We had 0 cases of Covid in my county when we shut down, 2 active cases in the county I work in. NY could have shut down hotspots like the city and monitored upstate areas to shut down at a crucial point, and not used up so much goodwill. We did have several businesses shut down for good and people now feel like it was all sacrifice with very few benefits. I frankly don’t believe we could shut down now. I think people will revolt.

My intense, odd-ish kid hates hanging out with other intense, odd-ish kids. He much prefers to blend in as much as he possibly can with “average” kids. Frankly, I get it. The only reason we’ve stayed where we live, which is horrible for me socially and career wise, is because we need to stay near family. My kids would never be able to do much of anything because the world is geared towards always having two parents available, and we usually don’t.

I am so tired. All I ever wanted to be was a paramedic. From the time I was 4 or 5. My dad and my grandpas were EMTs. My mom and grandma were nurses. My next door neighbor was a paramedic. I knew exactly what I was getting into when I took my EMT-basic class, but the world of 2002 was very, very different than the world of now. And now I am just so tired. We always knew the population overall was aging. We always knew that there would be a shortage, that people were living longer and living sicker. That’s the worst part, I feel. Everyone knew it was coming. Covid has just made it worse.

We technically cap people at 39 hours straight and they try not to schedule people usually for more than a 24 here. Right now that’s all out the window. We can technically sleep between calls(or read, watch TV, get into trouble, whatever) but anymore it’s so busy that it’s impossible. Last night we had 40 calls between 10pm and 8am. We had only five crews and one dispatcher on, and all but one paramedic was at the end of a 24 hour shift. Historically, even being halfway rural, we haven’t had trouble getting workers and neither has the local hospital. But healthcare here is hemorrhaging workers, especially the experienced ones that are invaluable. And the patient acuity as well as the number of patients continues to increase. Honestly, I think it would have happened without Covid for many reasons. But Covid hastened it and has made the problems public.

I work at a unicorn. If you go to the large ambulance companies that are part of a nationwide conglomerate, they pay very poorly because they have a monopoly in most areas and can do so. I started at one at 7.50 an hour as a brand new paramedic fifteen years ago. If I left here and went to the nearest local branch of a conglomerate I’d lose 30% in pay. But my point is that we pay a high rate for industry standard and still cannot recruit workers, because people are leaving healthcare at all levels. My local ED is hiring traveling nurses at what’s rumored to be $150 an hour when the housing stipend is considered, because they’ve lost so many nurses over the last year and can’t safely staff for patient volume. Because we suck at healthcare and the well-being of our healthcare workers.

If it mandates in my state for EMS, we’ll lose 3 paramedics. We can’t lose 3 paramedics. The local ER is going to lose 5 nurses. They don’t want the vaccine. I don’t understand it, but people have choices. But that’s really a lot of people to lose.

This company changed from a for profit to a profit sharing structure over the last three years, hiking wages considerably. If there was advancement potential and a little less misogyny and nepotism, it would be perfect in many ways. But we’re losing people. Hemorrhaging. Mostly because the abuse of 911 and the emergency room systems. Yesterday I had not one but two 911 calls where, when I arrived on the ambulance, found patients with minor(but still Miserable, I admit) Covid symptoms who wanted to go to the ER by ambulance to receive ivermectin(which absolutely no one is doing here because that would be bad medicine). Mild as in fatigue and chills. we have urgent care, but people frankly prefer the ER. Partly because they think they see a “real doctor” vs a midlevel provider, some because the ER gets them attention from their families(particularly neglected elderly people), some for pain meds, some just because they don’t know what else to do. Add in vaccine refusal and people who don’t need to be sick now getting really sick, it’s just absolutely draining. We lost a paramedic last week to a landscaping job instead. He was probably making very close to six figures. He’s not even close that now, but he was breaking between the busy call volume and the short staffing and the waiting 45-60 minutes in the ER in the middle of the night for a hospital bed to open up to turn our patient over and the late night hospital to hospital transfers 5 hours away because nobody closer has beds or staff. It’s not the pay or even the hours, but the absolutely draining moral injury.

Our EMT-basics make significantly more than $15 an hour. Granted—I work for a private company that does 911 and transfers and pays the best in about a two hour driving area. But still, I should make close to $65,000 this year working two 24s a week. My husband will be over six figures(he works a lot more than I do lol). We still can’t hire enough people. It’s definitely not the pay rate. I complain a lot because I want advancement and there is none here, but they offer unlimited time off with four weeks PTO. And bend over backwards to get parents Christmas morning and the first day of school off work. It’s neither working conditions or pay, it’s that people are simply leaving all kinds of healthcare jobs in droves and there aren’t enough coming down the pipeline.

I covered a concert tonight, then we sent a couple long distance transfers, and after that I decided just to find an empty bed to sleep in since I live 45 minutes away still and have to be back at 0800. Then I’m working till 8 am Tuesday morning. And we are still short two complete crews this weekend with an overfilled hospital that’s trying to find empty beds within a six hour radius. And it’s not unusual….but I think Covid is shining a spotlight on what a mess the healthcare system has been for a long time. Fortunately most of my patients today were of the stubbed toe variety.

