Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[Ted Striker]

That gif captures the futility perfectly.

[huckbucket]

Let's not deny him his right to be pissed at someone, anyone, everyone.

[goldenboy]

Again <1% of nurses got fired while we have COVID patients (mostly unvaccinated) taking up 30-40% of the RN labor at the hospital.

Do you know the numbers for firefighters and paramedics? I found out a firefighter I know decided to lose his job over it. Dumbass. Someone took his place immediately so a win-win as far as I'm concerned.

[Kinnikinnick]

Asspen doesnt have a cogent argument.

He has an anti vaccine belief that he is searching for an argument that he can use to justify his belief ex post facto.

He’ll keep trying because what’s the alternative? Change his mind? Admit that he was wrong?

LOL


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[Ted Striker]

...or is he just saying shit to rile people up

[BCMtnHound]

...or is he just saying shit to rile people up

AKA shit disturber

[scrublover]

All of our ICU Covid patients are unvaccinated.

A very small percentage of nurses and technicians resigned because of the state mandate in WA. Like not enough to make a difference in caring for critically ill Covid patients. Most were in ancillary services and it was like a dozen people.

The challenge is that we have no reserve because of the Covid patients and we need that going into the winter months. So to maintain that reserve we can only do limited procedures and surgeries. Most revenue to pay the bills and staff comes from surgery and procedures. That leaves us at an impasse and on the brink of insolvency.


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This has been my experience. The last few months all our ICU Covid patients have been un-vaxxed but for one. (dude with bad immunocompromised shit who had a shitty rxn to his 1st shot - didn't get the 2nd, ended up getting the Vid and dying)

My ICU isn't bad now, but the Covid non-ICU patients in my facility strain the whole thing. The floors are all severely understaffed, meaning PCU/SDU can't txr people out, which means we can't txr people out. Backs up the whole works.

I think we lost only a handful of staff hospital wide due to mandated vaccination.

Overall we aren't doing too poorly - mostly due to being in a pretty highly vaccinated area with fairly high mask/distancing compliance.

[LongShortLong]

The "healthcare workers" in CO who have exemptions are mostly not at the bedside. "Healthcare workers" include office workers, coders, billers, call center people. Even still >90% is better vaccination than any other population in the US.

That's a good number. There are other populations doing well. 90.3% of the 12 and up crowd in Santa Clara County, CA is fully vaxxed (the Asian population here, all ages, is also >90%). https://covid19.sccgov.org/dashboards Other bay area counties are similar. I hope our healthcare workers are helping the average up. Our hospitals are not crunched, though there is a steady stream of victims.

Unvaccinated case rate is more than 10 times higher than the vaccinated rate. The Covid lovers are rewarded. I don't see a similar breakdown for hospitalizations or death.

[cat in january]

Do you know the numbers for firefighters and paramedics? I found out a firefighter I know decided to lose his job over it. Dumbass. Someone took his place immediately so a win-win as far as I'm concerned.

EMS in Maine are required to be vaccinated and now the system is really stressed with folks leaving.

[Percy Rideout]

EMS in Maine are required to be vaccinated and now the system is really stressed with folks leaving.

Live shot of the above posters trying to rationalize to TGR that losing employees at your business does not affect standard of care or capacity in a hospital setting, or any business' operations for that matter.

Don't piss on my leg and then tell me it's raining.

[Bunion 2020]

^^^ Bwhahahahahahahaha!

There are many times when I have been happier to run short staffed than have some assholes working that make life more difficult. Just sayin.

In Maine, Vaccine Mandate for EMTs Stresses Small-Town Ambulance Crews

October 25, 2021


On a recent morning, Jerrad Dinsmore and Kevin LeCaptain of Waldoboro EMS in rural Maine drove their ambulance to a secluded house near the ocean, to measure the clotting levels of a woman in her 90s.

They told the woman, bundled under blankets to keep warm, they would contact her doctor with the result.

“Is there anything else we can do?” Dinsmore asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m all set.”

This wellness check, which took about 10 minutes, is one of the duties Dinsmore and LeCaptain perform in addition to the emergency calls they respond to as staffers with Waldoboro Emergency Medical Service.

EMS crews have been busier than ever this year, as people who delayed getting care during the covid-19 pandemic have grown progressively sicker.

But there’s limited workforce to meet the demand. Both nationally and in Maine, staffing issues have plagued the EMS system for years. It’s intense work that takes a lot of training and offers low pay. The requirement in Maine and elsewhere that paramedics and emergency medical technicians be vaccinated against covid is another stress on the workforce.

Dinsmore and LeCaptain spend more than 20 hours a week working for Waldoboro on top of their full-time EMS jobs in other towns. It’s common in Maine for EMS staffers to work for multiple departments, because most EMS crews need the help — and Waldoboro may soon need even more of it.
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The department has already lost one EMS worker who quit because of Maine’s covid vaccine mandate for health care workers, and may lose two more.

The stress of filling those vacancies keeps Town Manager Julie Keizer awake at night.

