I'm a Doctor Recovering From COVID-19. I Can't Get Over the Government's Callousness for Human Life

[babylonsister]

https://time.com/5812495/doctor-covid-19-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR3xrIXe7bAjwItaIPg2RAHOb5xQoxoJ7jfX0eOnqZUle6tcey9F0ZS7BfA


I'm a Doctor Recovering From COVID-19. I Can't Get Over the Government's Callousness for Human Life
By Dr. Laura Mulvey
March 30, 2020
Dr. Laura Mulvey, 33, practices emergency medicine at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. After spending six days receiving treatment in her own hospital, she is now recovering at home from what is presumed to be COVID-19, though her test was inconclusive. What follows is a lightly-edited transcript of her story as told to TIME.

snip//

We realized that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria for testing were missing the mark. Early on, when we had people coming in concerned that they had coronavirus, they had to have a fever, and a cough, and have traveled from Wuhan. If you’re testing for that, the likelihood that they have COVID is close to 100%. By those guidelines, we were incapable of testing. Nobody had the tests. You had to call the Department of Health to get permission to send a swab. Early on, you’re crippled by your public health response.

snip//

The virus is impacting a subset of people who are infected, but the aftershocks of this are going to be felt in a lot of different areas. The sort of emotional, psychological toll on health care workers will probably lead to people leaving medicine. This idea that — I can’t really adequately say it — that people are dispensable. The government thinks that we can go to work without proper PPE and put our lives at risk. That’s something you can’t really get over — this kind of callousness for human life. I think they should have been trying harder months ago. And there are going to be people who miss their mammograms and get breast cancer. Or they have chest pain and they don’t want to go to the hospital, because they don’t want to get COVID.

They should have identified this early on as a threat to public health and safety and diverted resources toward this. If that had been done, this would have been far less of an issue. It’s every hospital fending for themselves, because the public health organizations are not providing adequate input and assistance. It’s really the role of public health instead of hospitals to identify and quell threats. Hospitals are great at treating diseases, managing your heart disease and your appendicitis. But we’re not public health organizations and we need them to step up.

— As told to Tara Law

[gratuitous]

1. "They should have identified this early on as a threat to public health"

Yes, that's what a normal administration would do in response to a threat to public health. But the Trump administration's first, foremost, and exclusive concern is always how does this make Trump look? People are walking around with a contagious, potentially fatal, virus. They can be vectors for the virus for 10 to 14 days before they start showing symptoms. But acknowledging that threat could make Trump look bad. So while Trump is in denial about the spread of the pandemic, nobody has any resources or reliable data to take action. While Trump is trying to practice medicine and ignoring medical professionals, more people are getting infected without knowing it. As Trump bad mouths anyone who disagrees with him or knows more than him, medical professionals are trying to stem the incoming tide using whisk brooms.

[young_at_heart]

8. EVERYTHING is 100% about TRUMP!

There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING more important than him!

[Python boot]

9. Report from Katie Porter

Based on the report from Katie Porter's office, they were very busy in January and February making sure our inventory of medical supplies was depleted. The trump administration was purposely driving the cost of supplies up by creating a shortage. Can we arrest a siting president now? How about arresting Kushner or Pompo or Barr? Are we turning he other way in the face of genocide?

[theaocp]

2. And since people love their health insurance providers in this country

we will continue to pay them and they will continue to buy our representatives. We are subservient.

[zentrum]

12. Exactly.

Nurses and Doctors are begging people to vote for Medicare for all.

[California_Republic]

3. "If you can prove you have it we will give you the test "

[panfluteman]

6. That's Circular Reasoning that Gets You Nowhere!

[Ferrets are Cool]

4. It's NOT the "government" that is callous. It is the party of tRump that is callous and

uncaring. DON'T fucking lump all government servants as one entity. If you are gonna rant, direct it at the villains, not just a handy group.

[zentrum]

13. True. They make Government

....venal and ineffective on purpose in order to drown it in a bathtub. It's almost done for.

[greenjar_01]

5. It's not "the government"

iT's the Trump administration.

