NurseHardee

> WHAT a bunch of idiocy. This analysis accuses Bush of opposing Sharon precisely at the moment that Bush has given Sharon 1000% support on his program of total terrorism against the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories! It sure shows that Ayn Rand Thought can sure cause a lot of brain damage when taken seriously. Especially when melded together with Zionism. Egad. Nurse Hardee

Having been out to a Bay Area Tenet facility on a travel assignment fairly recently, I can totally assure you that Tenet hates the CNA. Those friends of yours are just making excuses about why they should not actually try to accomplish something by getting their facility organized by a good union, not a bad one. What kind of logic is it that says that I, Nurse Jane/ Joe, shouldn't vote for CNA to represent me because Tenet has a deal with them already? Do you really think that Tenet is inviting in the CNA to its facilities? There is no reason in the world for them to do that, and they are not. These nurse friends are thinking that way out of fear of what Tenet will do to them more than anything else. Though they express it as if they are really scared of the CNA. I heard this sort of stuff constantly on my contract. What they are scared of is that Tenet will get so nasty resisting a union in house, that the work environment will become insufferable. They are scared, but they respond by attacking the CNA instead of standing solidly with the CNA nurses who are trying to defend ALL nurses from predatory corporations like Tenet. Nurse Hardee ``````````````````````````````````````````````````````

And what pray tell is the Tenet side to its policies with nursing care, Music? I worked for them at one hospital and they paid their CNAs so little that they only gave them a raise when the Federal minimim wage was increased during that time. And their policy was to try to classify everybody as part time all the time, PLUS their HR refused to timely do the paperwork even for benefits on full time people that had some marginal health care, etc. Instead of actually saying why Tenet even has a side that nurses should consider, you just flame Spacenurse because she supports the CNA. And patient advocates go on strike, rather than just let management kill both the nursing staff, and the patients, too. Nurse Hardee ``````````````````````````````````````````````````````

Baghdad doctors report use of cluster bombs in Falluja; US harrassment of patients Dahr Jamail, The NewStandard, 20 April 2004 Dahr Jamail Baghdad, April 19 -- The word on the street in Baghdad is that the the cessation of suicide car bombings is proof that the CIA was behind them. Why? Because as one man states, "[CIA agents are] too busy fighting now, and the unrest they wanted to cause by the bombings is now upon them." True or not, it certainly doesn't bode well for the occupiers' image in Iraq. The night before last I was awakened by a very large explosion in central Baghdad, followed promptly by three other smaller explosions. This morning, I awoke to another large explosion, again followed by several smaller ones. With so many journalists leaving Iraq, and the majority of those that remain staying close to their hotels, it's becoming harder to come by accurate information aboutevents occurring on the ground. For those of us here, it has, needless to say, travel has become increasing difficult because of the deteriorating security situation. Aside from the usual bombs and sporadic gunfire that typifies daily (and nightly) life in the capital of Iraq today, it continues to be relatively quiet here, at least compared to other parts of Iraq. The feeling I get is that most Iraqis here (aside from those directly fighting the military) are in wait-and-see mode, their eyes on Najaf and Falluja. But this belies the true story, that despite the lack of overt fighting in central Baghdad, violence and tension are boiling beneath the surface. On a recent visit to the Arabic Children's Hospital, Dr. Waad Edan Louis, the Chief Visiting Doctor at the hospital, stated, "Before the invasion, we had 300 patients per night. Now, we have 100 because the security is so bad." Meanwhile, at the Noman Hospital in Al-Adhamiya, a doctor I spoke with there (who asked to remain nameless) stated, "We are treating an average of one gunshot wound per day, which is something we never saw before the occupation. This is due to the absence of law in Baghdad. The Iraqi Police have weak weapons and nobody respects their authority." He also stated that U.S. soldiers have come to the hospital asking for information about resistance fighters. He said, "My policy is not to give my patients to the Americans, or to provide them any information. I deny information to the Americans for the sake of the patient. I don't care what my patients have done outside the walls of the hospital. I do my job, then let the patient go." "Ten days ago this happened -- this occurred after people began to come in from Falluja, even though most of them were children, women and elderly." When asked if the U.S. military were bombing civilians in Falluja, he stated, "Of course the Americans are bombing civilians, along with the revolutionaries. One year ago there was