From the NY Post:If you're going to get sick in Queens, take a number and wait.
The borough's already crowded hospitals have been jammed with patients since Mary Immaculate and St. John's Queens hospitals closed in February. Adding to the cramming are swine-flu fears that flooded area ERs last week.
The emergency room at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center hit a record high of 478 patients Monday. At least an extra 100 patients a day poured into ERs at Elmhurst Hospital, Queens Hospital Center and New York Hospital Queens.
The Post found that hospitals are filled to capacity with patients waiting hours, or even days, in the ER for a room to open up.
And from the Daily News:
The swine flu outbreak "highlights the need to take a close look at" health care in Queens, said Geralyn Randazzo, executive director of Forest Hills Hospital, where emergency room volume jumped to 2,105 patients in March, compared to 1,700 the same time last year.
She said the facility had treated and released 56 patients with flu-like symptoms as of Friday.
New York Hospital Queens in Flushing, which did not receive funding when the hospitals closed, saw patient volume jump by some 150 visits per week after the shutdowns.
CEO Stephen Mills said the swine flu outbreak has added another 100 to 120 patients per day on top of that - with the only saving grace being that patients have not had to be admitted thus far.
"If this turns into a situation where a lot of people require hospitalization ... we don't have the capacity - what I call surge capacity - to deal with it," he said.
Comforting, no?
9 comments:
If people actually took care of themselves (by following common sense sanitary procedures, eating in moderation and exercising every day) there would be plenty of capacity for infectious diseases.
Actually, I could be wrong, because if everyone took care of themselves, because of reduced demand for medical services, there would only be a fraction of the current numbers of hospitals and doctors and therefore a major outbreak would still be a problem.
So the next time you see your morbidly obese neighbor, thank him or her for doing their part to build our health care system. Unless you agree with the first paragraph, in which case, give them the finger.
Contrary to your assertion, the majority of patients in hospitals today are the elderly who are prone to disease no matter how well they lived their lives. The baby boomers are about to enter old age. Do the math.
All part of the Bloomberg oligarchy's (not so covert)
plan of social engineering.
Thin out "the herd" in the less served nabes (via hospital closings) with illness and death and you free up the land for "luxury" development...thereby enabling his wealthy pals to reap the benefits!
NYC is seems bent on killing off its poorer classes and "encouraging" the middle class to flee its borders!
Not a problem. Your actions make that a fact.
If it was, you would not be holding seminars on how to live with development, or looking how to ad more people to the borough.
If you were serious, the public would demand a moratorium of new projects until the hospital, school, and transit disasters were addressed.
Address citizen's basic needs first: If 2 hospitals close then their previous coverage is dispersed to the remaining nearby hospitals causing pain-full waits and overcrowding without the bed capacity to serve the overflow.
Solutions: Citizen and resident citizens must be given priority emergency care ahead of illegal citizens whom cannot prove they pay taxes or show legal residency papers. This is not to say Hospitals should turn away emergency patients - car accident, gun shot wounds etc but rather provide alternative to emergency room walk ins for these folks whom are seeking free health and prescriptions for colds, ear aches elsewhere - not emergency room care where ordinary citizens require for real emergencies.
And when the untreated illegals give you their diseases you will be happy. I don't believe that any doctor or nurse worth his salt would go along with such a program since it reeks of Adolf Hitler.
Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.
Wow we need more and more schools in queens, due to our overcrowded communities, but the closing of two hospitals is no biggie for them. Noticed they don't have so many damn issues in the city? that's why the all the liberals in manhattan love this a-0...
http://www.qgazette.com/news/
2009/0429/features
/005.html
according to the Gazette, all is well.
Oh great, if Astoria says things are peachy we all better run n hide.
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