“So, we’re a 24-hour service,” Keizer said. “If I lose three people who were putting in 40 hours or over, that’s 120 hours I can’t cover. In Lincoln County, we already have a stressed system.”

The labor shortage almost forced Waldoboro to shut down ambulance service for a recent weekend. Keizer said she supports vaccination but believes Maine’s decision to mandate it threatens the ability of some EMS departments to function.

Maine is one of 10 states that require health care workers to get vaccinated against covid or risk losing their jobs. Along with Oregon, Washington and Washington, D.C., it also explicitly includes the EMTs and paramedics who respond to 911 calls in that mandate. Some ambulance crews say it’s making an ongoing staffing crisis even worse.

Two hundred miles north of Waldoboro, on the border with Canada, is Fort Fairfield, a town of 3,200. Deputy Fire Chief Cody Fenderson explained that two workers got vaccinated after the mandate was issued in mid-August, but eight quit.

“That was extremely frustrating,” Fenderson said.

Now Fort Fairfield has only five full-time staffers available to fill 10 slots. Its roster of per-diem workers all have full-time jobs elsewhere, many with other EMS departments that are also facing shortages.

“You know, anybody who does ambulances is suffering,” said Fenderson. “It’s tough. I’m not sure what we’re going to do, and I don’t know what the answer is.”

In Maine’s largest city, Portland, the municipal first-responder workforce is around 200 people, and eight are expected to quit because of the vaccine mandate, according to the union president for firefighters, Chris Thomson.

That may not seem like a significant loss, but Thomson said those are full-time positions and those vacancies will have to be covered by other employees who are already exhausted by the pandemic and working overtime.

“You know, the union encourages people to get their vaccine. I personally got the vaccine. And we’re not in denial of how serious the pandemic is,” Thomson said. “But the firefighters and the nurses have been doing this for a year and a half, and I think that we’ve done it safely. And I think the only thing that really threatens the health of the public is short staffing.”

Thomson maintains that unvaccinated staffers should be allowed to stay on the job because they’re experts in infection control and wear personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves.
Waldoboro’s EMS director, Richard Lash, works 120 hours a week to help cover staff vacancies. He’s 65 and plans to retire next year.(Patty Wight / Maine Public Radio)

But Maine’s public safety commissioner, Mike Sauschuck, said EMS departments also risk staff shortages if workers are exposed to covid and have to isolate or quarantine.

“Win-win scenarios are often talked about but seldom realized,” he said. “So sure, you may have a situation where staffing concerns are a reality in communities. But for us, we do believe the broader impact, the safer impact on our system is through vaccination.”

Some EMS departments in Maine have complied fully with the mandate, with no one quitting. Andrew Turcotte, the fire chief and director of EMS for the city of Westbrook, said all 70 members of his staff are now vaccinated. He doesn’t see the new mandate as being any different from the vaccine requirements to attend school or enter the health care field.

“I think that we all have not only a social responsibility but a moral one,” Turcotte said. “We chose to get into the health care field, and with that comes responsibilities and accountabilities. That includes ensuring that you’re vaccinated.”

Statewide numbers released last week show close to 97% of EMS workers in Maine have gotten vaccinated. But that varies by county: Rural Piscataquis and Franklin counties reported that 18% and 10% of EMS employees, respectively, were still unvaccinated as of mid-October.

Not all EMS departments have reported their vaccination rates to the state. Waldoboro is in Lincoln County, where only eight of 12 departments have reported their rates. Among those eight, the rate of noncompliance was just 1.6%.

But in small departments like Waldoboro, the loss of even one staff member can create a huge logistical problem. Over the past few months, Waldoboro’s EMS director, Richard Lash, started working extra long days to help cover the vacancies. He’s 65 and is planning to retire next year.

“I’ve told my town manager that we’ll do the best we can do. But, you know, I can’t continue to work 120 hours a week to fill shifts,” said Lash. “I’m getting old. And I just can’t keep doing that.”

BTW ASSpen, have you ever worked EMS?

[MagnificentUnicorn]

^^^ Bwhahahahahahahaha!

There are many times when I have been happier to run short staffed than have some assholes working that make life more difficult. Just sayin.

I think it’s the same in most jobs. A lot of employees are just taking up space


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[bennymac]

Gonna be a real shame to lose those antivax nurses and doctors…

Who will then deal with the burden of antivax patients clogging up ICUs and delaying surgeries?

I guess it will be the 99+% of health care workers who are doing everything they can to help - including but not limited to getting vaccinated.

Morans railing against the problem they help create and perpetuate is amusing to witness.

[The AD]

Live shot of Asspen trying to bend the facts to fit his preferred narrative.

Seriously, I'm sure the effect of people leaving healthcare jobs due to vaccine mandates has anywhere from a tiny to a significant impact on the ability to provide healthcare, but I also think that overall it's very much worth it. We've given people ample time to get vaccinated and many still refuse to. Fuck 'em. All the data show that unvaccinated patients are the ones straining the system.

