Man died while waiting for a spot in ICU filled with COVID-19 patients

A GoFundMe page, established to help Van Pelt’s family with funeral expenses, offered the following explanation of what happened with him.

“Rob Van Pelt was going to a routine medical procedure when something unknown went terribly wrong and he flatlined under light sedation,” a message on the page says. “He was able to be revived after many attempts and what went from a routine 20-minute appointment left him without oxygen for several minutes and he had to be life-flighted to the nearest emergency hospital with a cardiac team.”

Wait . . . they couldn't treat him . . . why? You can set up ICU care outside an ICU unit. What about the CCU unit?

Not discounting that covid patients are taking up spaces but this article has some other purpose. Maybe they are covering their asses.

If he was vaccinated, he should have bumped the last unvaccinated person admitted.

Tragic

sounds like he arrived as a brain dead vegetable

"without oxygen for several minutes"

I hope his siblings Linus, Lucy, and Rerun are okay.

R7 I see what you did there.

[quote] Wait . . . they couldn't treat him . . . why? You can set up ICU care outside an ICU unit. What about the CCU unit?

Exactly. We used PACU for ICU overflow. And portable monitors are available that can be placed in rooms. Give the patient one nurse for 1:1 care. I hate these trashy anti vaxxers but something isn’t right here.

[quote]Wait . . . they couldn't treat him . . . why? You can set up ICU care outside an ICU unit. What about the CCU unit?

Even if you could how would you staff it?

Hospitals love travel nurses. Some of them claim they’re making $10k/week. See, hospitals don’t have to pay benefits, wage increases and 30 year pensions when they hire travel nurses. I tried every summer to get a job in my local hospital, where population increases 400% and all kinds of accidents happen because people are in the town on vacation. Nope. They hired travel nurses rather than hire a local person who was looking for a job.

So fuck em.

Another one

Last year, NYC shut down for March and April to slow the spread of COVID, for EXACTLY this reason: to avoid a situation where no one can get treatment because the hospitals are overrun. Before us, the same thing happened in Italy. The tragedy of these deaths is multiplied by the fact that it’s all completely avoidable. Common sense, basic planning, and leadership that doesn’t make public health a political football would have avoided this.

These days COVID patients should be bottom of the list for ICU spaces, since the vast majority of them haven't gotten vaccinated. If you have to chose who lives and dies, it's obvious that they're the ones who should die.

"If only we had someone like SS-Obergruppenführer Leonardo Conti instead of Fauci, the unvaccinated vermin would be eliminated swiftly."

It's going to get worse. We almost hit 200,000 cases yesterday, and that typically shows up in hospitals a week or two later. My county in SC is already at 98% capacity.

Oh, and DIAGF, R15.

Hospitals and nursing homes are understaffed because of how many nurses, etc have quit rather than take the injection.

Many ICUs only have half their beds available because of this understaffing.

The shortage is severe enough that Nebraska is now inviting completely unvaccinated, not just against Covid, nurses to work at their hospitals.

Data out of Vietnam shows that vaccinated covid positive hospital staff are passing the virus to patients who do not have covid, vax and nonvax, alike, and that additional measures are necessary to protect people from the vaccinated carriers.

R17

I don’t think they’re quitting just because of the vaccine (but it is one reason).

These nurses are also overworked and stressed. Working as a nurse during a pandemic is hell.

I honestly and truly believe that any anti-vaxx person who is medically able to be vaccinated but who refuses to be vaccinated should be turned away by every hospital when they (inevitably) become sick with Covid.

If they don't trust a proven safe, highly effective, and FREE vaccine that is FDA Approved, then they shouldn't be trusting any of these home-remedies, and certainly shouldn't be trusting the "medical establishment" (aka Hospitals and Doctors).

They can stay the fuck home, and die on their own, without effectively murdering other people by taking up desperately needed hospital beds due to their own utter stupidity.

r18, some hospital systems are also firing them for refusing to take part in this medical experiment. And then the hospitals don't have enough staff to take of patients. The remaining staff at many hospitals are furious with management over this, getting even more burned out and many of them are deciding to become travel nurses for higher pay and the benefit of not having to be involved in the politics of these vax mandates.

I was supposed to get a colonoscopy last year but my doc said put it off for almost exactly what happened to this guy.

He (hypothetically) brought up the guy's EXACT scenario. He said, while the procedure is very safe, if something does go wrong and you need to be transferred to the hospital, it might be a COVID clusterfuck.

