Posted on 12/05/2012 5:16:25 AM PST by DeaconBenjamin
Greek hospitals are in such dire straits that staff are failing to keep up basic disease controls such as using gloves and gowns, threatening a rise in multidrug-resistant infections, according to Europe's top health official.
With fewer doctors and nurses to look after more patients, and hospitals running low on cash for supplies, risks are being taken even with basic hygiene, said Marc Sprenger, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
"I have seen places...where the financial situation did not allow even for basic requirements like gloves, gowns and alcohol wipes," Sprenger said after a two-day trip to Athens, where he visited hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
"We already knew Greece is in a very bad situation regarding antibiotic resistant infections, and after visiting hospitals there I'm now really convinced we have reached one minute to midnight in this battle," he told Reuters in an interview.
Sprenger said the situation means patients with highly infectious diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) may not get the treatment they need, raising the risk that dangerous drug-resistant forms will tighten their grip on Europe.
Greece spends 11 billion euros ($14.4 billion) a year on its healthcare system - accounting for just over 5 percent of its total economic output. The government says the system is around 2 billion euros in debt and spending must be cut drastically.
Many health workers have lost their jobs and others say they have not been properly paid for months. A banner hung up by doctors outside Athens Evangelismos hospital in October said simply: "The health system is bleeding".
Exhausted doctors at Greece's 133 state hospitals cite a lack of staff as well as basic supplies such as absorbent cotton, catheters, gloves and paper used to cover examination beds.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Your neighborhood hospital very soon
Meanwhile, The Democratic Party leadership has the finest medical care, as exemplified by Jessie Jackson Junior spending five months on a luxury unit at the Mayo Clinic.
Yet another example of what happens when the Ponzi Scheme known as the Welfare State runs out of other peoples’ money. Nothing has been built in a way that is sustainable so everything — even basic healthcare — collapses.
You have to pay to have private hospital care. The Greeks produce nothing and don’t pay any taxes. What could go
wrong? Brush up on your German.
Yep. And you know what is going to come next?
Health services are going to take a downward turn in both availability and quality, and the deeper we get into Obamacare, the worse it is going to get.
There is no way that liberals are going to allow the blame for this decay on Obamacare and the fact that because of it, hospitals are going to be forced to do the same or more with far fewer resources.
Mark my words: we will see the demonization of health care and those who are employed in it. It will be another form of the class warfare that is so widely practiced by liberals in this country, and it is going to be their excuse for the failure of healthcare as we know it under Obamacare.
Mark my words.
When it fails, it will be because doctors/nurses/administrators/hospitals are too lazy/greedy/corrupt/inefficient/uncaring.
I noticed you have a sarc tag after that post. There are people in power in this country to whom that tag does not apply. They will never come out and say it, but to people like Ezekiel Emanuel (advisor to the Obama administration on health care) whose “Complete Lives System” applies an “interpretation of both allocative and distributive justice to healthcare is put forth in the context of having scarce medical resources available”. (as described by his supporters and acolytes)
Note the phrase “allocative and distributive ‘justice’”. That should tell you all you need to know.
I just wanted the readers to know that I do not personally advocate letting patients die in order to relieve the burdens on the healthcare system. Hence the sarc tag.
And they should get their healthcare in Greece.
I know that...I hope it didn’t sound like I was implying that.
Yeah. You and I both know how likely THAT is to happen.
Healthcare in this country in that respect is going to look more like the “tiered” system commonly found in communist countries.
If you are a party member or someone with pull, your healthcare options are likely to be much different than those offered to the hoi-polloi.
“Mark my words: we will see the demonization of health care and those who are employed in it. It will be another form of the class warfare that is so widely practiced by liberals in this country, and it is going to be their excuse for the failure of healthcare as we know it under Obamacare.”
Ironically, support for Obama within that demographic was amazingly high (at least where I live). The financial implications of Obamacare seemed to escape many in that group.
There are plenty of people where I work who support Obama. I can only come to one of two conclusions:
1.) They are either ignorant, lazy or stupid and have not taken the time to consider what Obamacare will do to healthcare.
Or...
2.) They are liberals. They would support someone like Obama even if he personally signed the pink slip for their own termination or he implemented policy that they know for certain would harm themselves or their families.
In Alexandr Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago” he described the most common reaction that people displayed when arrested by the state was a quizzical “Me? What for?”
Common run-of-the-mill useful idiot liberals are much the same. They always think that in the end, they will somehow be spared the effects of policies they support because...they support them. They are the same ones who scream as they are dragged away by the state “Why are you doing this? I’m on YOUR side!”
Brilliant point on your part in citing the Gulag Archipelago, for the reaction when leftists suffer gross injustice at the hands of the state they so strongly supported.
“Who me?” is going to be the universal reaction when democrat voters we see what the Democratic Party has wrought.
Along with “How the hell could you have screwed me that way?”
Brilliant point on your part in citing the Gulag Archipelago, for the reaction when leftists suffer gross injustice at the hands of the state they so strongly supported.
“Who me?” is going to be the universal reaction when democrat voters we see what the Democratic Party has wrought.
Along with “How the hell could you have screwed me that way?”
I went to go see my doctor today.... He would not shut up about how Obamacare is going to destroy our health system....
He was very concerned about being forced to move from paper to electronic records where the government will have assess to EVERYTHING about your health....
Plus he was wondering how the current system will handle the 30 to 50 million new insured....
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