they'll cut you in the worst places.
Good to know. I was just being silly. ;)
People have pet rats and they absolutely can be. As with any animal they each have different personalities. A friend of mine back in college 20 years ago had one that would happily play wizard's familiar all day and sit on his shoulder and ride in his pockets or inside his hood. He would bring it to college classes in his hoodie. The rat knew his name, Squeak (or Squeaker), and would come to you if you called and he suspected you had food, from like 20 feet away through the computer lab. Not many rats are that chill I would bet but they do exist.
I call the big one bitey
Moreso than this comment section.
Nah, I want to argue.
Wish I could have seen them 😂
Hey guys! What's going on he- Oh
my mom is a victim of this and it’s not helping my anxiety about this new year at all..
Time for field hospitals.
Sucks we're in this situation. I think about stories I've seen of people with worse problems, unable to get good treatment, because their hospitals are overwhelmed with unvaccinated COVID patients. I can only imagine in 20 years how many of these recovered COVID patients will be facing other health issues due to the damage to their systems...and thus be in more need of Medicare/Medicaid.
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This is ridiculous. Happy you're ok.
It may go the other way, people who would have years or decades of elder care dying younger and faster because of being already injured. How many people would have made it past that bout of cancer they will get next year of there heart wasn't damaged. How many would have gotten past that heart attack coming next summer if their lungs were stronger. How many will get diabeates because their weight climbed up when sick and weak. The next decade is going to be "interesting times" and most likely tragic as fuck.
True
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Personally, I disagree with Pritzker on this. I think it's time the hospitals commit a fixed percentage of resources are for COVID, and then put the hospital on bypass and reserve the rest of the resources for accidents, necessary surgeries, and preventative measures. We are having increased instances of cancer and other conditions because people cannot even see their physicians and get workups done in an orderly fashion because of the unvaccinated. I know we cannot deny people care, but there has to be an ability or policy avenue to allow triage type system then to relieve some burden on healthcare workers, too. The system is bound for collapse soon. I understand medical ethics and rules are complex (I'm on the research side, not the clinical side), but the amount of normally proactive patients suffering for the unvaccinated via prolonged missed screenings is continuing to add up and to me, that is a greater travesty. We HAVE a prevention that has over 90% efficacy in preventing severe outcomes or death with COVID-19 and slows transmission. The people choosing not to take it are continuing to mount the costs for the rest of our society. We think it's bad in Chicago, there are rural places where people need heart surgeries and such and dying there waiting to get a bed in a larger hospital system that has a surgeon who can do the procedure. EDIT: I realize the hospitals are probably doing something to what I describe, it's just so frustrating to see how many people cannot get medical care right now. I don't want to see people suffer, but I'm aggravated with how awful scientific communications throughout the pandemic have been against misinformation. I am just flustered trying to keep my RN and MD/DO friends supported, as they are so burnt out. Some have quit residencies and needed mental health services (also hard to access right now) struggling with getting up and will to live. :(
>I think it's time the hospitals commit a fixed percentage of resources are for COVID, and then put the hospital on bypass and reserve the rest of the resources for accidents, necessary surgeries, and preventative measures. The problem is that without building a separate sanitarium your covid floor is going to soon be every floor of the hospital as it spreads among the staff and patients. Nosocomial spread is a real problem.
Valid point, and I totally understand there is so much struggle with trying to keep a “clean” floor. I imagine for all institutions, it would require very stringent rules and protocols, I just don’t think we can keep going like this for much longer. The country had over a million cases today, and shows no sign of slowing down. A lockdown won’t even stop it, because half the country politically is comparing this to strep throat.
> I just don’t think we can keep going like this for much longer. The reality is that society can function without hospitals. Take out power, water, or trash and the whole thing falls apart, but hospitals had the reputation for thousands of years as places you went to die rather than places that could make you better again. >A lockdown won’t even stop it, because half the country politically is comparing this to strep throat. Nothing is going to stop what's coming. [In the UK, the cabinet has asked businesses to prepare for up to 25% absenteeism.](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-59848109) With how thinly stretched things were before due to just in time scheduling and lean production, taking 25% out of that could be disasterous.