The government is us. We've been hijacked.

[atreides1]

7. Yes it is!!

Each day, Trump and his Republican cult members work to take away our rights as citizens...until they are all laying in boxes...they are the government...

[Ferrets are Cool]

20. I respectfully disagree...this is just another case of lumping repugs and Democrats into the same

bathtub. The Democrats are NOT responsible for this debacle. It is NOT the government that is the problem. It is the repugs. They alone have blood on their hands. While I agree with a lot this guy says, it is just lazy and wrong to not point to the correct culprits.

[SheltieLover]

26. This!

Absolutely! Voters are apethetic enough because there is never justice for the masses!

[Ad Infinitum]

10. Early?

This person, I use the term loosely,
has deliberately prolonged the suffering.



That's what sadists do.

[MissB]

11. Trump's approach has been to decentralize the response.

Which is why my state has less than 1000 gloves on hand (not pairs; gloves) to give out to hospitals and clinics that need them. And that’s only because they just received the gloves. They’ll be distributed immediately if they haven’t already done so.

The federal government should be directing the production and distribution of supplies to areas where the items are needed. Instead, we get to imagine that the Trump administration has profited off the selling or reselling of needed supplies.

And perfectly capable medical personnel are going to choose to not work in this field any longer, if they survive.

This was avoidable.

[Eyeball_Kid]

15. Trump is leveraging and consolidating

power by decentralizing response. He can pick winners and losers. The simple formula is if you’re a Democrat, you’re a loser and you get no response.

[Eyeball_Kid]

14. A trademark of Fascism is...

a callousness of human life.

All signs point to fascism. After decades of travel, the Fascism Train has finally pulled into the station.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

16. Medical fields are hard to get into in the country too

I think we have a lot of people that would make good doctors, but they can't afford the education to get there. That's something that should be fixed.

[onetexan]

17. This murderous administration is toying with human life. We are all collateral damage in their

gamble. Frightening.

[Stellar]

18. Instead of saying 'the Government's Callousness', say TRUMPS callousness...

NOTHING is EVER his fault. He's the damn President of the United States. THE BUCK STOPS WITH HIM!
His ass needs to know it and be blamed for it.

They should be pounding that in his head EVERYDAY!

[Beartracks]

19. The problem isn't "the government." It's the people who are leading it.

And not necessarily those leading the individual organizations and agencies, but rather THEIR bosses to whom they answer, or on whom they are dependent for funding and for priorities, e.g. the current Administration.

============

[Hortensis]

21. I can't get over NOT BLAMING THE REPUBLICANS!

None mentioned even ONCE in that piece, which is full of smears and false equalization of Democrats with them.

Who'd Dr. Mulvey vote for, or did she vote at all? Strange mistake for someone who took a stand to keep Republicans out of government, much less one who believes getting these sociopaths out of high office is a matter of life and death.

[babylonsister]

22. I posted this as

more of a human interest story than a political one. The government as a whole has miserably failed so many which to me seems to be stating the obvious, though if she were a real rethug she might never have participated in the interview.

[Hortensis]

23. Being a doctor doesn't absolve her from the knee-jerk

anti-"government" stupidity that pervades both the entire right and much of the far left like a mental disease. Or from hypocrisy and her role in creating this situation, and I strongly suspect she played one, probably voting conservative. THAT is why she blames "government" instead of bringing it closer to home.

People who were appalled by those who would put massively corrupt Republicans in power, headed by a clearly mentally disordered and morally depraved president, do NOT confuse Democrats with Republicans as "government."

America had and has a very good choice in Democrats, but looks like she has a way to travel before she realizes it. If she ever does.

But in the meantime I don't accept her blame for electing people to that government, nor to I accept hypocritically blaming some amorphous "them." I put it squarely where it NEEDS to be. On the Republicans and those who helped them to power.

[SheltieLover]

27. ++

[Skittles]

24. the "pro-life" party

bunch of fucking hypocrites

[SheltieLover]

28. Yes!

Hypocracy is their MO!

Masters of compartmentalized thinking. 🤮

[Blue Owl]

25. K&R