[summit]

Vaccination rates among EMS and Ski Patrols is highly variable. I know several ski patrols and FireEMS were >90% with no mandates. Others had rates lower than that. Depends on the service.

Luckily (sadly) EMTs are a dime a dozen from the HR standpoint. (I am also an EMT and I worked 911 EMS.) It takes 4-16 weeks to make enough EMTs to replace any antivaxxer losses and all clinical sites require you to have your vaccine to rotate to the site for class. The CO annual state EMS conference required vaccine records to attend. Paramedics will take longer to replace, but frankly a lot of systems have too many paramedics leading to skill dilution so a staffing remodel saves costs and improves care.

The biggest problem for EMS capacity is ambulances backed up at the ERs because the ERs and hospital are full of COVID patients (mostly unvaccinated) and the extra demand to transport patients from full hospitals to distant hospitals that still have open beds.

EMS is and always has had very high turnover and short durations of professional practice, except for Fire, but then most FFs don't actually do EMS apart from carrying patients.

Given that paid FF jobs have pretty high pay especially for the entry requirements, open positions can have up to 500 applicants for 1 spot, replacing vaccine holdouts shouldn't be hard. But pensions are huge motivator for FFs to do the right thing. Most FFs are not going to find another fire job that pays well and doesn't require vaccination. So unless they want to go on to their RN, oh wait, vaccine required... so unless they want to become a plumber, welder, or long haul trucker, most will never see a FF sized paycheck without serious schooling.

Volly FFs well that might be a different issue in rural depts, but rural volunteer departments probably do not fall under any federal mandates. Volunteer SAR doesn't fall under mandates.

LEO? Well that might be a huge issue because nobody wants to be a cop these days.

[Percy Rideout]

Thank you all for telling me I was dead wrong, making fun, then finally unwittingly agreeing with me.

I'm all for vaccination, just not a mandate through a blanket Executive Order, no matter who is president.

Crafting policy is difficult, and a ready fire aim approach without considering potential pitfalls that the policy creates is, in fact, bad policy.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

You’re not the boss of me!


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[Greenstateofmind]

^^^ Bwhahahahahahahaha!

There are many times when I have been happier to run short staffed than have some assholes working that make life more difficult. Just sayin.

BTW ASSpen, have you ever worked EMS?

20% of the people do 80% of the work

[The AD]

No one is agreeing with you, Asspen, unwittingly or otherwise.

[Yonder_River]

Live shot of the above posters trying to rationalize to TGR that losing employees at your business does not affect standard of care or capacity in a hospital setting, or any business' operations for that matter.

Don't piss on my leg and then tell me it's raining.

Your wrong. Healthcare was already understaffed at certain levels prior to the pandemic and now it's worse due to burnout and the prolonging of the pandemic by antivax nutjobs. And if anyone's concerned about the amount of EMTs around then maybe the pay scale should be moved up a bit from it's current paltry amount.

[dunfree]

No one is agreeing with you, Asspen, unwittingly or otherwise.

Absolutely nothing anyone says here will penetrate. He, montucky, the brain is rotten they are lost to the asshole sphere.

[Bunion 2020]

And if anyone's concerned about the amount of EMTs around then maybe the pay scale should be moved up a lot from it's current paltry amount.

FIFY

[summit]

Hate to say it, but EMT pay rates are low because it is an entry level job with a formulaic practice requiring less than 200 hours of training with a textbook written at the middle school level while the job is a stepping stone and has non-financial perks that attract a huge and willing candidate pool mostly in the 18-25 year old range. This is a recipe for permanently low pay. If you made AEMT or an equivalent to Canadian PCP the minimum to work on an 911 ambulance, then things would change. (Also make Paramedic a minimum 2 year degree, or 3 years like Canadian ACP). But IAFF (Fire union) will never allow such progression.

[KQ]

Did someone say there ought to be free in home tests?

Walla Walla County participating in free program promoting home tests for COVID-19


Walla Walla County health officials have given the nod to yet another tool to reduce or avoid high transmission rates of COVID-19.

Dr. Daniel Kaminsky, public health director with the Department of Community Health, said on Monday, Nov. 29, that the county has signed up for the “Say Yes! COVID Test” program that comes via the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other partners.

The program offers — for a limited time — free, at-home test kits sent to people via Amazon, Kaminsky said.

[Percy Rideout]

Your wrong. Healthcare was already understaffed at certain levels prior to the pandemic and now it's worse due to burnout and the prolonging of the pandemic by antivax nutjobs. And if anyone's concerned about the amount of EMTs around then maybe the pay scale should be moved up a bit from it's current paltry amount.

You are falling into one of your own logic traps here, and ironically further bolstering my point.

Blaming the shitty state of our fucked up healthcare system (understaffing issues pre-COVID) only affirms my argument that this blanket EO vaccine mandate forced out trained employees (Remember when we call them essential?) in good standing (in the middle of a pandemic) and that negatively affects both standard of care and capacity for each hospital.