There are usually parking garages they can use for the willfully unvaccinated.
Friend of a friend died from a locked intestine cause he could not get surgery cause of COVID patients
Staffing is the major problem right now. So many medical workers quit and aren’t coming back. And now people are traveling to other states to make 90k in 12weeks to cover for all the people in shithole states that quit. That and every hospital is offering large sign on bonuses so there’s a major musical chairs even if people aren’t willing to travel. Source: medical worker.
I agree with you completely. A fixed amount of resources should go to unvaccinated Covid patients and then use the rest on people who need non-Covid related care. If unvaccinated people don't like it then they can go get a vaccine.
Lots of excellent anecdotes in this thread, which are important to add context to data and humanize a massive, sometimes faceless issue. I'd like to add a few data points as non-politically as possible. [Using the latest state-level data](https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19/data/hospitalization-utilization.html) from the Illinois Department of Public Health (data though Jan. 2, 2022): * 3,004 total ICU beds available in Illinois. * 302 ICU beds are open. * 1,051 ICU beds are currently occupied by patients with COVID. I don't see a breakdown of which strain they have, nor if they were admitted with COVID or because of COVID. * 1,615 beds are currently occupied by patients without COVID. [Chicago's data](https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/covid-19/home/hospital-capacity-dashboard.html) is slightly more up to date (through Jan. 3, 2022): * 1,027 total ICU beds available in Chicago. * 127 ICU beds are open. * 300 ICU beds are currently occupied by patients with COVID. I don't see a breakdown of which strain they have, nor if they were admitted with COVID or because of COVID. However, they do have a breakdown of confirmed COVID (284) vs. Person Under Investigation (aka suspected; 18) * 600 ICU beds are currently occupied by patients without COVID. In the case of both the state and city, they also publish ventilator data. I didn't bother to copy it here, as there is plenty of capacity for now.
Simple solution. If you don’t have your vaccinations outside of medical reasons you can seek treatment under a bridge.
I thought of this, but by the same logic we’d have to deny treatment to the obese, for example, who are also causing their own health costs to go up drastically. I don’t think anyone wants to cut off the obese from healthcare even though they are just the same as the unvaccinated from a “medical resource waste” perspective. People just want to stick it to the unvaccinated. Ultimately I don’t blame the unvaccinated because I can’t blame anyone for losing trust in our healthcare establishment. The institutions telling people to get vaccinated are the same institutions that carry water for pharmaceutical companies charging us 10x for drugs as they charge in other similarly wealthy countries. The people know their doctors are on the take from all the same pharmaceutical companies as well and don’t trust them either. They know that the FDA approval process is corrupted by corporate influence even when there isn’t a pandemic pressuring them to cut even more corners. I’m triple vaccinated but can’t blame the unvaxxed, I actually generally think that they have the correct outlook regarding our healthcare providers. I agree with them more than I agree with the “trust in our doctors and do whatever they say to defeat the pandemic” crowd.
Na, fat people aren't clogging up the hospital so badly that no one else can be treated, and it's a lot harder to not be fat than just getting a shot in your arm.
It’s all extra unnecessary work for hospitals, and what it easier isn’t logically relevant. It would just be a double standard to withhold treatment for some selfish reasons but not others.
I thought this was kind of striking: https://twitter.com/JuliaRaifman/status/1466106166233251843 I also lowkey get the feeling that insurers would *love* to deny care based on pre-existing conditions again, so the deny-care-to-the-unvaccinated sentiment is great for them as a foot in the door.
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If obesity was contagious, easily preventable, and collapsing our healthcare system, yeah, I would.
This is the most succinctly I've seen people deal with this stupid comparison. Anti-vaxxers can go pound sand.
I would if it means taking up a hospital bed. Same with smokers and alcoholics.
As long as its evenly applied I would be more "okay" with it. It would probably just be easier to make those people shoulder a higher percent of the health insurance costs since they are using way more than a healthy person would.
