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What angers me is the minds that sit around figuring out ways to make money off of our misfortunes.  There are boardrooms full of people trying to figure out how to pocket some cash.  I call them clipboard carriers.  Administrators are rewarded for making money rather than  for providing amazing results for the health of a community.  I worked with an occupational therapist who was so inspiring to me and others as we watched her bring smiles to the depressed and life to those ready to give up.  She was let go because she didn’t generate enough income for the little rural hospital.  Hospitals are not factories.  They don’t have assembly lines.  Hospitals are full of real people with real problems and sometimes fixing those problems just doesn’t make anyone any money.

Dr. William D. wrote a blog that made me think,  then again maybe they are factories?…

“. . . the life of the pig has moved out of view; when’s the last time you saw a pig in person? Meat comes from the grocery store, where it is cut and packaged to look as little like parts of animals as possible. The disappearance of animals from our lives has opened a space in which there’s no reality check on the sentiment or the brutality. . .”

The same disconnect has occurred in healthcare for the heart. The emotional distance thrust between the hospital-employed primary care physician, the procedure-driven cardiologist, the crammed-into-a-niche electrophysiologist (heart rhythm specialist) or cardiothoracic surgeon whose principal concerns are procedures—with an eye always towards litigation risk—mimics factory farms that now litter the landscape of the Midwest. The hospitals and doctors who deliver the process see us less as human beings and more as the next profit opportunity.

The “factory hospital” has allowed the subjugation of humans into the service of procedural volume, all in the name of fattening revenues. Never mind that people are not (usually) killed outright but subjected to a succession of life-disrupting procedures over many years. But whether livestock in a factory farm or humans in a factory hospital, the net result to the people controlling the process is identical: increased profits.

The system doesn’t grow to meet market demand, but to grow profits. The myth that allows this growth is perpetuated by the participants who stand to gain from that growth.

See hospitals for what they are: businesses. Despite most hospitals retaining “Saint” in their name, there is no longer anything saintly or charitable about these commercial operations. They are every bit as profit-seeking as GE, Enron, or Mobil.

http://www.wellsphere.com/heart-health-article/factory-hospitals/472314

I think most of us really do care about people and their individual health.  We just need to care less about profits.

Nana Ruth taught me to write letters.  Many years ago she encouraged me to write to companies after enjoying a product or a stay or an encounter;  more so than when I was disenchanted.  It makes you look for good, inquire of names,  and jot things down.  When your looking for good you find it.  I’ve enjoyed this lesson and have received free loaves of bread, smiles, and plain ole good karma.  I’m so glad she taught me to write letters.

We stayed at the Ritz Carlton in Naples Florida  for my birthday last year.  I felt like everyone who worked there was only interested in me enjoying my birthday.  I made a point of remembering the names of staff members who wished me a happy birthday greeting as we passed in the halls, or as we played ping pong provided more coffee, or brought us another towel by the pool.  They knew my name?!    I felt like a celebrity.

There was a beastly woman with an older man by the pool. She was loud and rude to the pool attendant, who continued to accommodate her until she finally quieted down and settled into a spot that suited her.   I would have snatched the towel out from under her repugnant self and wrapped it around her neck, but, he remained kind and accommodating.  I wrote a letter and included his name and the names of other exceptional staff members, and received a printed response with a little hand written personal note stating that a copy of my letter had been given to each named staff member personally.

The Ritz made it very easy for me to do this.  In our room there was a stamped envelope with their address on it.  During my drive home I wrote the letter and filled out their form and mailed it back.  Of course there is an online version as well, but, I like the handwritten option.

Congressman Boozeman always writes me back a personal note in his own writing with a blue pen at the bottom of a pre-scripted printed page.  I don’t always agree with him, and that is usually what I am telling him, but I am impressed that he includes a personal note explaining his thinking. I bring it to work and share it so others can see his handwritten note and that it does make a difference to “write your congressman”.  Senators Lincoln and Pryor respond via e-mail — sometimes.