I kind of assume that his lawyers will just try to supress whatever they can, regardless of it’s relevance to the case. If investigators are trying to link Josh to the making of these kind of videos, it won’t matter what comes up in this particular court case because those will be additional charges.

I would, but DH is doing his RN clinical at that hospital and I don’t know if it would cause him problems if I’m posting derogatory things about their nurses(I like and am good friends with most of the ED nurses, it’s not personal, but that triage nurse is a traveler that I don’t know and was so rude to my very old, very sweet grandmother). I am salty, I guess. It’s been a looming problem for a long time. Doctors, nurses, techs, EMS. The pandemic has just publicly lit up the cracks that were already there. Misuse of the ED is a huge, huge issue—but other than refusing care, which can’t be done—I don’t know what the answer is there. My colleagues in countries with universal healthcare see the same thing, so I’m not sure it’s tied to insurance or not being able to afford a primary doctor. But along with Covid and understaffing, it leads to burnout. Well—and this attitude from hospital administration—

My 88 year old grandmother went to the ER yesterday with sudden onset substernal chest pain radiating down her left arm, nausea and dizziness. I couldn’t persuade her to go by ambulance. 2.5 hours later in the waiting room, they had still not done a triage EKG. Now—I know they had two call outs yesterday and all 48 beds were full and people were in the hallways and they had less than 10 nurses working. My grandmother was never seen because she wound up just going home. She figured she could die at home in more peace than in the waiting room. The sad part is, my grandmother ran this hospital’s pediatric and maternity units for years as the head nurse. She’s medically sophisticated and is anything but a frequent flyer. Her treatment was truly awful yesterday and I usually stick up for the staff, but the triage nurse was beyond rude(when my grandmother said nicely, look, I am just going to go home, the triage RN said “Well, I’m not keeping you here.”). I tell this story because this afternoon I had a deceased patient who also left the hospital without being seen two days ago. His complaints were sudden thunderclap headache. He sat 6 hours waiting for a bed to open up, according to his family. He’s dead now. This is what happens when we don’t have enough staff, when my local ICU of 20 beds has 11 Covid patients leaving other ICU level patients in the ER because there’s no ICU beds, when nurses and techs and paramedics are quitting in droves because you can make the same money doing something that’s a lot less stress and a lot better run….this. This is what happens. I know I’m ranting. It’s Saturday and I am at work until Tuesday with two four hour breaks. Because we don’t have staff.

Yes, especially in TikTok. It’s used to avoid the censors who flag terms like suicide.

This. But it’s also location dependent. We are not rich, though we make well above median income for our area, and can easily afford two mortgages this year.

Nope. I have diabetes but that’s it. My sister has no medical conditions aside from lung damage the first round and my cousin who got so sick has no underlying medical conditions either. We are known to tend to be vaccine resistant to a couple vaccines though.

She’s in Florida so it’s rampant. Her kids started school last week and she has foster kids with lots of appointments, so she’s got a lot of exposure unfortunately.

That was the remnants of Fred. North central PA was hit very hard.

My mom just called and told me my sister is very sick with Covid. She had Covid in the spring of 2020 and then got vaccinated with Moderna. She has significant lung issues from her first round with Covid and is pretty sick again now.

Will auntie be expecting thanks? Is it something where you or DH could just email a one line thank you? This is all under the assumption that auntie is loving but socially unaware and struggling and a little compassion is a good thing; not malicious or intentionally hurtful. In that case I’d just be done.

Is auntie neuroatypical? honestly if someone is trying hard, dealing with neurodivergence, and is truly loving(not malicious) but just doesn’t have social awareness—I’d have the care packages sent to your house and ask your daughter to at least send thank you cards minus her address. I wouldn’t ever give someone else’s address out without permission, but this sounds like a case where gentle kindness might be the best.

I worked the nascar track for about 10 years on an ambulance. You’ve never seen such whiny babies who want to have fistfights when they crash. I did have one driver that I took thirty minutes away to a trauma hospital after a serious crash who was super, super nice and sent me a postcard thanking me later that summer—even if I did continually mispronounce his last name.

If you’re coming to visit and need a free place to stay and don’t mind some construction, it’s going to be empty.

I live there. 😂. I literally live three blocks down the street from the gorge entrance. That’s why I run it pretty frequently; sometimes I run down to the lake. Also I will be selling my house in a year…;)

I’m moving in two weeks so if you stalk me I still won’t be there. But SWB posted pictures of the Watkins Glen Gorge which is literally three blocks down the street from my house. I run it most mornings. So now I am totally going to fan girl like a thirteen year old and pretend I met her on my daily gorge run.

We had six nurses quit the ER in the last 48 hours because they refuse to be vaccinated, which is now required for health care workers in NY. Honestly there’s just no winning for anyone.