Contrary to Republican bushwah, the “tyranny” of vaccine mandates has not caused a shortage of health care workers at rural hospitals:
Rural hospital officials who expected Covid vaccine mandates to cause a staffing crisis are facing a pleasant surprise: Religious exemptions and education efforts for the hesitant are keeping almost all health care workers on the job.
Nearly two dozen rural hospital officials and state hospital association leaders told POLITICO they have lost just a fraction of their staff to the federal immunization requirement, which mandated that health care workers in every state except Texas received at least one shot of the vaccine by last week.
…The doomsday predictions from some Republican governors and lawmakers, who warned the mandate would lead to a workforce crisis and limit care, particularly in rural areas, have not been borne out [Megan Messerly, “Rural Hospitals Stave Off Mass Exodus of Workers to Vaccine Mandate,” Politico, 2022.02.22].
Rural hospitals’ staffing troubles stem from ongoing challenges and the yahoos who cry “Tyranny!” at their sensible efforts to save lives:
Hospital officials in Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming said they are still facing significant staffing shortages, the result of longstanding recruitment and retention challenges exacerbated by pandemic-era burnout. Over the last two years, those employees whoremain have been subject to increased threats and acts of violence [Messerly, 2022.02.22].
South Dakota News Watch reports rising anger and violence hampering health care in South Dakota, and that violence is coming from cranks who don’t want us to take real action against coronavirus:
Ashley Kingdon-Reese of Huron, S.D., is an independent nurse who provides at-home care and runs a nursing consultancy. Preventing violence and anger against nurses and other healthcare workers has been a topic of concern for several years, but especially since the pandemic began.
Kingdon-Reese recently experienced violence firsthand while providing nursing care to a woman with behavioral problems who had a potential infection and needed to be taken from her home to a clinic.
The patient grew frustrated and angry after being forced to wear a mask at the clinic, Kingdon-Reese said.
“She jumped out of bed, pushed me against the wall and bit me in my thigh and I had to do what I could to get her off me,” recalled Kingdon-Reese, who serves as the government relations committee chair for the South Dakota Nurses Association. “Part of it was obviously behavioral health, but the other part was she didn’t want to wear a mask and she was very big into social media that said, ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’”
…Officials and healthcare providers at Monument Health in Rapid City have been the target of a recent protest campaign by the wife of a man who has been receiving treatment in the COVID-19 ward at the hospital.
The woman has criticized the care her husband has received in numerous online videos and postings. She has held signs outside the hospital, posted the name and phone number of the Monument Health patient liaison, and urged people to call and complain on her behalf. The woman’s social media posts call the coronavirus a “bio-weapon” launched against Americans, refers to the pandemic as a “scamdemic” and insists that Monument employees receive financial bonuses for each patient assigned to the COVID ward and for each person who dies of COVID-19 at the hospital [Bart Pfankuch, “Rising Anger and Violence Toward Healthcare Workers Hampering Patient Care in S.D.,” South Dakota News Watch, 2022.02.23].
Vaccines and masks don’t hurt rural healthcare workers; idiots spreading false information about vaccines and masks hurt rural healthcare workers, and patients, and entire communities that already face enough challenges recruiting smart professionals to keep them alive.
“United” States of America? How about States of America, cuz we gots freedumb, ya k now!
One of the few bipartisan efforts this legislative session in Wisconsin has been to make it a felony to threaten a health care worker.
https://apnews.com/article/business-crime-wisconsin-c01c55c65449184f985d8f0af01a6fcd
Yes Loren, exactly! It’s time for a divorce. Our differences are irreconcilable.
Republicanism is a disease. That Trump-worshiping Earth haters want to Balkanize the United States to further enrich oligarchs so they can trickle down on the middle class makes the Great Resignation all the more powerful.
“United” never meant agreement on everything. At first it meant united against British rule, which became stronger through the adoption of the Constitution. With the Civil War it came to mean “united against succession.” The “union” cannot dissolved.
Thomas Jefferson drafted The Declaration of Independence to run down some of the reasons for independence, but not all the reasons applied to every colony, which is what the original “states” were. The idea of “States” is one to explore, though. “States” are a relic of our colonial past. The first colonies were actually separate mercantile corporations. I’m of the opinion that the idea of “states” is highly overrated. States don’t matter at all. People matter. We might be better off to abolish the states, and find a different way organize ourselves.
The absurd claim that medical providers get paid a bonus for diagnosing someone as having Covid-19 is a lie and an insult against the integrity of all healthcare workers. It has been propagated by rightwing mouthpieces and spread far and wide by the MAGA crowd.
Nick, I am shocked, SHOCKED I say to hear that the MAGA crowd is willing to promote lies to perpetuate or promote a political agenda.
South Dakota Republicans don’t have a lock on stupid, to be sure. Red counties in New Mexico are far more vulnerable to the Trump virus than blue counties are.
https://rrobserver.com/new-mexico-adds-977-new-covid-19-cases-on-friday/
violence against healthcare workers has always been a problem, and it is worsened by facility administrators who blame the staff when then are attacked and do not want the incidents reported to law enforcement.
The problem was particularly a problem for me while working for a long-term care facility almost 25 years ago which took in residents who had been evicted from other facilities.
The social worker got a bonus from corporate for keeping the census high.
In addition to the resident-to-staff abuse, there was the resident-to-resident abuse to deal with.
It was made clear to all of us that the management did not want us filing incident reports; I did it anyway. As the incident reports were compiled and filed electronically and went straight to corporate, they had a lot of explaining to do.
