Life in the hospital continues to be a struggle with the increase of covid patients and the increase of flu patients and the increase of RSV patients and, unsurprisingly, the increase of whooping cough patients.
The holidays, the gift that keeps on giving to the hospital.
Also a gift/burden to the hospitals? The anti-vaccination movement. That someone made up because it made them feel powerful and popular and the political right seized upon the idea and started preaching anti-vaccination propaganda to their followers. The man who would be president in 17 days said it best in 2016, “I love the poorly educated.” And that was before the 2016 election.
If you are going to be on the side of anti-vaccination that does increase the supply of sick patients in the hospitals. If they can afford it. Otherwise, they are out there spewing germs and viruses everywhere. Because no one can afford to call off sick.
It can go back further all the way to Christopher Marlow and his 1604 work Doctor Faustus. This is where the man sells his soul for pleasure and knowledge. Being excessively educated leads to his eternal damnation. So the war on education started back when books were horribly expensive because the printing press had only been invented less than 150 years before. And printing presses were banned by the sultan of the Ottoman Empire upon pain of death.
Wow.
This post took a marked turn. From the trials of the hospital during the holidays to anti-vaxxers, to the war on education, to keeping people stupid is the point. This post was a wild ride.
I write this so often, this was not the post I wanted to write. But I do free write a lot.
I wanted to write about how un-fancy the hospital culture is during the holidays when it feels like it is every healthcare worker for themselves. We are surrounded by glitz and glamour of the holidays, and hospital-based providers are holding the burlap sack, begging for some more.
To bring it back to the Friday theme of FFS, this has definitely been an un-fancy post.
I just don’t have the energy to make it fancy.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 