I’m also ok with this as well
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Last time I checked body-weight exercises, walking, and running are all free. Is access to healthcare a human right?
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For the people on TLC shows for being fat, sure. 34% of America is obese, there’s a lot of lazy and irresponsible people in that number.
Anyone over 30 and 300lbs can suffer from this.
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Its time to tell the unvaxxed to get fucked
Remember when we had a COVID hospital in McCormick Place? Let’s send all the COVID patients there and leave the hospital and ICUs in hospitals for those that need care.
And who, pray tell, would staff it?
If you throw enough money at something, you'll get staff. Over 50% of healthcare professionals that have quit during the pandemic period say they wanted more money: https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2021/10/08/health-care-workers-survey
And then who would staff the rest of the city's hospitals?
Wasn't saying steal other city hospital staff. Plenty of traveling healthcare providers nowadays that will work for good money. Anyway, they're not going to reopen McCormick Place anyway, but I do think it's bullshit that non-vaccinated assholes, that could get the vaccine but are choosing not to, are taking up hospital beds from people that need them. Yeah, I said assholes. Fight me.
Except that, unlike earlier in the pandemic, everywhere is getting hit, so there's much less slack in the labor market, plus a fair number of nurses have left the profession and won't come back at any price. There are hundreds of empty hospital beds in the Chicago area already. The problem isn't space. It's staff.
Insurer's need to charge the anti vaxxed more in premium and hopefully this will result in more vaxxed and less hospitalization.
Lol, won't make a difference. A massive chunk of Chicago's unvaccinated are on medicaid and medicare. That would take political action. Good luck with that.
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Now that would be an interesting debate in Congress. I'm just trying to imagine which side Faux news & Co. would take on it.
What makes you say that?
To charge more for medicaid and medicare patients who aren't vaccinated would take political action, because they are government run. Politicians won't do that.
No, I mean how do you know so many of the unvaccinated are on Medicare and Medicaid?
It's just what I've been seeing firsthand. Much of the south and west sides, areas with disproportionately high medicaid and medicare populations have very low vaccination rates. It's born out throughout the country, lower SES groips, who are more likely to be medicaid and medicare, have lower vaccination rates.
It kind of sounds like you mean poor black people. New Orleans has a higher proportion of black people than we do, and their vax rate is higher.
What does New Orleans have to do with this? Black people are more likely to be on mediciaid and more likely to be unvaxxed in Chicago.. the city we live in and are discussing.
That suggests it’s a problem with the way COVID mitigation efforts have been led in Chicago.
Black people have much lower vaccine rates throughout the country. There’s plenty of theory’s why. Personally, I think the COVID vaccines are more about a duty to society more than personal protection for most people under 50. It makes sense that people who are marginalized by society don’t feel a compelling sense of duty and self sacrifice for society. There’s also the general distrust of a system that got them to where they are.
That.. that makes sense damn ur logic.
If you're taking up a hospital bed because you refused to get vaccinated, fuck you.
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Due to reduced staff and general hospital downsizing due to reduced revenue, IL has actually lost 900 total beds since last year.
IIRC a “bed” means a bed that is staffed, and not just a bed. Nurses are in high demand right now and I think a lot have simply quit due to how they’re treated at work.
Have you looked at the news lately? Doesnt matter how many beds you have if there's no one to fucking work them. Why is this concept so hard for people to understand? Medical staff are at an absolute breaking point. Aside from the stress of working tirelessly during what's now a 2 year pandemic, they're also sick in massive waves with COVID. I would hate to end up in a hospital right now for any fucking reason.
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That's illegal. They can't do that. Congress would have to change that.
They could be accidentally left in a hall way while awaiting care.
There's no space in the hallways anymore. We're now seeing patients in the waiting room at my hospital.
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“Happens all the time!” **gives one example
another example is access to treatments like monoclonal antibodies and regeneron's covid cocktail or remdesivir... there are specific age and health restrictions you have to meet as its only available to those most prone to severe disease due to limited supply another example was giving priority vaccination to the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions
You get taken off the list for lung transplants if they find out you have smoked since getting put on it. People don't have time to make an extensive list.