no revolution in Falluja. But they began searching homes and humiliating people, and this annoyed the people. The people became angry and demonstrated, then the Americans shot the demonstrators, and this started the revolution in Falluja. It is the same in Sadr City." He continued angrily, "Aggression against civilians has caused all of this. Nothing happened for the first two months of the occupation. People were happy to have Saddam gone. And now, we hope for the mercy of God if the Americans invade Najaf." Cluster bombs are reported to have been used commonly in Iraq both during the invasion and the occupation. Another doctor at Noman Hospital, who asked to remain anonymous, stated that he saw the U.S. military dropping cluster bombs on the Al-Dora area last December, "I've seen it all with my own eyes. The U.S. later removed the unexploded bombs by soldiers picking up the bomblets and putting them in their helmets." He also believes that cluster bombs are currently being used in Falluja, based on reports from field doctors presently working there, as well as statements taken from wounded civilians of Falluja. He also claimed that many of the Falluja victims he had treated had been shot with 'dum-dum bullets', which are hollow point bullets that are designed to inflict maximum internal damage. These are also referred to as 'expanding bullets.' Nearing the end of the discussion, the first doctor stated, "The U.S. induces aggression. If you don't attack me, I will never attack you. The U.S. is stimulating the aggression of the Iraqi people!" A doctor who asked to remain anonymous at Al-Karam Hospital in Baghdad reported that another doctor from his hospital had just returned from Najaf. She was unable to work there, she told Al-Karam, because Spanish military forces had occupied its hospital. The roof of the Al-Sadr Teaching hospital in Najaf overlooks their base, so soldiers have taken it over for strategic purposes. The doctor at Al-Karam Hospital stated, "The Americans don't care what happens to Iraqis." At Al-Kerh Hospital in Baghdad there is a similar story. One of the managers at the hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated, "U.S. soldiers are always coming here asking us for information about our wounded, but we don't give them any information." Hussein Kareem, the Assistant Administrator at the Mohammed Baker Hakim Hospital in Sadr City, said that while no soldiers had occupied or visited the hospital, U.S. soldiers shot one ambulance from his hospital, injuring the driver. He also stated that during the first day of fighting in Sadr City two weeks ago, he received 32 dead bodies, mostly of women and children, and 90 wounded. At Yarmouk Hospital, a lead doctor discussed the situation in Falluja. He said that during the first days of the U.S. siege of Falluja, many of the wounded were brought to his hospital. He continues, "The Americans came here to question my patients, even though we tried to refer the soldiers to a different hospital." He is outraged by the situation in Falluja, which he calls a massacre, "The Americans shot at some of our doctors who were traveling to Falluja to provide aid. One of our doctors was injured when a missile struck his vehicle. I have also been told by my doctors in Falluja that the Americans are shooting ambulances there, as well as at the main hospital there." He continued, "My doctors in Falluja have reported to me that the Americans are using cluster bombs. Patients we've treated from there are reporting the same." It is argued that the use of cluster bombs is a war crime, at least in spirit, if not technically. Cluster bombs contravene the international treaty against land mines -- which the U.S. has refused to sign anyway -- because they leave unexploded ordnance where they are dropped, which then has the same effect as land mines. He continued, "One of my doctors in Falluja asked the Americans there if he could remove a wounded patient from the city. The soldier wouldn't let him move the victim, and said, OEWe have dead soldiers here too. This is a war zone.' The doctor wasn't allowed to remove the wounded man, and he died. So many doctors and ambulances have been turned back from checkpoints there." This same doctor reported that he saw American soldiers killing women and children, as well as shooting ambulances in Falluja. The doctor I spoke with expressed his outrage, "What freedom did America bring us? Freedom of the machine gun? So I am free to take my gun and shoot you?" Dahr Jamail is Baghdad correspondent for The NewStandard. He is an Alaskan devoted to covering the untold stories from occupied Iraq. You can help Dahr continue his crucial work in Iraq by making donations. For more information or to donate to Dahr, visit http://newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches. The above text is ©2004 Dahr Jamail and The NewStandard. Reprinting for commercial purposes is strictly prohibited. Permission is readily granted for nonprofit purposes as long as (1) adequate credit is provided, (2) a link back to http://newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches is prominently posted along with the text and (3) the journalist's bio at the end of the text is kept intact.