Dan and Chip Heath wrote… In America alone, there are about 2.7 million call-center employees who are standing by ready to soothe you. That’s roughly the population of Kansas. But what if you’ve got joy in your heart? Good luck finding someone who cares.

That’s a tragedy on multiple levels, first for the employees who never receive your warm fuzzies. Pick any non-customer-service employee at random from your company. When was the last time that person received positive feedback directly from a customer? If the answer is “never,” that’s as cruel as an unwatered plant.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/129/made-to-stick-i-love-you-now-what.html

I have worked as a travel nurse in various hospitals for several years.  One hospital in Boca Raton Florida stands out in my mind because patients wrote letters to the hospital telling them how wonderful we were.  Sometimes my name was included with the names of others and we each received a personal copy.  I saved them.  I was only there for six months, but, collected more letters of appreciation than all the other places combined.  I don’t think I was a better nurse there.   What is it about Boca Hospital that makes people write letters of appreciation?  Did the hospital make it easier for the patients to write compliments?  Were they given a stamped envelope?

Companies should pave the way to praise.  Maybe you appreciate the extra-deep cup holder in your Toyota, which holds your venti latte snugly. Where do you send the thank-you note?

One last little story.  Seth was working at an airline counter at Miami International Airport.  I had just arrived from Dallas after missing my flight to Ft Myers due to weather.  It was very important for me to be in Ft Myers that night because my son had been in a motorcycle accident and was on life support with multiple injuries including brain injury.  It was the worst 22 hours of my life just trying to get to him in a February snow storm.

Airline personnel just fell into a category of cold and uncaring that night, the more I cried, the more they didn’t care.  I’m sure they have listened to many sob stories and they weren’t moved by mine–> then I met Seth.  He was in their ranks until I quietly explained my situation without tears.   Seth arranged for a van to drive me to Ft Myers since no flights were leaving until the next morning.  During the ride over I wrote the airlines and told them what a Godsend Seth had been.  I don’t remember, now, what airline Seth worked for, they never responded; but,  I will always remember Seth.

It has been about a month since I originally posted Hospitals are not factories.  I wanted to add a post I read from The Weekly Updates.

…we have all of the NEGATIVE effects of “socialized” health care without actually having equal health care for all. Arguments against socialized health care, include the people not wanting the few to pay for the masses. But that is exactly what’s happening here.

I work 2 jobs, pay my taxes, barely make enough to keep a roof over my head and food on the plates of my family, do not get such luxuries. An ER visit typically runs me $2,000+, which I must pay or else what’s left of credit will disappear. I cannot afford health care, and with the economy today, my employers do not offer me any benefits as they won’t let me work full-time. This HAS to change.

http://www.theweeklyupdates.com/our-life/orange-county-medical-service-flawed/

This is an example of a hardworking American taxpayer who is having to go without, due to the current healthcare system.  Not to repeat myself, but, it isn’t a system.  It is a big pile of crap and when you stir up crap you realize how much it stinks.

Now — Let me share with you this exchange I had recently with a young man I know.  He is usually witty and makes funky videos so I sent him Barack Obama’s video challenge.  His response and that of his friend throws off the hope for change.  These boys are in college, so, don’t think they are uneducated knobs.

Also, Whenever you try to talk reasonably about healthcare reform it is easy to find the opposition–>they are the ones  pounding their fists on the table or resorting to foulness.

WHE

Yes please expand the government so I can lose even more freedom.

September 27 at 3:17am

NHA

hmm. while those celebrity judges are busy smelling their own asses and picking their favorite sob story maybe i should make an advertisement full of the real people who want universal health care… not the ones hand picked by the people selling this bullshit to us.

Me

If you are attending a university or college then you are involved in government funded education. What freedom is healthcare reform going to take from you?

September 28 at 12:16pm

WHE

Great idea, let’s make a video of a bunch of people who are really lazy and don’t want to have to work hard for their healthcare.  My parents and I were taxed to support this school, if taxes would have been lowered I’m sure I could have afforded to go to a better university.

