- The United States is much maligned for skyrocketing health
care costs. I have had people from the UK rant and rave to me about how
wonderful socialized medicine is. Most of these people have never been
hospitalized in the UK. They ramble on telling me how advanced socialized
medicine is and how the United States should have it, too. Then I point
out to them how certain medicines are denied to patients, not according
to me but according to the patients themselves. According the testimony
of patients, the doctors tell them that the drugs they need are "too
expensive". Then the person who was raving about how great socialized
medicine is begins to stutter a bit, lose their way and then go silent.
It's clear they haven't been a victim (oops- patient) yet.
-
- But is socialized medicine all that wonderful? Let's
take a closer look at it.
-
- Patients diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis or other serious
long term diseases in countries with socialized medicine, are given the
cheapest treatment possible or even none at all. Socialized medical treatment
can amount to the equivalent of the proverbial, "Take two aspirin
and call me in the morning." One MS website has hundreds of patients
which freely post their health history and doctors' treatment under both
socialized medicine and health insurance. I would trust their testimony
over anything, any government professes.
-
- I personally know one lady (note, lady and not a "woman")
who has more than 200 patient histories on file. Patients in the UK and
other countries with "socialized medicine" are routinely denied
treatments that can slow down the disease, and reduce or eliminate some
of the MS symptoms. The only way these patients can obtain these drugs
is to pay for them out-of-pocket. And we're talking about drugs which easily
cost about US$2,000.00 a month for the remainder of the patient's
life. This is like paying for a mortgage on an expensive home you'll never
step foot in.
-
- One of the colder, darker secrets of socialized medicine
is that it's far better from the state's point of view for the patient
to DIE, rather than be cured or helped. Extending the patient's life is
a further burden for the state. From a government-economics point of view,
if the patient is too ill to be a productive taxpayer again then the patient
is viewed economically as a 100% loss, if they will never pay back into
the system via taxes. They become a liability instead of an asset to the
state. Or, if the drug treatment costs far more than the patient will ever
pay in taxes they are a loss as well. It's a cold and cruel fact, but true.
-
- HOSPITAL WARDS
-
- The term "Ward" could easily be an abbreviation
for Wide Area Repetition of Disease. Hospital wards date back centuries
to Roman times and perhaps even earlier. In those days, the concept of
what bacteria and viruses are and how they are spread was completely unknown.
Yet despite the progress made in our time to understand how diseases are
spread, hospitals everywhere appear to turn a blind eye to one very common
disease vector the air patients breathe and the proximity of patients
to other patients.
-
- Today it is well understood in the medical profession
that diseases can be transmitted through the air and contracted by being
in proximity of someone who openly coughs or sneezes. This is why patients
with TB are quarantined. While there will always be physical contact from
bedding, bed frames and other objects commonly found in a hospital setting,
these objects can be reliably disinfected by changing bedding between patients
and using bleach spray or alcohol. These chemicals don't just kill pathogens,
but tear them apart.
-
- It only requires one virulent virus particle to become
infected with a disease that the immune system doesn't catch. It is also
known that the more virulent a disease, the more susceptible it is to the
environment and the easier it is to kill it while still in the environment.
It's as though viruses have a self-limiting design. If they didn't, mankind
would have been wiped off the face of the Earth by now.
-
-
-
-
-
- Fig. 1 - What's wrong with this picture? Numerous patients
grouped together suffering from Chikungunya, a severe achy-joint fever.
They lie in agony at Vadilal Sarabhai Hospital in Ahmadabad, India.[1]
-
-
- Chikungunya disease is spread via the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
[1] Consider the open, cramped ward shown in Fig. 1. Just imagine how many
OTHER diseases can be spread by just one mosquito, biting one patient after
another. Now imagine more than one insect. But it doesn't end with mosquitos.
Patients with TB or other infectious diseases in a cramped ward like this
one, can cough and send more pathogens airborne for other patients and
caregivers to inhale or have contact with, to subsequently become infected.
-
- What about the UK? It certainly isn't a third world country.
In researching hospital wards it was clear that contemporary images of
a UK hospital ward are somewhat hard to find. But I did find this photo
apparently taken covertly and posted on a BBC website:
-
-
-
-
-
- Fig. 2 Although beds in UK hospital wards are not
quite as packed together as ward beds are in India are, airborne diseases
are still easily inhaled by neighboring patients when someone coughs. The
quality of this image suggests it might have been taken with a cellphone
held at the floor [3]
-
- It is also well known that when someone sneezes, tiny
droplets can be propelled with sufficient force to reach as far as 20 ft.
away. What happens when that same patient has TB or some other virulent
disease doctors do not know they have? A droplet from an infectious patient
landing on the skin may cause virus particles to enter the body though
pores. A patient need not inhale infectious droplets to become ill. Even
a simple curtain between beds is far better than nothing. Unfortunately,
in the United States I visited a friend in a VA hospital where the open
ward conditions are quite similar to those shown in Fig. 2.
-
- Just how much could it cost to hang a simple CURTAIN
from the ceiling between patients? It certainly costs LESS than the cost
of the bed any patient lies in. A curtain can be made of almost any material
and can prevent some of the airborne disease transmission. The primitive
nature of hospital wards is beyond words, and it's amazing the W.H.O. hasn't
taken steps to eliminate this problem by now.
-
- But there may be a darker agenda present for continuing
this type of health care. Could it be that the real goal of ward-based
patient care isn't to actually make patients well? One common thread with
hospital wards is this: They seem to be found anywhere patients are taken
care of by the STATE or a state agency. Does the state benefit when patients
live too long or benefit even more if they die sooner?