Given that the problem is nothing new it is a stretch to say the current pandemic has anything to do with it. Nursing staff has been getting beat up since….forever. Regulations limiting the use of restraints has made the problem worse.
Still holding on to the “mask” works philosophy huh? Pathetic.
Nurses in CO are in short supply and are being courted and treated like Queens and Kings because of it.
– My RN darling daughter just got her $4000.00 annual retention bonus, for not quitting for a year.
– That’s on top of her $47.00 per hour, three weeks paid vacation and double and a half time on holidays.
– She’s working three twelve hour shifts and has four days off a week, one of which she chooses to work and eight-hour shift at a nursing home, a half mile from her house.
– Any nurses looking for a job away from the political unrest in South Dakota? Hmmmm …. ?
Oh Steve, since all the right people are dying I feel like giving you a hug. I’d kiss you but my N95 is just too hard to remove quickly, a sincere thank you is all I can do.
Anne Beal an apologist for South Dakota’s medical industry triopoly? The Trump virus is driving even Republicans toward socialized medicine and the faster catholic hospitals like Avera crash the better.
Notice how Anne is a bit nicer, since she got her medical weed card.
Now you don’t have to hide it outside, Anne.
You can grow it inside and be proud.
But, on the subject of masks.
I just bought a hundred lot of Kimberly-Clark American made N95’s. (*not Korean KN95’s)
Got a bulk price of $0.50 each.
I intend to continue wearing a face mask forever, in public.
Two reasons.
1. It’s been shown that face masks help shield contagious colds and the flu. (Along with my annual double dose flu shot.) And there’s little doubt that a few more variants of Covid will appear and be killing people. As it mutates it’ll get stronger.
2. Being an over 50, white male wearing a mask sets me apart from the “Steve Pearson’s” in the world and their MAGA beliefs. Eligible ladies appreciate knowing that.
Any animal that would bite you on the thigh, should be caged, isolated and medicated with darts to put them down like a vet would do to any wild animal. Why bother with them as they are clearly not ready for treatment.
Pull that trusty tranquillizer gun out and blast away. Kick back, wait for a little bit and then treat the varmint.
“If you ask how fast do tranquilizer darts work on humans? The answer would be “a couple of minutes.” There are, however, a few things to add to this topic. So, would you want to find out?
Tranquillizer darts are merely considered a deadly weapon. It is used to sedate animals or humans to relieve them from any injury pain. But then again, people can get these drugs used to tranquilize wild animals.”
Maybe that gun range that Scull conned the public into financing could offer a course in that practice.
Oh, the eligible ladies do indeed appreciate Mr. Lansing!
BuwahahahahaHAHAHAHA
Porter, I think it’s great that people like you will continue to publicly display your mask talisman. It’s makes it easier to identify my enemies.
Also, now that the insurers and actuaries are getting their hands on the data, the wheels are coming off the bus for your beloved “vaccine”…
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/german-public-health-insurer-vaccine
Just say it: radical christianic terrorism. As a soldier of fortune Neal Tapio was injected with any number of vaccines. The faster he and his fellow Earth haters perish from their own stupidity the better off my home state will be.
Hi Larry. I think you’re a good writer. I know you want to categorize me based on my anti mandate position, but I’m a staunch environmentalist. And I am not Neal Tapio. Have a good day.
Two percent of vaccinated people with “some” side effect is “the wheels coming off”?
Try again, Neal.
Ah yes, Porter — trivialize a 2% adverse “vaccine” reaction rate for an illness with a .0002% infection fatality rate. This is the type of heavy hitting intellectualism I’m used to from you.
I’m gonna have to make you prove every assertion you make, Neal. You have a history of believing anything you agree with, no matter the credibility of the source.
Our Lady of the Arroyo and her grumpy man just spent the afternoon in Santa Fe where everybody, even the Texans, homeless and the panhandlers, was wearing masks tho the mandate has been rescinded by the governor.
Hospitals are nearly back to normal.
Let it go Porter, Neal is killing all the right people. Just leave him be. Why try to educate the boy? He’ll never go to the Mayo Clinic anyway.
Porter knows, Colorado’s governor has it right: screw the Republican unmasked and unvaccinated.
https://coloradosun.com/2022/02/25/colorado-covid-response-next-phase/
Only the dead and dumb listen to Neal, so blather on Mr. Tapio. We have chosen a different path. Go one on one with Evans, he has the same mentality. Soon you will be snuggling with some popcorn to chat about the earth being 6,000 years old.
Guess what, Neal? Covid-19 is all a fake. It was invented solely to get Don the Con Trump out of office by giving us a way to send every liberal ten mail-in ballots. Pretty clever, huh? And guess what else, Neal? If you connies elect another criminal contortionist, we’ll do it again and there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it. That’s what you really believe, isn’t it Neal? #grins You’ve been right all along.
MAGA’s love when other people die of Covid, because it’s all a fake.
– A new study estimates that at least 5.2 million children around the world lost a parent or other caregiver to COVID-19 in the first 19 months of the pandemic. – BostonGlobe
In the past few days a drumpf appointed federal judge in Florida ruled the government couldn’t enforce mask mandates on passengers. That judge, a 35 year old with virtually no court experience was approved on a straight party line vote, even though ABA graded her as unqualified due to lack of experience.
It shows in her opinion according to this link…. https://www.rawstory.com/trump-judge-kathryn-kimball-mizelle/