September 29 at 3:18pm

Me

not everyone who gets sick is lazy.

September 29 at 3:58pm

NHA

Im simply saying that personally I’ve noticed that people in favor of universal health care are largely behind it for personal gain when they could be acting in the best interest of our country. I don’t think that all sick people are lazy. But i do believe that many illnesses (not all) are a result of the behavior one engages in. smoking causes lung cancer. Failure to wear a seat belt can cause an injury. Drinking to excess and walking down stairs may lead to broken bones. These are reasons why some people need insurance in the first place and I don’t think that our society as a whole should be forced to pay for the mistakes of a few. It doesn’t seem progressive to me. More like a ball and chain.

September 29 at 9:18pm

Me

I know a good man, self employed, no insurance, who drinks plenty of water and lives a good life providing for his family he had a massive stroke. I know a boy, who worked hard. who lived a good life and got knocked off his motorcycle on a freeway on the way home from work –>brain injury. I know a waitress, single, works three jobs, got a kidney stone requiring surgery –>debilitated her finances. All of us can have anything happen at anytime. It is the brothers keeper thing — not personal gain

September 29 at 9:33pm

WHE

Everyone get’s sick, but I don’t care if they die or not, (What?!) have you ever tried anal sex? (What?! again) Because people who smoke, eat fast foods, have buttsecks, and live otherwise dangerous lifestyles are going to benefit from this plan more than me. All I know is that socialized medicine bankrupts every country or state that enacts it.  (our country is so financially stable with our current healthcare eh?)

September 29 at 11:14pm

Me

Ok I’ll go away now

September 30 at 7:57am

NHA

It’s good to discuss these things when we’re all on the same page.

September 30 at 7:54pm

Just an example of the oppositions mind.  I wasn’t sure how to contest any further. By the way, How do you get in to college without knowing how to spell buttsex?  And, what page are they on?

http://www.blackcommentator.com/cartoons.html

Here is a good page to go to

http://factsaboutreform.org/myth.html

Can you imagine living in rural America almost your entire life and then someone knocks on your door and tells you you have to go live in Guatemala.  My friend (I’ll call her Maria) and co-worker had that very thing happen to her.  She grew up in a small southern town after her mother came here from Guatemala to work in a chicken factory.  The chicken factory paid for her mother to get here with her two kids, Maria and her little brother.

Ok, so Maria goes to school, graduates and gets a job in a hospital while trying to put herself through nursing school.  Maria falls in love with the wrong man and has two children. (it happens)  Going to school is even more difficult, so she just concentrates on working to provide for her little ones and buys a house and a car and pays taxes on all of it and she marries an American boy.

Now, I think I need to add, that I had no idea that Maria wasn’t American, she looks American, talks American and puts ketchup on her french fries and ranch dressing on her salad.

The hospital loves her because she is able to wear many hats.  Nurses aide, unit secretary and pharmaceutical tech as well as Spanish language  interpreter.  When the hospital finds out that they are going to lose their beloved Maria, they write letters, and raise money and call Senators and Congressman.  None of this seems to help.  Lawyers have taken her money and the Senators and Congressmen say they can’t interfere with the deportation “process”.  The hospital has lost a wonderful employee and a wonderful, kind person.  I lost my Spanish teacher.

Maria told me she didn’t even know where Guatemala was and we looked it up on the internet.  I exclaimed, Guatemala is beautiful!  Why would you want to stay in a chicken factory town when you could live on the beach?  She said, “because this is my home, I’ve never been anywhere else.”  So many American kids would give anything to get out of their chicken factory towns.  But — would they really give anything?

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo538621.htm

http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo575092.htm

So I guess my idea is.  Why don’t we go to Guatemala and open hospitals and resorts  so Maria will want to live there  and she won’t even miss the chicken factory town.   Americans will be able to work in the chicken factory instead of Maria’s mother.  Maria will be working at a posh American resort in Guatemala on the beach and we can have our chicken factory jobs back.  Then everyone is happy right?