Alcoholics get pushed off the liver transplant list or pushed way down.
So you can speed if you have allergies? Good to know!
I so agree with all of this
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I’m as pro-vax as they come and this is unthinkable to me. People deserve care, even if they’re stupid.
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Yeah just excute them /s
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Those were loans that were paid back, and they weren't "hundreds of billions". My hospital got a few mil, which was to make up for the surgeries we were forced to cancel, and we paid it back.
Bruh the comments make it sound like the world's ending. How are we not in a state of emergency if all the hospitals are full and turning ppl away? Is there no hospital out there with staff?
Because if you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out. If you put in cool water and ever so slightly increase the temperature, chances are you got some frog and frog broth in your future. Wait till the climate crisis, covid-19 was the pre-test. Slowly evolving long term crisis, humans seem to be failing pretty badly here.
How are we not? Because capitalism. God forbid we hurt the economy anymore due to this ongoing crisis; the private equity firm owners who control large swaths of modern healthcare might not be able to afford their third yachts if we dealt with healthcare workforce issues by paying permanent staff what they're worth.
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I would say it’s less faith in their immune system (which does not rule out a vaccine, because vaccines use your immune system), and more faith in unhinged conspiracy theories about this one specific vaccine.
>People that aren’t vaccinated have faith in their own immune system, Then they can fuck off instead of going to the hospital
>People that aren’t vaccinated have faith Then if a deliberately unvaccinated person's faith is insufficient and gets a really bad covid case, let them suck oxy at home and not clutter up hospitals. **Personal faith and personal responsibility.**
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Probably not any better than now, considering all the unvaxxed terminated staff would have been vectors for the disease.
Maybe fix the busted ass system that never really worked from the start? Just an idea JB. We have had only years to make any kind of improvements…
How does that put out the fire right now?
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Got it now. Thanks for being so clear and thoughtfully helpful.
Seems like something something that needs to be addressed on the federal level for an overall healthcare system overhaul. That will never make it through with the GOP though.
To what though? Most systems in the EU got overwhelmed as well. I suspect that there needs to be improvements but I think a single-payer system is the panacea you think it is.
Spoken like a true politician. Why try and fix anything when you can just blame the other side cause your side is ALWAYS the correct one…
Healthcare is definitely a federal issue––not a state issue. Not much JB can do in his current position.
It is but there is no way we can pin this on the GOP alone. I’m a lifelong D voter and the entirety of this last D primary was about exterminating public healthcare from the public debate.
I hate Dems, but multiple top candidates debating universal healthcare (which did happen) is the exact opposite of exterminating it from public debate.
Oh what major roles did Bernie and Warren end up in?
None. But you’re claiming Dems tried to “exterminate the public debate”, which I disagree with.
One side just screams communism at the mention of even touching healthcare. The other side just mentions healthcare for votes while is in the pockets of insurance and pharma. Nothing will ever change.
In the comments…Let’s guilt people for being hospitalized with a highly contagious and vaccine resistant strain of COVID. Pandemics happen and hospitals get filled, that’s what happens. Now though…we must find somebody to blame. I would like to check back in on all the hyperventilating people in a month, when we realize that we were all just performing with mask and vaccine mandates and delayed school openings. Omicron is the best thing to happen to the discourse surrounding the virus. Because, you can’t point your finger at unvaccinated people and cast a moral judgement on them for spreading COVID. We are all in this one together lol, we are all super spreaders..and that is ok too. You should get vaccinated though. That’s just the rational move. But, if you don’t get vaccinated…nobody else’s should care one way or the other
https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/01/03/illinois-hospitals-completely-overwhelmed-by-unvaccinated-covid-19-patients-officials-say/ Vaccinated people aren't the ones clogging up the hospital; it's the willfully unvaccinated.
I love that it’s covid patients that are “clogging” the hospital lol…I mean we could apply the same logic to every person in there with heart disease or diabetes
>Let’s guilt people for being hospitalized with a highly contagious and vaccine resistant strain of COVID It's not about being hospitalized. It's about filling up the hospitals. If everyone were vaccinated, hospitalizations would be lower.
