Our health care heroes who worked through the pandemic are now getting fired if they won't take one of the experimental COVID vaccines. It started with a few major hospitals, but others are now following the institutional imperative.
Hospitals are already short-staffed and this policy can only make it worse. Just last week, ten hospitals in Indianapolis were on diversion, meaning they were too full to accept new patients. One ambulance driver had to take a patient eighty miles away. The article linked to says it's not because of COVID or a lack of beds, but a shortage of nurses.
Indy hospitals aren't alone. Lots of nurses nationwide retired during the pandemic, there's a backlog of patients who put off care, and now some nurses are leaving over vaccine mandates. Even companies that have nothing to do with health care and whose jobs don't put employees at any elevated risk for catching COVID have jumped on the bandwagon.
So far, I haven't seen any labs issue mandates, but scheduling an appointment now for any needed lab work might prevent a long delay. Likewise, any medical procedures.
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What can you do if you're already waiting for a procedure--or if you're a medical professional looking for a job without a jab? You can look at independent surgery centers here at the Free Market Medical Association. I don't know for certain that members of this organization don't require employee vaccination, but their libertarian spirit suggests they don't. (I don't have any connection to them or any of their members.) Their procedures are a fraction of what hospitals charge since they don't deal with Medicare or insurance companies. If you're uninsured or have a high deductible, they might save you a lot of money. If you're waiting on medical care in Canada, they might save your life.
Will hospitals reinstate employees if patients start piling up and employees are even more overworked? I'm not so sure. Hospitals are businesses, even the so-called nonprofit ones. Having enough medical professionals available seems like more of a life-saving strategy than a marginally helpful vaccine. So does having more and cheaper medical care available, even if it's through a competitor. Yet competing hospitals tried repeatedly to get their government cronies to shut down the Oklahoma Surgery Center, then changed their fee structure to try to put them out of business. Hospitals prevent other medical centers from opening through CON (certificate of need) laws. Hospitals perform a lot of unnecessary heart procedures by scaring people (sound familiar?), according to Dr. Davis, who used to be a cardiologist at a hospital. Did these hospitals get a check from Pfizer for these mandates? Do they just need to save money due to a lack of revenue last year, and don't want to pay unemployment or look like the bad guy? These reasons seem more likely.
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