I ended up doing that at home "poop in a jar/send it by mail" colon cancer screening kits which, I'm told, will give me 3 years till needing a colonoscopy. Let's hope COVIDmania is calmed way down by then because I'm totally down for insurance paying for drugs and butt play.

r19 it's still under EUA and the VAERS reports clearly show it's not safe. The data out of Israel shows it's ineffective. And Japan just canceled their ModeRNA roll out because of fatalities from vials full of unidentified metal particulates.

R20, it's not an "experiment".

And any nurse fucking stupid enough to refuse an extremely safe, highly effective AND FREE vaccination during a global pandemic is too stupid to live, and good fucking riddance. They deserve to be fired.

r21, did you have to supply your own jar?

R22, you're completely wrong and are a fucking liar.

It's ridiculous how the "data out of Israel" is being spun by anti-vaxxers and covid denialists. The data shows the vaccine to be highly effective and FAR SAFER than getting infected by Covid. But you believe spin and lies instead of actually understanding the data as presented.

You're a fool and a tool.

Ohhh FUUUCKK YOU, R22.

You're either a moron or a troll... or a moron troll. What a sad life, you should end it.

r25, no, it's still under EUA. That's a fact. You can go read that yourself on the FDA website.

And the data out of Israel shows efficacy at 46% 4 months out and down to 16% 5-6 months out. Those are facts.

You may not like them, little Pharmacrat, but your feelings don't change reality.

For fool/tool R25.

[quote]did you have to supply your own jar?

Nope, R24

They give you all the gear. Why do you want to send me an empty jar and return label? Is that what you're getting at?

AND IT'S STILL DRAMATICALLY SAFER TO GET VACCINATED THAN TO GO UNVACCINATED, YOU IRREDEEMABLE DUMBASS.

I don’t think r27 et al. checked their email this morning for the latest GQP, Q-A talking points.

The ones you’re using are old, dear.

80% of CV19 infections, in the unvaccinated, are asymptomatic. Around 15% of those who develop symptoms, generally, recover within 2 wks. The remaining 5% who develop severe infections are almost all elderly or suffering from other conditions which compromise their immunity.

r29, I don't know, maybe, I don't get much interesting mail these days.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

Don't know what you're getting out of spreading misinfo R28, but it's easily countered.

For example, from this article here: "Misleading posts on social media are now twisting data from Israel to falsely claim the country’s vaccination program is a failure due to the number of breakthrough cases of COVID-19 among the vaccinated. Medical professionals say Israel’s vaccine program is making remarkable progress against the virus."

"Experts say the country’s high vaccination rates are keeping case numbers down and reducing hospitalization and deaths even as the delta variant is provoking an uptick in infections. Data from Johns Hopkins University shows Israel documented [bold]1,118 new cases on July 21 -- which is less than a tenth of the 11,934 new cases the country had at its peak on Jan. 27, before vaccines were widespread[/bold]."

R32, that just isn't true.

[quote]I don't know, maybe, I don't get much interesting mail these days.

Hahaha, R33.

r36, in fact, it is true. Did the TV tell you something different?

I'd bet anything that they couldn't find a bed because of staffing issues, not because of the lack of physical space or beds. Our ICU was shut down for four years and when I needed a routine operation, I had to travel to a larger city because the surgeons wouldn't take anyone who had any kind of respiratory disorder, even a mild one like mine. They said that those patients might need the ICU after anesthesia and there was no ICU in town, so they wouldn't risk it.

For COVID they transferred a small crew of staff from larger cities to our hospital but they were only able to take 4 patients max. We've been sending people to other hospitals for months now.

[quote]I don’t think they’re quitting just because of the vaccine (but it is one reason).

[quote]These nurses are also overworked and stressed. Working as a nurse during a pandemic is hell.

As a nurse, I can tell you that working conditions in hospitals for the last decade plus have been pretty grim, pandemic or no pandemic. Nursing was a second career for me and knowing what I do now I wouldn’t recommend it for someone whose mental and physical wellbeing I care about. There is the stress and anxiety inherent to this line of work, a work schedule in constant conflict with life outside of work (hello rotating nights, holidays, and weekends), dealing with demanding and ungrateful patients and families, onerous and excessive charting requirements that mean more time spent in front of a computer than in the actual care of patients, lack of breaks to eat or use the restroom, UNDERSTAFFING (next time you’re in the hospital ask your nurse how many patients they typically have on an assignment and how many aides are available to help), and the list goes on.