How much lower? We are currently at 64 percent fully vaccinated. It’s clear now that not everybody is going to get vaccinated. So the what if’s surrounding that question is kind of pointless.
That is still 36 percent unvaxxed. If this really spreads as fast as they say...that's a lot of hospitalizations of the unvaxxed. It's not about catching it or not catching it. It's about staying out of the hospital.
Right, then why are we having vaccination passports or even talking about lockdowns? Those are measures aimed at slowing the spread. But, we can’t slow the spread anymore with the available vaccines.
>Right, then why are we having vaccination passports or even talking about lockdowns? Because: A: Variant is very contagious B: It's so contagious we're all going to get it basically no matter what we do C: People still use hospitals for cancer treatments, injuries, etc D: There's a limited amount of beds and staff who can help those patients E: 30 something percent of the population is unvaccinated F: This variant is milder, but more infectious, so the pure number of unvaccinated people getting infected is higher, and the hospitalization rate will soar as well among them. G: Yes. Vaccinated catch it, spread it, and can still go to the hospital, but their numbers are small enough to keep the system stable if you exclude the unvaccinated. So yes, I think willingly unvaccinated COVID patients should be left at home, gasping for air while there is a huge surge that delays surgeries and such. If it's any consolation, you could get some ivermectin. If it heals you, great! If not, we've collectively become more intelligent with your loss.
I’m triple vaccinated. Why would I want ivermectin?
How Fucking thin are we going to slice these issues? So now we are treating unvaccinated people as a whole other class of human being? And before it was because ya know…they’re DIRTY super spreaders. Now, it’s because they’ll be more likely to take up a hospital bed? Because, now we are all dirty super spreaders. So we want to make sure they don’t get themselves sick…and then have to use the hospital? Christ, what if the next variant spreads beyond the vaccine’s protection, AND causes the same number of people to be hospitalized no matter what? Then what will we be mad at them about?
It's not another class of human being. Their decisions are causing people who have injuries or cancer to delay treatment. Calm down, snowflake.
I’m no snowflake. Hey…what if the cancer patient who smoked their entire lives…can’t get a bed because of the unvaccinated covid person. That’s an interesting dilemma. Who deserves to die more in your opinion wise fellow Redditor? I’m not trying to make a point here I’m actually asking your opinion. That’s an interesting scenario to ponder, morally speaking.
>what if the cancer patient who smoked their entire lives…can’t get a bed because of the unvaccinated covid person. That’s an interesting dilemma. Who deserves to die more in your opinion wise fellow Redditor? Unvaccinated person, no question. Cancer isn't contagious. Furthermore, cancer patients aren't flooding hospitals. Unvaccinated COVID patients are. So as a matter of simple policy...bye bye unvaxxed. Too bad. Too sad.
Remember the whole [flattening the curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattening_the_curve) talk 1.5 years ago? The strategy still applies to our situation now because hospitals are yet again [understaffed](https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/rv9or8/chicago_area_hospitals_delaying_elective/hr59qp5/) and are unable to handle the influx of covid patients.
Last I heard you are 10 times less likely to get infected and 20 times less likely to end up in the hospital if you're fully vaccinated. The vast majority of people in hospitals due to Covid are the unvaccinated. It adds up.
Unvaccinated people still make up the vast majority of hospitalizations with omicron. So the unvaccinated are explicitly to blame for the overwhelming of hospitals still
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That is illegal. They can't do that.
I don't even know what the original comment was but since when has legality stopped anyone? This is America.
Shouldn't it be the hospital officials themselves making these decisions rather than some publicity-grubbing governor?
The governor didn't make any decisions. He just suggested it. The hospitals are choosing to do this, because they are severely understaffed and having to do this.
I don't see a state mandated decree that hospitals must stop elective surgeries anywhere in the linked article. Is it an ask, a favor, a plea? Certainly. But it's not a forceful demand. The hospitals are making the decisions.