Everyone in the United States gets educated whether or not they want to be, by law, and by the generosity of U. S.  taxpayers.  We aren’t always happy with public education so some of us pay for private education or we educate our kids ourselves with home schooling.  The folks who participate in private education and home schooling still pay in to the public system.  Should it be abolished?  Because it is socialized education?

I guess I feel the same way about health care.  I think everyone should have access to public health care.  I think that when I was a poor single mom raising my two gorgeous and healthy children that I should have been rewarded with some health care (at least).  I thank God that I never broke a bone or had a kidney stone.  My kids and I would have suffered as many do when a health tragedy strikes.  If I had not been able to work and go to school because of an illness or accident, I would have lost my jobs and been kicked out of the nursing program. I was really, really lucky and that is all.

This is America.  Many claim we are the most powerful and wealthy country in the world and yet we have “indigents”.  We set up free clinics for them because they don’t have insurance and their children are hungry.  Other countries ie: England, Japan, France, Switzerland, Germany; have systems where there are no health care indigents.  Everyone qualifies for health care.  Why are we so opposed to this? — the cost?

OK, so, lets define “indigent” deficient in what is requisite.  Lacking food, clothing, and other necessities of life because of poverty; needy; poor; impoverished.  (I looked it up on dictionary.reference.com)

They are really, really unlucky.  I wasn’t exactly indigent, but, damn close and if any kind of physical anomaly had befallen me, believe me, I’d have fit the description.  My nursing program required us to volunteer.  I chose the Salvation Army. We provided health care for the homeless with a retired cardiac surgeon.  We did good things for a lot of people and sometimes they were grateful and sometimes they were just wanting the free socks we gave them.  Some of these people were alcoholics or drug abusers and some were just really, really unlucky.  One fellow had a broken ankle.  We gave him a prescription to get an x-ray and have an orthopedic surgeon look at it at the county hospital ER.  He had no way of getting to the hospital to get this done.  I’m not sure the hospital would have done it after he got there.  Free clinics can only do so much.

So, then we have to define “requisite” essential, necessity, requirement.

What are the essential requirements of an American life? Food, shelter, clothing, good health and an education.  Some might add a car that runs vs. a sweet ride, a cell phone vs. an I-phone, a PC vs. a Mac — well, you see what I’m getting at.  Some of us think that access to health care is as essential as access to an education.  Some do not.

I’m doing OK now, I am able to afford insurance, and my children are insured.  I have a lovely home, a nice car, my children are adults and still gorgeous and healthy, and I have an income that provides for essential needs.

(Aren’t they gorgeous kids?  The best thing I’ve ever done in this life)

I whine like everyone else that the more I make the more they take. Who are they?  What are they doing with my money after they take it?  Isn’t that what we all piss and moan about?  What is this going to cost me?  I do not like it that my money was  spent killing Iraqi people, some don’t like the idea of their money being spent on a revised American health care system.  I believe that health care and the health of this planet is more important that killing people in other countries.  Our current President seems to agree.   I feel a little better about where my hard earned money is going.

The current health care system isn’t a system; it is a cluster –.  Don’t get me wrong the people at the bedside and sitting on the stools checking us out are (for the most part) wonderful, caring and smart.  I work with them, I know them, most of them care and educate themselves to be better.

What angers me is the corporate minds that sit around figuring out ways to make money off of our misfortunes.  There are boardrooms full of people trying to figure out how to pocket some cash.  I call them clipboard carriers.  Administrators are rewarded for making money rather than  for providing amazing results for the health of a community.

I worked with an occupational therapist who was so inspiring to me and others as we watched her bring smiles to the depressed and life to those ready to give up.  She was let go because she didn’t generate enough income for the little rural hospital.  Hospitals are not factories.  They don’t have assembly lines.  Hospitals are full of real people with real problems and sometimes fixing those problems just doesn’t make anyone any money.