Bushmeat Sparks Fears of New AIDS-Type Virus Fri Mar 19 By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - People in central Africa who hunt monkeys and apes for food and trade are being infected with animal viruses and researchers fear their transmission could spark a future epidemic similar to AIDS (news - web sites). Scientists who documented the transmission of a monkey virus to humans in Africa, called Friday for measures to end the hunting of wild primate populations to lessen any potential threat of new diseases in humans. "It is in all our interests to put into place economic alternatives to help people move away from hunting and eating these animals," said Dr Nathan Wolfe, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. "In addition to preserving endangered species, such development efforts will reduce the ongoing cross-species transmission of retroviruses and other pathogens that could spark future epidemics similar to HIV (news - web sites)," he added. In a collaborative effort, Wolfe and colleagues from the Cameroon Ministry of Health, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) and other institutions traced the transmission of an infection called simian foamy virus (SFV). Like HIV, which causes AIDS, SFV is a retrovirus that can integrate its genetic material into the genome of its human host. "We're showing that these retroviruses are regularly crossing into humans," Wolfe, who reported the findings in The Lancet medical journal, said in an interview. "Transmission of retroviruses to humans is not limited to a few isolated occurrences which led to HIV. This is a regularly occurring phenomena," he added. Scientists know from historical evidence that these types of viruses have the potential to cause a pandemic. HIV is thought to have been transmitted in a very similar way. The scientists found antibodies for SFV in one percent of 1,099 people from nine rural villages in Cameroon that they had tested who had been exposed to non-human primate blood. The villagers were infected with multiple forms of SFV from distinct primate species. Infections were from several different areas which suggests the cross-species transmission of these viruses is widespread. "From our perspective, I think we are talking about the tip of the iceberg," Wolfe added. New diseases, including AIDS, SARS (news - web sites), Ebola (news - web sites) and birdflu, have resulted from infections in animals that have crossed into humans. But reducing the hunting of primates could prove difficult because bushmeat is a multi-million dollar industry and a key source of food and livelihood for poor people. In a commentary on the research, Dr Martine Peeters, of the Institute for Research and Development in Montpellier, France said infections from animals are among the most important public health threats facing humanity. "The risk of acquiring such infections is expected to be highest in individuals who are regularly in contact with primates, by hunting or preparing primates for food or by keeping primates as pets," she said.

Bushmeat Sparks Fears of New AIDS-Type Virus Fri Mar 19 By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - People in central Africa who hunt monkeys and apes for food and trade are being infected with animal viruses and researchers fear their transmission could spark a future epidemic similar to AIDS (news - web sites). Scientists who documented the transmission of a monkey virus to humans in Africa, called Friday for measures to end the hunting of wild primate populations to lessen any potential threat of new diseases in humans. "It is in all our interests to put into place economic alternatives to help people move away from hunting and eating these animals," said Dr Nathan Wolfe, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. "In addition to preserving endangered species, such development efforts will reduce the ongoing cross-species transmission of retroviruses and other pathogens that could spark future epidemics similar to HIV (news - web sites)," he added. In a collaborative effort, Wolfe and colleagues from the Cameroon Ministry of Health, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) and other institutions traced the transmission of an infection called simian foamy virus (SFV). Like HIV, which causes AIDS, SFV is a retrovirus that can integrate its genetic material into the genome of its human host. "We're showing that these retroviruses are regularly crossing into humans," Wolfe, who reported the findings in The Lancet medical journal, said in an interview. "Transmission of retroviruses to humans is not limited to a few isolated occurrences which led to HIV. This is a regularly occurring phenomena," he added. Scientists know from historical evidence that these types of viruses have the potential to cause a pandemic. HIV is thought to have been transmitted in a very similar way. The scientists found antibodies for SFV in one percent of 1,099 people from nine rural villages in Cameroon that they had tested who had been exposed to non-human primate blood. The villagers were infected with multiple forms of SFV from distinct primate species. Infections were from several different areas which suggests the cross-species transmission of these viruses is widespread. "From our perspective, I think we are talking about the tip of the iceberg," Wolfe added. New diseases, including AIDS, SARS (news - web sites), Ebola (news - web sites) and birdflu, have resulted from infections in animals that have crossed into humans. But reducing the hunting of primates could prove difficult because bushmeat is a multi-million dollar industry and a key source of food and livelihood for poor people. In a commentary on the research, Dr Martine Peeters, of the Institute for Research and Development in Montpellier, France said infections from animals are among the most important public health threats facing humanity. "The risk of acquiring such infections is expected to be highest in individuals who are regularly in contact with primates, by hunting or preparing primates for food or by keeping primates as pets," she said.

That might be true between Tijuana-SD now, but that's not true everywhere. That's what makes a lot of it such a mess going back and forth on a daily basis. There is always something new and difficult that willl occur, might occur, or is occurring that very second. My main point put simply for anyone thinking of doing it... that it's a chore I wouldn't want on a daily basis. It can be done, but IMO it's a commute form Hell.

