It’s all so broken.

Our “Democracy” is now bought and paid for by billionaires who want control for their interests and foreign actors with the same motives.

I’m sad to say but, I don’t believe it will be fixed in my lifetime. I’ve seen the results these people have had on what should be our great hope. The younger generations. Where we should have nurtured better critical thinking, it was treated as if it were a flaw.

History? What’s that quote about those who are doomed to repeat history? Well, this cult mentality simply decided to cease teaching our history. Remove and ban those books. After all, we wouldn’t want little Billy Bob to know what great granddad did during the time of lynchings.

Sex? Pregnancy?Abortion? Oh my! Those books must go too! We don’t want little Suzy to know that no, uncle Jack shouldn’t be having sex with her at age 12 or EVER! And that yes, she can have him arrested and god forbid she gets pregnant? She has options! Or at least in some states she does. But there was a time she did in all states! We most certainly don’t want her reading about that. Keep them young, dumb, pregnant and future republicans.

Civics? Do they even teach that anymore?! How our government is supposed to work? The constitution? Does anyone actually care?!

I know public health has died. Ironic. It was a raucous ceremony. Attended only by the conspiracy theorists.

Healthcare in general? I don’t even know where to begin. The insurance companies that pay executives HUGE salaries and bonuses yet, have actuaries decide what they will or will not cover. An algorithm or if you’re lucky, on appeal, a health care worker (not necessarily the specialty in question) will review your claim. You’re ill and now expending ridiculous energy (you don’t have) fighting with your insurance company. For a drug or procedure you absolutely need. Not want, need.

Then we have the healthcare workers who feel it beneath them to actually include their patients in their own care! Nothing is more egregious to me than an arrogant physician or nurse. Your patient asks you to mask? Put a mask on. Your patient asks for an explanation they can understand? Stop, take a breath and think about how you might explain whatever it is in simple, layman terms. And make sure you accomplished the task at hand. “Have I explained this in a way that helps you understand it better?” Don’t stop until you get a yes! Very few patients understand what “you have calcifications in the LAD.” (It’s a potential widowmaker depending on other clinical presentations but…..a cardiologist should take a look pretty quickly.)

If the patient has underlying conditions and is uncomfortable in a crowded environment, try to accommodate them given health care providers REFUSE to enforce mask requirements. A crowded ED waiting room or hallway (the new waiting room), full of coughing people with No masks is not a safe place for the immune compromised or immune suppressed. Unless of course, you’re trying to develop repeat business.

Given I don’t have any solutions, yet. I’ll leave you with this. There was a time we removed smoking from indoors because of the risks associated with second hand smoke. Christ, they even have signs prohibiting it from hospital parking lots. The first step was the “smoking section” in restaurants. So why not have “vaccinated/mask” sections in hospitals, restaurants etc. To me, Covid/RSV presents a far more immediate and significant threat than second hand smoke. So why not address it? As for second hand smoke? I’m not around it much at all but were I to encounter it outside? I’d simply put a mask on.

Oh, one more happy thought. It’s going to get worse come January. Buckle up Buttercup.😱

#Mask

#Covid

#Thedaydemocracydied