Cell Phones and Cancer
A cancer doctor from Britain is saying that using a cell phone for ten years doubles the risk of brain cancer. The risk of this is worse than that of smoking according to this doctor.
Others are saying that he is over stating the danger and that he doesn’t have enough evidence to make this a valid observation.
For now it’s up to you to decide, but some countries in Europe are already warning people about the possible link and urging them to keep calls to a minimum and don’t allow use by children.
Clinton and Obama’s Health Care Plans
I went to Clinton’s and Obama’s websites to look at what their health care plans were. Now I didn’t pour over them with a fine tooth comb but from the quick look I had I did not see much.
Both of them seem to say that people who already have health insurance and are happy with it can stay where they are. People who don’t have insurance can pick one of the plans that are offered to our congress.
Hillary’s plan gives a tax credit to those who choose a plan similar to what congress has.
Obama’s plan will be “affordable for everyone”. His plan will also make health insurance for children mandatory.
Both plans will not exclude anyone for pre-existing conditions.
As I see it they both know what people need and want. Big deal! We all know what the problems are. However I don’t see much in the way of solutions. So Clinton’s gonna give us a tax credit. What I want to know is where are we going to get the money to pay the premiums in the first place?
Obama is no better. He is going to decide what’s affordable and what’s not. What’s more he is going to force us to pay to insure our children whether we can afford it or not.
I am one of the uninsured and not by choice. We once had insurance coverage through my husbands job. With only two days notice the job and the insurance were gone with the company closing. My job offered family coverage for about $800.oo a month. Our rent was only $890.00 Are you kidding me? The cheapest I found was Blue Cross and at $470.00 a month, that was even out of our league.
In this writers opinion we need more than a screwed up version of health insurance. We need true health care reform starting with allowing more nurse’s to run clinics where they can treat simple everyday complaints at a cost everyone can afford.
B. Braun Recalls Batches of Heparin
Since January 19 people have died as a result of being given the contaminated blood thinner, heparin. My own mother was in the hospital being given this drug in her IV when they came into her room and removed the drug for testing. They said it was OK and gave it back to her.
The problem was, as I understand it was that it was contaminated with something that so closely resembled heparin it passed tests as uncontaminated. The drugs were made in China and distributed here. They were not sure where the contamination took place, nor were they sure if it was purposefully done or a natural reaction of some kind.
Pharmacists Still Fighting Over Morning After Pill
Pharmacists are still in court fighting over the law about dispensing the morning after pill. Remember now that this pill taken three days after sex can prevent a pregnancy. We’re not taking about a magic abortion pill that you take anytime during a pregnancy. We are talking about three days pregnant. We’re talking about the termination of cells, not babies.
This controversy infuriates me. I want to know who these saintly pharmacists think they are. Of course they have a right to their opinions, but they do not have the right to decide what is and is not moral for someone else.
As I see it they agreed to do a job. The job is to dispense medication that is ordered for a patient by a doctor. In my opinion if they have a problem with giving out certain medication they should seek work elsewhere.
There are many cases of rape where a woman would be concerned about unwanted pregnancy for instance. I can only assume that these judgemental holier than thou pharmacists must think rape is not wrong, and that not only having to endure the trauma of the actual event, they should further endure bearing the child of the savage animal that raped her.
At the very least they should give the customer to another pharmacist so that the pill can be given.
Assistant To An Assistant
Ever see those commercials for schools that call themselves colleges? ” Come to our school and become a doctors assistant!”. Wow! In only two short years you too can be a doctors assistant. In my area we even have a commercial that shows a doctor entering the exam room to see a patient. She is met at the door by her assistant who tells her that she has already run some tests on the patient. The doctor is very impressed and thanks her and then asks where she learned to do all that. The answer from the assistant is of course this “college” is where she learned it all. They then tell you that you too can earn the respect of the medical community and they will even offer job placement after graduation.
The truth is that every doctors office I have ever gone to uses nurses for assistants. People that take these classes upon graduation find themselves at least ten thousand dollars in debt to the school and the only jobs that they are offered or can get are Certified Nurses Assistants, or CNA’s. To further dash the hope of a great career, most hospitals I know do not hire CNA’s, A few years ago many of them even stopped hiring Licensed Practical Nurses or LPN’s, and only want Registered Nurses or RN’s.
This only leaves one place that I know of that hires CNA’s and those are nursing homes. I don’t want to make it sound like CNA’s are worthless. They are not. I have worked with the most helpful, wonderful, and caring CNA’s ever. I believe the difference between the good ones and the bad ones is that the better ones knew what they would be doing on the job after graduation. The bad ones believed the commercials and are somewhat bitter about wasting all that time and money so they could end up making minimum wage for the dirtiest and most thankless job around.
Nursing homes themselves are partly to blame because in the owners desperation to earn the almighty dollar they not only pay very low, but they will only schedule whatever the minimum ratio of aides to residents are. In my state it’s one aide to every ten or eleven residents.
On a skilled care floor or unit, you have all the residents that cannot do even the simple daily tasks, like going to the bathroom, dressing, showering, or feeding. The aide is put under a lot of pressure to sometimes clean urine and feces from the resident and the bedding, then to shower and dress the resident and assist in feeding, helping them transfer from bed to chair to toilet and back to chair and bed. Multiply all that by ten or eleven. Now imagine that those resident needs are ongoing and just because you have finished one does not mean they no longer need you just because you’re doing that all over again with another resident.
The point is simple.
- You’ve got to love caring for the elderly and the dying.
- You need to know before enrolling in a school what your real job options will be.
- Nursing homes that are owned by individuals must pay more and add additional staff where needed.
- Those that find themselves stuck in a job that they hate must either find a new job, or go back to school, a real school to better their situations.