Got to tell you, Zack... you got more stamina than I do. Border crossings are never pleasant, and who needs that as a more or less daily thing? It's just too damn ugly to want to do, even if it were to only work two back-to-back double shifts, maybe then????? But that's horrible too! NH

The Border has more obstacles than benefits when considering living on the Mexican side. A better bet, is just to be a travel nurse in the US and having a home further into the country to retreat to between assignments. There you might be able to do some volunteer stuff with a chuirch or community group of some sort. Pay for Mexcian nurxses is horrible, so forget about making much of a living there doing it. And the paper work alone is a total turn off from even trying. Nurse Hardee

Mother is charged in stillborn son's death Melissa Ann Rowland By Pamela Manson The Salt Lake Tribune March 12, 2004 Salt Lake County prosecutors on Thursday charged a West Jordan woman with criminal homicide in the death of her stillborn baby. Prosecutors claim the woman ignored repeated warnings in the last few weeks of pregnancy that the twins she was carrying could die or suffer brain damage unless she had an immediate Caesarean section. Melissa Ann Rowland, 28, had refused medical treatment, saying she would rather die than go to either of the two recommended hospitals, and that being cut "from breast bone to pubic bone" would ruin her life, the county District Attorney's Office alleges in a probable-cause statement filed in 3rd District Court. Rowland, also known as Melissa Hrosik, faces up to life in prison if convicted of the first-degree felony. Her attorney, Michael Sikora, said she has been in jail since shortly after giving birth in mid-January on a child endangerment charge involving the surviving twin, a girl who has been adopted. Sikora, a public defender, said Rowland has a long history of mental illness and was first committed to a hospital at age 12. What makes the prosecution's case extraordinary is it presumes the state can second-guess an expectant mother's choice on major medical care. "This is nothing if not a very novel legal theory," Sikora said. "If it prevails, it raises questions about what a mother can or cannot do with respect to the safety of her unborn child. If a doctor says this will be a very difficult pregnancy and you should get complete bed rest for the last three months and the mother doesn't and the baby is stillborn, is she guilty of murder? If she smokes, is it murder? If she doesn't eat right, is it murder?" But Kent Morgan, deputy Salt Lake County prosecutor and a spokesman for District Attorney David Yocom, said Rowland's crime stems from the depraved indifference and utter callousness she showed toward her unborn twins. "It's not just the conduct, it's the knowledge, the state of mind," he said. The probable cause statement claims that Rowland was told numerous times from Dec. 25, 2003, to Jan. 9, 2004, that her twins faced life-threatening conditions and could die unless she pursued immediate medical attention. Rowland told a nurse at LDS Hospital on Christmas Day that she had not felt the babies move. The nurse recommended that Rowland go at once to either Jordan Valley or Pioneer Valley Hospital, according to the probable-cause statement. But it says the nurse said Rowland told her "she would rather have both of her babies die before she went to either of those hospitals." An obstetrician-gynecologist who saw Rowland at LDS Hospital on Jan. 2 recommended an immediate Caesarean section because of problems with the fetal heart rate and an ultrasound that indicated low amniotic fluid, the statement says. However, Rowland left after signing a statement indicating that she understood that leaving the hospital could result in death or significant brain injury to the babies, according to the statement. Later the same day, Rowland showed up at Salt Lake Regional Hospital and told a nurse that she left LDS Hospital because a doctor there wanted to cut her "from breast bone to pubic bone" and this would "ruin her life," according to court records. In addition, she allegedly told the nurse that she would rather "lose one of the babies than be cut like that." On Jan. 9, Rowland went to Pioneer Valley Hospital, the statement says. A nurse was unable to verify a fetal heart rate on one of the twins and told Rowland that she should remain for monitoring, but Rowland left anyway. Sikora said child protection authorities were told of the situation when Rowland was still pregnant, but took no action. "We have not been granted authority to intervene in the life of an unborn child," said Carol Sisco, a spokeswoman for the Division of Child and Family Services. "We don't have jurisdictional authority." The only agency with authority would have been a hospital, who could have petitioned to have a guardian appointed for the child. That guardian could have then petitioned a judge to force the medical procedure on Rowland. A nurse who assisted in delivery of the twins at Pioneer Valley Hospital in West Valley City told investigators that Rowland arrived in labor on Jan. 13. A hospital staff member told Rowland that one of the babies was dead and the other was in distress, the nurse said. She said Rowland resisted the recommendation that she deliver by C-section and insisted on going outside to smoke before eventually giving her consent for the operation. The boy was stillborn and the girl was in respiratory distress, the nurse said. A doctor reported that the girl also tested positive for cocaine and alcohol in her blood. Edward Leis of the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner, who performed an autopsy on the boy, said the unborn child died two days before his sister was born "and further stated that if the defendant had delivered Baby Boy Rowland when her doctors had urged her to, the baby would have survived," the probable cause statement says. Rowland was booked into jail on Jan. 14 -- just one day after delivering her twins -- on an endangerment charge for allegedly taking drugs that harmed Hannah, the girl. Bail for that count was set at $50,000. For the homicide charge, bail was set at $250,000. The charges are another sad event in a life marked with mental problems, Sikora said. He said Rowland, herself a twin, was born to a mentally retarded mother. She was placed in foster care almost immediately and adopted before her first birthday. Her twin brother had serious medical problems and died when he was 7, Sikora said. Rowland was committed to a Pennsylvania mental hospital when she was 12, weighing almost 200 pounds, and diagnosed with "oppositional defiant disorder," Sikora said. The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry defines the condition as an ongoing pattern of uncooperative, defiant and hostile behavior toward authority figures that seriously interferes with day-to-day functioning. His client was hospitalized in a mental facility at least one other time and told him she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Sikora said. The defense attorney is waiting for records to confirm that. Rowland's statements to doctors and nurses, says Vicki Cottrell, the executive director of the Utah chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, seem to confirm a mental illness. "All I can say is there's no question this is not rational thinking," Cottrell said. "There are so many things going on in a [mentally ill] person's mind, it really is not clearly black-and-white disobedience." Rowland moved to Utah with a boyfriend and is either divorced or estranged from her husband, Sikora said. Court records show she was living on Social Security disability benefits and that managers of her apartment complex began eviction proceedings in late January after her arrest. "This is major surgery," Sikora said of the Caesarian. "It would come as no surprise that a woman with major mental illness would fear it." But Morgan said a determination of her mental state will have to be made during criminal proceedings and nothing has been proven yet. "What we're trying to send is the message that someone has to stand up for a child who could have been alive," he said. ----- Tribune reporter Jacob Santini contributed to this story. Charged * Melissa Ann Rowland could face up to life in prison if convicted of first-degree homicide for killing her unborn baby.