Americans are living longer with more chronic conditions than ever before and the pandemic has taken a system already teetering on the brink and pushed it into a full blown crisis. It’s not just nurses but all healthcare workers that are exploited by the system. Hospital administrators care more about profit and their salaries than patient care and safety. Regulatory bodies only care about documentation being filled out and not the actual quality of care being given. The Joint Commission was silent when nurses were reusing the same masks for weeks and using trash bags as isolation gowns. The general public pays us lip service with nice thank you signs but won’t do the necessary things to keep themselves and others out of the hospital, like wearing masks and getting vaccinated.

As far as nurses leaving because they’re being forced to be vaccinated, good riddance. IMO if you can’t understand or accept the overwhelming evidence of the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccine as a healthcare worker, you have no fucking business practicing. The bigger problem is working in the hospital fucking sucks. Taking care of people is hard. Really hard. And the pandemic has shown us that despite the nice signs and thank-yous, frontline workers are expendable. We entered this profession to help others, not to be taken advantage of and exploited. The healthcare “heroes” are fed up.

Michigan got its Covid numbers more or less under control after the Detroit area became a major early hotspot, thanks in large part to Gov. Whitmer's pandemic control mandates. But the Republican controlled state Congress recently ripped those powers away from her. Now the baconfaces are all going to have a big party full of drunks spitting in each others' faces. We'll soon see how the natural herd immune strategy pushed by the governors of Texas and Florida works during a Michigan flu season.

Hospitals should say “If you quit because you don’t want to take the vaccine during an pandemic, don’t come back. There are plenty of people out there who want jobs with benefits.”

[quote] Data out of Vietnam shows that vaccinated covid positive hospital staff are passing the virus to patients who do not have covid, vax and nonvax, alike

BECAUSE THOSE VACCINATED HOSPITAL STAFF WERE INFECTED BY PEOPLE WHO REFUSED TO BE VACCINATED.

So you’re saying the vaccines don’t prevent contracting the virus. If the vaccines don’t work, why do you want people to take them?

I really, really hope the lying fascist anti-vax troll lives in a red state and is not vaccinated.

Go eat some horse paste, r28.

I am fully vaccinated and I will get a booster if recommended. I also understand the emergency need for a vaccine in a world wide pandemic of a disease that carries fatality risks and long term health costs not to mention the more mundane costs such as a global economic crisis . . . BUT

of course, it is experimental in many aspects. Especially the mRNA vaccines. They are the very definition of a scientific & medical experiment.

The denial of reality does not help to gain the public's confidence nor does it advance science.

Oh, do try harder, r44. I mean, really.

R47, are you willing to get boosters every 3 months?

r32, good. Praise Jesus and let them convalesce at home and not take up hospital beds.

This is the perfect response to all the people saying they’re happy the deplorable morons are not getting the vax. When they’re clogging the hospitals and then your boyfriend is in a serious car accident, get back to us.

I've already dealt with someone waiting for treatment for hours in the ER because of the unvaxxed masses clogging the system. I'm glad the MAGAts and anti-vaxxers are dying...I just wish they'd do it at home. Every single one of you who won't take the vaccination or wear a mask should die. Just drop dead. Your voting and living habits have destroyed the United States. You are either an idiot who would rather eat horse paste, shit yourself in a Walmart and get Covid anyway rather than take a vaccine or you are simply too selfish to exist in a society. Either way, I'm done giving a shit about you. Die. Quickly. At home without bothering anyone.

👏👏

EMTs should ahk people if they are vaccinated and if they say no, return to the home for HOME HEALTHCARE.

EMTs could have screen available for TELE-VISITS for the unvaccinated and how to order oxygen and ventilators for home use.

I think all unvaccinated people suffering Covid symptoms should be turned away.

That way they aren't taking up beds that are needed for people who aren't fucking assholes.

I have a friend who is a big Facebook fan with friends all over the country and will not give it up. I’ve been countering lots of FB agitprop and keeping her provax. But she’s getting unhappy bevause she said CDC said if someone is vaxxed and gets infected CDC says vaxxed person need not isolate...so wtf? A vaxxed person who is infected is shedding virus. Why are they not isolating?

I don’t know what to say. I’m very confused. Can someone clarify for me? I don’t want my friend to go full-on FB antivaxxer

I believe they said an ASYMPTOMATIC vaccinated person does not need to isolate under the theory that the viral load isn’t even sufficient to make you feel symptoms.

If you’re symptomatic, you’re still supposed to isolate.

Why this change from the beginning, I can’t say.

