Posted by:
Nightingale
(
)
Date: September 10, 2021 05:46PM
I should mention that it’s not all sunshine and roses here just because of relatively high vaccination rates, advent of the vaccine passes and cautious measures implemented to try and keep public spaces safe (i.e. control the spread of the virus).
Here is an article outlining the situation in BC, with elective surgeries being postponed and ER waits longer than usual while staff burn out and anti-vax protestors target hospitals and medical staff.
https://vancouversun.com/news/surgeries-being-postponed-delayed-and-adjusted-across-b-c-as-covid-19-pressures-mount?__vfz=medium%3Dstandalone_content_recirculation_with_ads#vf-0ff987e0-bb99-4dad-b455-4fd3d0220298(Sorry – the number of popping ads is annoying)
The article states:
“Mounting COVID-19 pressure is leading to the postponement of some non-urgent surgeries in B.C. hospitals…”
NB: “Elective” and “non-urgent” designations don’t indicate that the booked procedures aren’t necessary or vital to a person’s health and well-being. Too, back-ups in ER can lead to increased level of illness not to mention causing more stress and anxiety to patients and family members. At least one death in ER is being investigated currently as a waiting patient died before staff was available to assess her.
More excerpts:
“[In the hospital in Kamloops – an area in the Interior of the province] It has been reported that about two-thirds of the nurses in ER have recently left the job due to burnout, leaving nurses and doctors dealing with far more patients each than they normally would.
“In addition, at least three straight weeks of elective surgeries were cancelled due to staffing shortages and limited time in operating rooms, coupled with a surge in COVID-19 patients and those who were brought to hospital from areas under wildfire-related evacuation orders and alerts.
“Because of the circumstances right now, particularly in ICU, we are delaying some surgeries, some non-urgent surgeries, at particular hospitals...” Dix [health minister] said.”
NB: Delays are also reported at four major hospitals in the Lower Mainland (Vancouver) area.
Article:
“77.8 per cent of British Columbians aged 12 and older now fully vaccinated with two doses.”
“Dix said it was unvaccinated, or partly vaccinated people responsible for most of the COVID-19 cases being treated in hospitals. In the past two weeks, 80.5 per cent of cases admitted to hospital were people who are not vaccinated. According to latest B.C. Centre for Disease Control statistics, Creston and Enderby in the Interior Heath region both have a fully vaccinated rate of 58 per cent, while Hope in Fraser Health is at 64 per cent. Peace River in Northern Health is at 48 per cent. On Vancouver Island, the Cowichan Valley West has the lowest rate at 68 per cent.
Dix also said the province was reviewing “all options” when it comes to limiting protests outside health facilities.
“Demonstrating in these circumstances and interfering with our hospitals and yelling at our health care workers serves no purpose at all,” he told a news conference.
“Dix said ignoring scientific facts and refusing the vaccine hurts the wider population.
“Going up against this virus by going on with our daily lives unvaccinated when we’re eligible to be vaccinated helps only the virus,” he said. “Going up against the virus by rejecting the facts, the data, the evidence and science and its instructive purpose only hurts us all.”
“Premier John Horgan [said] the targeting and harassment of health care workers was “completely unacceptable.”
“Dix echoed the sentiment Thursday, adding that interfering with patient care was inexcusable.
“To interfere with cancer patients, and heart patients and grieving families, and people who need to use the emergency room is not on. There are places to demonstrate that are not our public hospitals,” he said.”
The kindest thing I can say about people who stage and participate in demonstrations that block access to hospital entrances and harass patients, families and medical and general staff is that they’re not thinking straight.
I heard a public health official in another province say today that she was a schoolchild when “polio was running rampant”. “The thing that got us out of it”, she said, “was the polio vaccine”.
I read a comment by an MD the other day that we have been fortunate to grow up and live in the most disease-free era in human history (at least in the Western world) due to all the childhood and other vaccines we received or that our parents or grandparents did so that epidemics of those diseases are in the past (polio and smallpox are prime examples).
It seems that many people are oblivious of this **recent** history because they’re acting like vaccines are of the devil when in previous generations people must surely have fallen on their knees in gratitude. TB is another example of a scourge that dogged countless people and is uncommon in our day, at least in urban centres (where there is likely better access to health care).
My point is that even with nearly 80% of the population in B.C. fully vaxxed we still have a long way to go. To my great surprise we have all too many antis and protestors who not only ignore science and/or think they know better than the many and diverse experts in this area but who actively harm others by refusing the vaccine and a simple face mask, as well as blocking hospital entrances, thereby delaying or preventing treatment and increasing anxiety felt by patients and family members. The most negative result of their recalcitrance (in the worst connotation of that term) is that if they themselves become severely ill with COVID-19 they take up an ER or ICU bed as well as staff time and expertise, which then reduces the number of available beds, and access to emergency treatment, for other patients. This is happening as we speak.
I’m sure they’re hoping on that day that nobody’s blocking the path to Emergency when they need it.
I never even had an inkling that people in this province or country or hemisphere could be so ignorant of science and medicine or so selfish (seeking access to care they’ve denied or delayed to others) or so easily led by others or so wrapped up in themselves or so anything else supremely negative that you can say about the spectacle before us and the people causing it.
I'm disillusioned.
Maybe that's a good thing. Roses are lovely but those rose-coloured glasses? Not so much it would seem.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2021 05:50PM by Nightingale.