Where did you get such resentment towards your fellow nurses, Agnus? My experience has been that hospitals feel that they are the special commodity and can get away with anything. And they do! That's a different picture than you paint. Nurse Hardee ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Published on Monday, March 15, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times One by One, the World Is Becoming a Lonelier Place by Joshua Reichert Last month, with little fanfare, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed two tropical birds, the Mariana mallard and the Guam broadbill, from its list of species that are endangered. The birds are extinct, having joined a growing list of animals that have disappeared from the face of the Earth. The announcement that these two birds, which were native to the islands of the western Pacific, had vanished forever elicited little attention. Their numbers had been declining for decades. And few people, other than the most avid bird enthusiasts, even knew what they were or had ever seen them. So there will be few who will mark their passing with the same nostalgia or sense of loss that might accompany the disappearance of a better known species like the snow leopard, the Siberian tiger or the black rhinoceros-all on the brink of the same abyss. The fact that the extinction of these two creatures was virtually a silent one is a tragedy. Both were the product of millions of years of evolution. Both were connected to a larger network of species that interrelate and depend on one another in many ways that still remain a mystery to science. And both succumbed to the same types of human- induced pressures that threaten so many other animals in this country and elsewhere in the world: habitat loss, over-hunting and the introduction of nonnative species against which they have little or no defense. Many would ask why we should care that these two birds are no longer here. The answer is that we now know enough about how the world is put together to recognize that each species on Earth plays a role in nature. When one disappears, it is a harbinger of trouble. Just how or when or if the extinction of one species will affect us in any material way is difficult to know. However, there are stark examples of how our disregard for other life forms has imperiled our own survival. Take, for example, the case of Easter Island. This remote, barren island in the South Pacific, which is best known for its huge, mysterious stone statues, was once covered by a subtropical forest. But its Polynesian inhabitants eventually deforested the island, driving most of its tree species into extinction along with every species of native land bird. With no wood available to build boats for fishing, and the soil so depleted that crops could not be grown, an estimated 90% of the human inhabitants died of starvation. There are many different reasons why we should rail against extinction. Biologically, because each species is part of a larger, complex assemblage of living things, we should strive to protect them all, particularly because we don't understand how each piece fits with the others. There is also a moral reason. It is that Earth's creatures, great and small, are not simply here for our benefit but are here with us in the world. As such, we have a fundamental responsibility to treat them all with respect and a sense of stewardship. We are clearly failing in this task. There are more than 12,000 species of animals and plants that are known to be threatened, 1,816 of which reside in the United States. And the list gets longer every year. From the earliest days of life, many species have come and gone. To a certain extent, extinction is a natural event. Up until modern times, it is believed that one to two species per million vanished annually. We are now losing them far faster, at a rate that is estimated to be up to 1,000 times as high as in the past. Indeed, many scientists believe that by the middle of this century an astonishing 25% to 50% of all existing species will be on the path to extinction. We have both a practical and an ethical responsibility to ensure that this does not happen. Every species that disappears represents one less strand in that remarkably intricate web of life of which we are a part and which ultimately sustains us. There were no bells that tolled the departure of the two Pacific birds. But they should have tolled for us, as a sad reminder of what we have lost and as a warning for the future. Joshua Reichert directs the environment division at the Pew Charitable Trusts. Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

If Ashcroft Were Uninsured... by Dan Frosch From the moment Attorney General John Ashcroft was diagnosed with gallstone pancreatitis on March 4, he has without a doubt received the best and most efficient medical care in the world. While Justice Department officials haven't released many details, the Attorney General, because of his status, was most likely whisked through the emergency room at George Washington University Hospital, into intensive care and then surgery, and has all the while been doted on by a team of concerned and caring medical experts. Ashcroft has little reason to worry about the charges he's incurring. Like virtually all civilian federal employees, Ashcroft is presumably covered by any one of the impressive health plans offered by the United States Office of Personnel Management. The most popular plan, Blue Cross/ Blue