[quote]I've already dealt with someone waiting for treatment for hours in the ER because of the unvaxxed masses clogging the system. I'm glad the MAGAts and anti-vaxxers are dying...I just wish they'd do it at home. Every single one of you who won't take the vaccination or wear a mask should die. Just drop dead. Your voting and living habits have destroyed the United States. You are either an idiot who would rather eat horse paste, shit yourself in a Walmart and get Covid anyway rather than take a vaccine or you are simply too selfish to exist in a society. Either way, I'm done giving a shit about you. Die. Quickly. At home without bothering anyone.

Well I wouldn't put it that way exactly, but you don't get to treat reality like a buffet where you take what you like and turn up your nose at what doesn't appeal to you.

So many of the ‘don’t give me a nasty jab because I’m scared/ it’s still experimental’ etc etc crowd are at the same time smoking and drinking heavily and shoving an assortment of recreational drugs and opioids down their throat/ up their nose/ in their veins. Because those aren’t dangerous at all. Load of bloody idiots. It’s infuriating that people with a range of life threatening condions can’t get treated because of them.

R59, I don't understand that? A cardiac event is handled in an emergency room. Was he turned away from emergency rooms? A cardiac patient can stay there and cardiac patients can be treated outside a CCU - not ICU. These stories aren't making sense.

[quote] I ended up doing that at home "poop in a jar/send it by mail" colon cancer screening kits

Those kits are hit and miss. You need to give them have a teaspoon's worth to get an accurate reading.

[quote] Those kits are hit and miss. You need to give them have a teaspoon's worth to get an accurate reading.

I don't think so. Kaiser sends me a kit every year.

Kaiser sucks and cares only about profits. It may be the worst healthcare system in the nation, despite its excellent marketing.

Kaiser is excellent for preventative medicine. I have also heard from health policy experts that they are actually very good in other areas as well and that they aren't all about profits.

You heard wrong, R66.

[quote] I'd bet anything that they couldn't find a bed because of staffing issues

Then why are hospitals lying about having enough beds instead of saying there’s a problem with staffing? There’s already such a lack of trust of the medical community at the moment.

r68 Because news is digested in sound bites or even paragraph bites. To a hospital-savvy crowd, a bed means a fully-staffed bed. For minor procedures one nurse can cover several rooms. For an ICU bed, whether COVID or any other kind of life-threatening situation, full staffing means two nurses on duty around the clock three shifts worth. . That's hard to digest for attention-deficit Americans, so they visualize a barracks of beds set up in a gymnasium filled with COVID patients on ventilators with one nurse going around checking on oxygen levels. Doesn't work that way.

It makes me sad to wonder how differently all of this would have turned out had Trump not decide to spew his antivaxx bullshit.

Well, to begin with, 400+ thousand people would not have died.

Let the anti-vaxxers die at home if they're so against medical science. It will free up hospital beds for those above room-temperature IQs.

Let's be frank, if ivermectin worked, none of this would have happened

I blame those filthy markets in Wuhan.

I really honestly think all hospitals should stop accepting patients that refused to get vaccinated.

Let them gasp for breath at home.

Fuck 'em.

Show proof that you've been vaccinated or info from your doctor that you are exempt for medical reasons, or you don't get admitted to any medical facility. For any reason.

Provide those that are denied service a pamphlet telling them what home remedies and methods are available to them. Remind them of their conviction that they knew better than science, and therefore should avail themselves of the help available from others that agree with their world view.

Wish them luck.

The world has changed. These are and will increasingly be dire times. We may need to tweak the Hippocratic Oath.

[quote] Because news is digested in sound bites or even paragraph bites. To a hospital-savvy crowd, a bed means a fully-staffed bed.

A local news story like this one is not targeted to a so-called “hospital-savvy crowd”; it’s broadcast to the general public. The general public is going to far better understand an explanation of staffing issues rather than a lack of physical beds.

I wonder how much of the problem actually is related to insurance billing. I assume an “ICU bed” can be billed to the insurance at a much higher rate than an identical bed stationed somewhere else in the hospital. The money managers at a hospital are not going to want to provide the same care at a much lower rate and they would be more than willing to let people die than have that happen.

The bottom line is that a patient would be better off admitted to a hospital and placed on a cot in a supply closet than they would be lying in a bed at home.

[quote]The bottom line is that a patient would be better off admitted to a hospital and placed on a cot in a supply closet than they would be lying in a bed at home.

You sure about that?

r78, shhhhhhh, that's what you tell the ambulance when you send them back home.

Remember when we loved whistleblowers? We even impeached a president because of one.

And the vaxxed will clam she is a bought and paid for Trump supporter with an agenda against poor Anthony, Bill, Klaus, et al.

R80 are you really that gullible?