Saturday, January 23, 2010

Wages and Health Care

I think a lot about what happened to me at the Medical Center. Why did this happen? What kind of people would do this? Why did they think it would be OK on ANY LEVEL to completely disregard my wishes, inject me with poison (Versed) to gain obedience, give me general anesthetic which I had specifically forbidden, then laugh at my unhappiness afterwards? Why would they fail to protect me from something as simple as a hospital acquired infection? Why was my surgery so sloppily performed? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE AND WHY ARE THEY WORKING IN THE HEALTH CARE FIELD?
I think it all revolves around MONEY. Back in the day, doctors and others in the health care field became doctors and nurses because they wanted to help people. They made a good living and saved lives. Over the years this has changed. Now these people make salaries way out of proportion to their skills. No longer would somebody have an altruistic desire to help people as their main objective. Obscene salaries would be the main interest. This has led to a decline in good people going into the health care field. Now "the money" has become the main reason. This absurd amount of money has attracted a bad element into health care.
Look at what CRNA's make. They are not worth it. The anesthesiologists make much more than they used to as well. After all they make money for "supervising" now, instead of actually performing procedures. The surgeons are careless. Hospital acquired infections are rampant. according to studies, DOCTORS et. al. are the THIRD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH IN THIS COUNTRY! Why are we being slaughtered like this by the health care professionals?
Look at the lack of expertise my surgeon possessed as far as my surgery was concerned! It is a complete botch job. Look at his "concern" for me as shown in his notes elsewhere on this site! Is this the warm, caring person YOU want? Should he make enormous amounts of money for performing at this level? Does he care that he wrecked my arm? Not a bit. This person, along with everybody else where I went had one thing in mind, make this simple surgery the most expensive possible. We patients are just rubes to be duped, lied to, dismissed as inconsequential and viewed as a necessary EVIL to make money.
This whole thing is caused by too many substandard people choosing health care, not because they love people, but because of the wages. You can't trust these people at all with this new mentality. Health care MUST be the next bubble to burst. We just can't have people whose only concern is money to continue bleeding us dry while killing us.
Tort reform won't work. We need lawsuits to kind of keep these demons in line. If the people where I went were worried in the slightest bit about lawsuits, do you think that they would have treated me in such a cavalier manner? Not only do they make many times as much money as we patients do, they are immune from lawsuits as well. Tort reform does NOT bring down the cost of health care, it just allows money grubbing sub-standard caretakers to operate with impunity.
Money and power over us in that order is why we patients are being abused in the health care system. Get rid of Versed, put some teeth in the informed consent laws and force these cretins to at least follow the law. Get rid of redundant positions in health care. We don't need so many people doing minor variations of the same job. I counted 18 people involved in my care in the time I was in the out patient area. That's just outrageous. We don't need to pay all those people!!!
Anesthesiologist, 2 CRNA's, OR nurses, cast nurse, radiologist, scrub nurses, circulating nurses, the doctor AND his physicians assistant, what the hell do we need all these people for? They are all making huge salaries... They are all intent on maximising their profit while performing bad care. Can we just have ONE good person instead of three losers for each job? In all of these people there was not one single one who was interested in the patient, at least where I went. They were all there to make the most amount of money for the least amount of work and I, the hapless patient was there for THEIR needs not vice versa!
I admit that I would be a grape eater if I could. I don't work very often without being paid. However I *DO* work on occasion without pay. I CHOSE a profession that I love without worrying about making millions of dollars. I don't torture people. I pay attention to my clients wishes. I don't do what I do grudgingly and with animosity towards the people who pay my bills. Why can't health care people do the same? Too much money. Too much control. They are corrupted by it.