Shield 'Standard,' could conceivably pay for close to 90 percent of Ashcroft's hospital care. But what if John Ashcroft was never confirmed as Attorney General and didn't have that impressive federal health plan? According to the Chicago-based group, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), 41 million Americans don't have any health insurance and the majority of them, the group says, aren't necessarily unemployed. So, what would have happened if John Ashcroft was not Attorney General, didn't have health insurance and got sick? What would happen, hypothetically, is this: One day, on his way into Washington D.C. to see "The Passion of the Christ," John Ashcroft gets a searing a pain in his stomach. He calls a doctor friend of his for help but the doc is out to lunch. The doctor's receptionist tells him he should make an appointment and asks what type of health insurance he has. After an infuriatingly incomprehensible conversation about health coverage, Ashcroft realizes that, because he's no longer a Senator from Missouri, he doesn't have insurance. At 61, he's four years too young to qualify for Medicare. And, because of the steady income he gets from speaking engagements, he's not among the desperately poor that receive Medicaid, despite deciding to donate most of that money to a Christian charity leaving him a much more modest man. The receptionist tells him that without insurance, a doctor's appointment will now run him about $75, and because he's now not nearly as wealthy as he once was, Ashcroft tells her he'll just take some Tylenol. A week goes by, and Ashcroft's pain grows steadily worse. He doesn't go to a doctor though, because he knows it will cost him money he doesn't have. So instead, Ashcroft pops more Tylenol. It's worth nothing that according to PNHP, some 18,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance and wait too long to see a doctor. A few more days go by, and he decides drives into Washington D.C. to see "Passion of the Christ" a second time. But before he can get to the theater, he's hit with an unbelievable pain in his stomach. Bravely maintaining his composure, Ashcroft manages to find his way to D.C. General Hospital, the mammoth public hospital he remembers passing every day on his way to Congress. As he pulls into the parking lot, however, he notices that D.C. General looks abandoned. Now that he thinks about it, Ashcroft vaguely remembers reading some newspaper articles about how D.C. General - the only public hospital in the Washington D.C., which mainly served poor and minority residents - was closed by the city in 2001 because in large part, it was overburdened with uninsured patients who couldn't pay. And so, Ashcroft sets off in his car around predominantly poor and black southeast D.C., looking for another hospital. Unfortunately, there couldn't be a worse time for Ashcroft to be sick and uninsured. Not only is there not another hospital in the neighborhood that D.C. General was serving, but also those hospitals picking up General's slack - Providence, Howard University, Washington Hospital Center and Greater Southeast - have been overwhelmed with patients. Much like in other big cities across the country, Washington's emergency rooms have seen a substantial spike in visits, there are virtually no beds available and intensive care units are filled to 95 percent capacity. What's more, says Joan Lewis, Senior Vice President of the District of Columbia Hospital Association, now that General is gone, these other hospitals are treating more of the city's approximately 85,000 uninsured residents and spending more of their already depleted cash supply in the process. Since General closed two years ago, the $131 million Washington hospitals were spending annually to subsidize care for uninsured patients jumped an average of about $24 million per year - an enormous financial strain on a system already stretched too thin. Greater Southeast filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and four more of the city's other seven hospitals are operating in the red. "Everybody feels like we're on the edge," says Lewis. "If there was a big epidemic, a medical crisis, we'd be in real trouble." Ashcroft, though, doesn't know any of this. He just knows he needs help and needs it fast. He finally gets to another hospital - take your pick of the four already mentioned - and stumbles into the emergency room. Packed with people and patients, Ashcroft is told by this receptionist to fill out a not so small folder of forms which all seem to ask him for the same information. He complies, even revealing he has no insurance. Meanwhile, he's virtually doubled over in pain. But because Ashcroft appears to only have a bad stomach ache, and he's surrounded by people in serious trauma, he might wait up to eight hours before being seen - according to the D.C. Health Care Coalition, a group of community leaders, clergy and medical professionals pushing for another public hospital. Finally, Ashcroft is called into an examination room where a nurse takes a quick look and hands him a packet of Tylenol before sending him on his way. The nurse is too overwhelmed with patients who've been shot, stabbed and the like to call an equally overwhelmed doctor to conduct a full examination on Ashcroft. Ashcroft makes it into his car and out of the parking lot before the unimaginable pain finally causes him to go into shock and collapse. Alerted to a man passed out in his car in the middle of the street, an