A recent article in The New York Times stated: “Covid-stricken Alabama had more deaths than births last year, a first in its recorded history.” This is an oft-repeated reality throughout the country, but especially in the southern states. It is also a draconian realization that these are the same states that have the lowest vaccination rates and the largest numbers of anti-vaxxers. It does not take the wisdom of Solomon to find a direct correlation between the number of deaths and the failure to be vaccinated. As I noted in an earlier article, the rallying cry by the unvaccinated is that they have the right as an individual to make that decision. There is a modicum of truth to such a position, but it falls into the realm of indefensible when it impinges on and affects others.
A substantial number of the unvaccinated proclaim that they have an inalienable right to decide whether to be vaccinated. They often bring the Constitution into the flimsiness of their position, yet fail to recognize or admit that in the Preamble to the document to which they refer, it states: “We the People of the United States in order to form a more perfect Union…promote the general welfare…” It does not state to promote one’s induvial welfare. There have been a chorus of outcries since the president’s recent Executive Order mandating vaccination or testing for employers of one hundred employees or more. These same individuals claim that it is an overreach by the president and an impingement on individual’s right to decide yay or nay. It undermines one’s freedom of choice and that is not within the purview of what the role of the government should be. Well, does such a mandate not promote the general welfare? There is a myriad of examples which support the promotion of the general welfare of all the people. We all must abide by various laws, rules and regulations which have been established to foster a more perfect union. Whether they be behavioral expectations relative to operating a motor vehicle, signing a contract, holding another accountable, determining paternity, entering marriage, being vaccinated against specific diseases, etc., most people abide by the law, rule, or regulation. Only then, is there a semblance of a “more perfect union.”
With the recent surge brought on by the Delta variant, the number of people being hospitalized has increased to problematic proportions. ICU beds are fully occupied, hospitals are overwhelmed with the numbers, ambulances cannot discharge patients, the problem just continues to get worse and worse, and people are dying because there is no room for them in a hospital. A recent headline of an article in the Montgomery Advertiser read: “After 43 hospitals turn away Alabama man who needed ICU bed, obituary urges COVID vaccines”. What a sad indictment on our country’s lack of preparedness for dealing with this pandemic. How could our healthcare system get to such a state that a person is turned away by over forty hospitals in three states and dies in a hospital over two hundred miles from his home? We have gotten here, in large part, because of the millions of Americans who refuse to be vaccinated, then come down with the virus, and then become hospitalized. Again, the problem is more acute in the southern states. States have turned to triaging admissions and making decisions based on best potential outcomes. Undoubtedly, more individuals will die because of the lack of space or lack of staff. Those non COVID patients who need a bed are being turned away because the beds are often occupied by those who contracted the virus and refused the vaccine. Let me note some of the headlines in recent articles in The Washington Post: “Four patients, two dialysis machines: Rationing medical care becomes a reality in hospitals overwhelmed with covid patients,” “Unvaccinated covid patients are straining hospitals like mine, where I had to turn a cancer patient away,” “I was supposed to have life-saving surgery. Tennessee’s covid-19 surge cost me a hospital bed”. These are just a few of the articles that point to the crisis that exists in our hospitals. This reality begs the question, do those who refuse to be vaccinated deserve to be treated at the expense of non-COVID patients.? Do they deserve to take one of the finite ICU beds in hospitals throughout the country?
In an article in TIME magazine, titled “In desperate need of more hospital beds,” the author makes the case for an increase in bed-capacity in the nation’s hospitals. Often the availability of beds is not the problem, but the lack of trained staff, especially Registered Nurses. The nursing shortage is a grim reality of this pandemic for a variety of reasons. The overwhelming issue for many nurses is simply being burned out from the onslaught of cases day in and day out with little or no relief in sight. ICU nurses who typically care for two to three patients are expected to care for ten. Undoubtedly, the quality of care can be compromised. The use of traveling nurses has created another major hurdle for hospital administrators as they attempt to staff their hospitals. The cost of a traveling nurse can be astronomical and reach up to $250 per hour being paid to the organization that has the contract to provide the nurses. A small rural hospital does not have the budgetary capacity to absorb such costs. The problem is not limited to just the small rural hospital, but also to those facilities in urban areas. One health care system has four hundred openings for bedside nurses that have gone unfilled. In the State of Mississippi there are 2,000 fewer Registered Nurses than there were prior to the pandemic.
Another piece to the reality is seeing those who refuse the vaccine being caviler in their behavior. Packed stadiums, concerts, bars, and restaurants bring to the fore the very real potential for additional surges and drains on the healthcare systems. Those working in these systems see friends, neighbors, family members putting them in danger as they continue to care for those who come down with the virus. Considering this, many are leaving the healthcare and allied professions and taking different career paths. The following articles bring this into focus: “US public health workers leaving in droves amid pandemic burnout,” included in the Guardian; “COVID-19 creates dire US shortage of teachers, school staff”, an AP News article; and numerous sources referencing shortages of medical and non-medical staff throughout the fabric of the healthcare system because of the recent Delta surge. Shortages are real. “When hospitals are understaffed, people die,” a warning included in an article in The New York Times.
Due to the number of hospitalizations, scheduled medical procedures are not being done or postponed, i.e., mammograms, colonoscopies, cancer treatments, etc. What will be the ramifications of these conditions going untreated or undetected? Will more people die from inattention? Will mental health concerns begin to surface more frequently such as depression anxiety, and even suicide? The health care system is a finite system and has the capacity to only go so far and do so much. This reality should not be lost in the current climate.
The perplexing frustration is that there is an answer to this ever-growing problem. If individuals who are unvaccinated would become vaccinated, then we could begin to get some control over the chaos that seems so prevalent in today’s healthcare. Such chaos has been exacerbated by the substantial number of unvaccinated individuals. As the public continues to get more comfortable with not wearing a mask or social distancing and avoiding the vaccine, the numbers will continue to spike and at some point, could well lead to the system imploding. Let us not let it get to that outcome. No none wins in such a scenario.