-
- Socialized medicine is well-known worldwide for packing
as many patients in one large room as possible. Like some twisted sick-
warehouse, it seems that patient well being is not high on the priority
list. Wards are primitive and completely counterproductive. With all the
countless diseases readily spread through the air which may also include
the less understood H5N1, it is irresponsible as hell to place patients
in any infectious environment. Yet hospitals go to great lengths to insure
operating rooms are ultra-clean.
-
- In the United States and elsewhere, many people often
have the mental image that a private room is just a luxury. Most private
medical insurance policies today will only pay for semi-private. But with
new diseases appearing every year and the disease transmission paths not
well understood, a private room should be viewed as more of a necessity
than a luxury. Who wants to leave a hospital sicker than when they went
in? Or become sick only a few days after getting home, from a nasty virus
from the hospital that has incubated and is now manifesting itself? Then
it's off to the doctor again!
-
- Indeed, it is way past time for public/state hospitals
to start thinking like hospitals. Not warehouses for the sick to lay there
and hopefully get well on their own - or die trying.
-
- While researching this essay, I came across this recent
BBC news story which came out on 1/18/08:
-
- INSECTS FOUND IN CHILDRENS HOSPITAL WARD
- An NHS trust where 90 people died from the Clostridium
Difficile super-bug has been criticized following an inspection by a Kent
patients' watchdog.[4]
-
- "Criticized?" Note how the place is called
a "trust." What a misnomer that is. To have something like this
happen in 2008 in any hospital in a developed country is pure madness and
absolutely without excuse. This isn't the 18th century. The NHS here is
referring to the British National Health Service. Clostridium Difficile
is a nasty bacterial infection which causes severe diarrhea or can end
in death. It is spread from human fecal matter and very difficult to get
over. There isn't any real treatment for it. Both insects and hand to mouth
contact will spread the disease. Fecal matter - get the idea here of what's
going on here?
-
- Any catastrophe like this in the United States or Canada
could cause authorities to shut down the hospital, in order to fully disinfect
it and eradicate all insects. But in the UK, the "trust" stays
open. Apparently in the UK life isn't that important, as people are already
accustomed to being treated as peons and slaves. British citizens should
be angry over this, but "proper English manners and upbringing"
(i.e., brainwashing) prohibit such behavior. And their health problems
will continue on ad-infinitum.
-
- Often we see something which is a clear hazard to public
health. Guard rails on highways are a good example. Growing up in the United
States, people were often beheaded by guard rails when a car struck the
end of one, got underneath it and threaded through the windshield and out
the back. Anyone in the way of it was dead. Finally a law was passed in
some states like New York requiring both ends of all guard rails to be
buried in the ground or have a deflector device mounted on them to prevent
this. Unfortunately, it usually required hundreds of people to DIE before
a law to be passed to bury the ends of guard rails.
-
- Low cost curtains could do wonders to help stop the spread
of disease in hospitals everywhere. We will never know how many people
have died as a result of hospital-aquired infections. No laws are needed
to install curtains, but laws might be required in every country to enforce
their installation. With the knowledge of disease transmission taught to
doctors everywhere today, why aren't curtains used everywhere? As stated
before, perhaps the idea actually isn't to save lives, but hasten the ending
of lives.
-
- Ted Twietmeyer
- tedtw@frontiernet.net
- www.data4science.net
-
- [1] Taipei Times website
- [2]- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikungunya
- [3] - http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/890000/images/ _892719_hosp_ward300.jpg
- [4] - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/7197146.stm
-
-
- UPDATE to Curtains, Drugs and 'Free' Medical Care
-
- AIR CIRCULATION
-
- I should have included a comment on air circulation.
Are semi- private rooms always better? That remains questionable, and
certainly depends on any diseases another patient in the room may have.
Without doubt, if one has to select between a ward and a semi- private
room, it's quite obvious which one has a lower risk factor. Air in hospitals
in developed countries today is circulated by the HVAC (Heating Ventilation
and Air Conditioning) system. In the United States, certain health code
regulations exist requiring filtration of the air. Air filtration is an
immensely complex subject, and there are experts in this area who can
explain it better than I can.
-
- A list of filtration requirements for hospitals as well
as which rooms are specified to have either positive or negative pressure
can be found in a table in [5]. Some manufacturers claim that droplet
infection is limited to 3 ft., but certainly in the case of a patient
sneezing with some force this is not the case.
-
- According to one indoor air cleaning equipment supplier,
.3 micron (300 nanometer) particles are more difficult to filter than
smaller particles.[6] Air filtration is further compounded by additional
complex issues regarding proximity to other patients, air currents moving
in numerous directions when a health care person or visitors walk by.
There are an infinite number of air circulation patterns in any public
building, including hospitals.
-
- Short wave ultraviolet lights are extremely effective
at killing all pathogens almost instantly, and are also widely used to
sterilize public water supplies in water filtration plants. These lights
work by breaking down the DNA in pathogens into inert material. It is
not known if these light sources are required in all hospitals, but they
should be. Numerous manufacturers sell these proven systems.
-
- Ted Twietmeyer
-
- [5] - http://www.filterair.info/pdf/sars%20current%20event%
20bulletin.pdf
- [6] - http://air-purifiers-hepa-air-cleaners-air-filters-dust-
collectors.com/tutorial_2_air_purifiers.htm
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