ambulance rushes Ashcroft back into the emergency room. This time, because his condition is more urgent, he's seen immediately by doctors who diagnose him with gallstone pancreatitis - a serious illness that occurs when gallstones block the duct of the pancreas - and advise that he be placed immediately in intensive care. Unfortunately, for Ashcroft, ever since D.C. General and its 22-bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU) shut its doors, there's been little room anywhere for patients requiring intensive care. As a result, says Joan Lewis, doctors sometimes have to keep critically ill patients in the emergency room and check on them when they can. And so, Ashcroft, barely conscious, is kept in the emergency room until, a few hours later, he's brought up to the ICU. There, for four days, Ashcroft, is put on an intravenous, given aggressive pain relief and treated with antibiotics by doctors and nurses who visit him around the clock. On the fifth day in the ICU, doctors decide that Ashcroft should have his gall bladder removed to prevent any reoccurrence. The surgery goes well, and Ashcroft is taken back to the ICU. The next day, he's removed to a room for less critical patients so that he can fully recover. Sometime during the next five days, as he's recovering, financial staff contracted by the hospital politely question a woozy Ashcroft about how he plans on paying for his time there. Joan Lewis says such staff would try to convert Ashcroft to the D.C. Health Alliance insurance plan instituted in 2001 to combat the growing rate of uninsured. But the plan only works for people who are at 200 percent of the federal poverty level, leaving the majority of the city's uninsured still without coverage, including Ashcroft. "Well," the money guys tell Ashcroft. "Here's how much you owe us." While it's almost impossible to figure out the exact figure on Ashcroft's bill, one can estimate. Five days in an ICU unit alone at Providence Hospital in Washington, for example, would run up to $30,000. And then there's the laparoscopic gall bladder surgery and the five days in recovery - which could cost an additional $28,000 (according to Fairview University Medical Center in Minneapolis). But there are still all the expert doctors who've visited him daily and have their own separate charges. That price tag might run Ashcroft as much as $5000 for the ten days he's in the hospital, says Dr. Quentin Young, PNHP's National Coordinator and former Director of Medicine at Cook County Hospital. Using such rough estimates, Ashcroft is told he'll have to fork over at least $63,000. Shocked at such an outrageous figure, Ashcroft insists there's no way in hell he can pay that amount of money and begins to explain his situation. A financial counselor enters the room and tells Ashcroft that the hospital has done a little research on his "situation," and because he does have assets and a steady source of income, however small, he's not eligible for the hospital's charity fund, reserved for those who truly have no resources. The counselor says the hospital can put Ashcroft on an assistance program, where he'd be charged an incremental fee depending on his financial status. Or, if he's lucky, the hospital might eat a percentage of the bill - again, based on his status. The counselor doesn't mention it, but he knows that if Ashcroft doesn't make his payments he can send collection agents after him, and eventually take him to court if need be. After all, the hospital is already strapped for cash and has spent a lot of money treating Ashcroft. Besides, just letting uninsured patients walk out the door could force the hospital to close. Everyone knows what happened to D.C. General. The D.C. Hospital Association doesn't keep track of how often its hospitals go after patients who cannot pay, but as David Sparks, Chief Financial Officer of Providence Hospital, puts it, "Collections happen every day and every week. It's part of the standard process." In the end, says Dr. Quentin Young, there's a good chance Ashcroft will have to pay much of the money he owes in some capacity, or face a lien on everything he owns. The fact is, according to Roger Whelan, a resident scholar at the American Bankruptcy Institute and a former bankruptcy judge, medical bills attributed to a lack of insurance or insufficient coverage are a leading reason why a record 1.7 million bankruptcies occurred in this country last year. As for the real Ashcroft, he'll never know the terrifying dilemma of his alter ego - a dilemma experienced by millions of Americans throughout the country every day - because he's a high ranking official in the Bush Administration and probably has that impressive federal health plan, or one similar to it. (A Justice Dept. spokesman said that Ashcroft is insured but did not know whether he was on the federal plan.) Of course, it's the same administration, of which Ashcroft is such an integral part, that has been so opposed to expanding health insurance to all people, regardless of age, employment status or economic well being. Ironically it's Ashcroft's own health insurance that is saving him - not only now, while he's in the hospital, but once he gets the bill. Dan Frosch is a freelance journalist based in New York City. He's been on staff at the San Gabriel Valley Weekly section of the Los Angeles Times, The Source magazine, the Pacific Palisadian Post and most recently the Santa Fe Reporter. Dan also contributes to VIBE and POZ magazines.

Published on Saturday, March 13, 2004 by Wired News Bush Site Unplugs Poster Tool by Chris Ulbrich The Bush-Cheney presidential campaign disabled features of a tool on its website Thursday that pranksters were using to mock the Republican presidential ticket. The tool originally let users generate a full-size campaign poster in PDF format, customized with a short slogan of their choice. But Bush critics began using the site to place their own snarky political messages above a Bush-Cheney '04 logo and a disclaimer stating that the poster was paid for by Bush-Cheney '04, Inc. The campaign changed the tool Thursday so that users could no longer enter their own messages, but only select from a pull-down list of states and coalition groups. The campaign didn't respond to requests for comment. The poster tool has been up and running since December, but Ana Marie Cox, editor of the Washington political gossip blog Wonkette, turned it into a weapon of mass satire this week when she devoted several posts to the inner workings of the device she dubbed the "Sloganator." At Cox's request, close to 200 Wonkette readers sent in slogans which they had slipped through the system. Among them: "Run for your lives," "They sure smell like old people," and the Orwellian, "A boot stomping on a human face forever." Cox also published lists of words the tool was allowing and, perhaps more tellingly, those it was not. Not surprisingly, it rejected the usual four-letter words and sexual lingo, but it also banned more innocuous terms like "stupid," "evil," "terrorists" and "Iraq." Chuck DeFeo, the electronic campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney campaign, declined to say how the campaign was filtering user input. "We are taking significant precautions to prevent the use of offensive materials on the GeorgeWBush.com website," he said. But despite the campaign's efforts, several Wonkette readers reported that the generator was occasionally routing slogans to the wrong users. One reported entering a sexually outrageous slogan and getting back a poster reading "Sportsmen for Bush-Cheney 2004," raising the possibility that somewhere in America a bewildered GOP duck hunter was wondering what on earth was going on with his party. DeFeo said he was not aware that any slogans were being misrouted, but said that the more obscene slogans were indicative of a certain tone in the discourse of some Bush-Cheney opponents. "Their action says a lot about people who are 100 percent committed to using profane and vulgar language in place of substantive dialog on the important issues facing America today," he said. Cox scoffed. "No one's going to have a substantive dialog of any kind on a poster," she said. Besides, she argued, many of the humorous slogans were more thoughtful than anything the tool was designed to create. She cited her own slogan, which she admitted was one of her favorites: "But not if you're gay!" "'But not if you're gay!' has more intellectual weight behind it and says more about the Bush campaign than 'Ohioans for Bush' or 'Hunters for Bush,'" she said. Cox, who counts herself neither a Bush nor a Kerry supporter, admitted that it would be a trivial matter to mock up the same posters in Photoshop. The attraction, she said, was somewhat childish. "If someone made up a bunch of posters and did them on Photoshop no one would care. It's the juvenile glee of having the campaign be the ones to do it," she said. "But just because it's juvenile doesn't mean it's wrong and doesn't mean that it's not an expression of some kind of legitimate political grievance and opinion." She read from a recent submission: "'Five hundred dead soldiers support Bush-Cheney '04.' See? Substantive political debate. That is an incredibly powerful political message. It may not be a discussion, but posters rarely are." © Copyright 2004, Lycos, Inc.

Well, jkaee, sorry if I have come off as always pedantically lecturing in my responses to your posts. But I think that you do quite the same with those you label as 'irresponsible'. And that is what galls me, too, so I can understand how I might be irritating you with my responses. You see, I grew up with people that were always faulting the poor for deserving their poverty because they were 'irresponsible', unlike the people in our neighborhood, like the Cheney's down the street. Yeah, that's right, he has a house just some mile or two down the road from where I grew up! Just got sick of those attitudes.... Nurse Hardee ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Why don't you feel people should pay for medical services? Why should it be funded? The lists of "maybes" could go on forever....maybe if drs didn't have to pay outrageous premiums for liability insurance, then prices wouldn't be so high.....maybe if insurance companies would reimburse doctors and hospitals more, then they wouldn't charge as much......it can go on and on. I'm not all for insurance companies...they anger me too, especially HMO's (ok..this is hard to say, but I agree with you on that point). I've been stuck with ER bills that my HMO refused to pay because they felt it wasn't "medically necessary", but I don't think that's the point here. If you can afford insurance, then get it. It's irresponsible not to. By the way, I've noticed in other posts you've made in reply to something I have written you constantly say "You're wrong" or "you need to be more of this or that." I don't NEED to be anything but myself, and I don't have to agree with you to be intitled to state my opinion. We can discuss our different points of view, but you need to stop telling everyone they're wrong, misguided or ignorant just because they don't agree with your point of view.>>