Seattle Is Dying

That is the name of a documentary by KOMO TV in Seattle, Washington.  They have reported on the intersection of the homeless/addiction/mental health/criminality problem.

My wife, the lovely and talented Belle has been a Mental Health/Developmental Disability nurse for over 40 years and puts the blame on the Clinton Administration, who started shutting down mental health hospitals because of yada, yada, yada, civil rights, these-people-deserve better, their rights to live in the community trump your rights to live in a safe, pleasant environment.

It's a problem for the police all over the country, especially if you work in an urban environment.  Even in this small city in central Louisiana, we have the same problem, to a lesser extent.  Where I happen to work, in the downtown area, we have a magnet for the homeless, but it is not just confined to the downtown area.  I talk regularly with the homeless coordinator for the schools, and we have approximately a thousand homeless children in the area.  She works tirelessly trying to insure that these children have a safe place to live and the things they need to succeed, and her work is never-ending.  It's a problem everywhere, and kudos to KOMO for highlighting the problem.

It's a great documentary, and I'm going to leave it right here so that I can find it later.



We need to get a handle on this as a society.  This is a police problem, but it is not a police issue.  By and large, we're doing our job.  This is a problem that other agencies need to address.  Seattle estimates that they spend a billion dollars a year on the problem.  Across the US, there is no telling how much we spend.  And, since 1992, it's been an abject failure.

F-22s Destroyed

It seems that almost 10% of our F-22 fleet is damaged or destroyed because someone didn't think to get them out of the path of Hurricane Michael.  Yeah, really.

The US Air Force’s Tyndall Air Base in Florida has taken a direct hit. Many of its ultra-advanced F-22 Raptor stealth fighters have been caught on the ground.
Exactly how many of the $475 million aircraft were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Michael has not yet been revealed.

C'mon, guys.  Those things fly, or are supposed to.  IF a hurricane is coming, get them wheels-up and out of the danger zone.   Letting an advanced jet fighter get destroyed by weather is simply unacceptable. 

Someone's head needs to roll over this.

New Blood Pressure Guidelines

According to the UPI, the blood pressure guidelines are about to change, and as many as one-third of US adults may need medication under the new regime.

The American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association redefined high blood pressure at 130/80 in November, down from the previous level of 140/90, based on new evidence supporting a lower threshold.

My gal, who has been a registered nurse for many years, firmly believes that this sort of thing is a cabal of doctors and pharmaceutical companies simply to sell pills.  She maintains that the numbers she saw when she began nursing were much higher than they are today, and those numbers, generally across the board, caused no real problems.  But, she says, as ad doctors became pill-pushers and pharmaceutical companies learned how very profitable that lower numbers could be, the numbers started dropping so that doctors could sell more pills.

I'm sure that all this can be explained by good science, but just exactly how long do they expect us to live, anyway?

Lungs, Breathing

Tuesday afternoon, just as I had finished the prior post on emus, my lady called and said that she had been feeling some pain in her left chest and had the Doctor (she works for a very respected surgeon) listen to her chest. He sent her for an X-Ray and she was coming home to pack a bag, as she would be admitted to the hospital with a 20% collapse of her left lung.

Milady has a history of problems with her left lung. It collapses from time to time and she's familiar with the symptoms. She was admitted on Tuesday night and they took her to surgery on Wednesday morning. She was in surgery for over four hours. She was in recovery for about 10 hours. I talked with the doctor (her boss) several times during the day and it was a very complicated surgery with complications and they had several issues to work through.

One compassionate nurse finally told me at about 9:30 last night that I couldn't do anything for her, that I couldn't see her, and that I really should go home and get some sleep. They'd call if there was any change. So I came home.

The nurse called at 6:00 this morning. She's in ICU and had a pretty good night, considering. I can see her at 10:00 a.m., so I'll be at the hospital at 10:00.

The dog is very concerned.

Big Charity

According to the Associated Press, Charity Hospital in New Orleans was ready to use weeks after Hurricane Katrina did its tap dance on New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Weeks after Hurricane Katrina slammed New Orleans and worsened the medical plight of the city's poor, then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the publicly run Charity Hospital would not reopen, even though the military had scrubbed the building to medical-ready standards, the retired Army general who oversaw the work said.

That retired Army General is Russ Honore, the 3-star who came to New Orleans and told reporters to not "get stuck on stupid".

More than that, a second general officer remembers the political decision.

When the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in the ravaged city in early September 2005, Charity was identified as key. It was in the center of town and provided a lot of people care, said the division's commander, Gen. William Caldwell.

That's the Army's All-American division. An elite airborne division ready immediately for world-wide deployment.

About 150 soldiers and a team of medical professionals worked to get the hospital running, Caldwell said.

Meanwhile, a German military team's pumps sucked water out of the basement. Air sampling found no contamination — a concern, considering the flooding and bodies in the flooded morgue, Caldwell said.

Caldwell recalled telling Honore the hospital was nearly ready to receive patients. "We were actually thinking of having a ribbon-cutting ceremony, give a thumbs up and turn it over to the health care professionals," Caldwell said.

But then, Caldwell said a decision came to stop the cleanup.

So, that's now two General Officers who remember the decision. The 82d got it up and running, the politicos shut it down.

Typical. Blanco was a disaster for Louisiana, on so many levels.

Hat tip to Mostly Cajun.

Merry Christmas

In a few minutes I'll be turning the computer off. We've got family coming for dinner and Milady will have my afternoon totally engaged. It's good.

I'd like to take a minute and wish my half-dozen readers a wonderful Merry Christmas. Take time to remember the reason for the season. Take a few minutes to thank God for the soldiers who are standing the line today. Take another minute and thank God for the police who are patrolling your streets, the firemen in the station houses, and the nurses walking the floor. These folks don't get to take off and they make the best of the Christmas day by serving the rest of us.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

On Nursing

From the Times Picayune, we get a story about the nursing shortage in New Orleans, and the nursing shortage generally across the United States. The meat of it is here:

Rather than scrimmage for nurses in the tight local market, East Jefferson General Hospital dispatched its chief operating officer in August to the Philippines, a former U.S. territory that annually sends thousands of English-speaking nurses overseas.


Sixty-one Filipino nurses have agreed to trade in their meager wages for life in a struggling foreign city. The immigration process is arduous, however, involving a visa application, background check and a nursing certification exam, and some of East Jefferson's newest workers will not arrive for six months to a year.

There is a nursing shortage, not just in New Orleans, but throughout the United States. A Google search for Nursing Position turns up approximately 12.5 million responses.

Milady is a nurse, and the mail she gets from headhunter firms is incredible. The nursing magazines that find their way to our mailbox reveal that the leading hospitals in the leading markets are looking for nurses.

A hospital can't function without nurses. Doctors give orders, nurses ensure care. Hospitals realize that there is a nursing shortage, so they recruit nurses.

One nurse of my acquaintance recently moved to Texas. She found a job within hours of landing on the ground. My sister is contemplating a move from Knoxville to the Alexandria area. She found a job over the phone. A licensed, registered nurse can find a job just about anywhere with good salary and benefits. If you want a career in the military, nurses do well in uniform. If you want to travel, there are nursing agencies that provide temp jobs across the United States.

Nursing colleges are at full capacity. They turn away applicants every semester based on the number of available instructors. From the same article:

Kishner says there also has been a bottleneck at universities, which turn away nursing school applicants because of a perpetual shortage of instructors. That shortage has become more acute since Katrina, as higher wages have helped keep veteran nurses at hospitals when they might otherwise go into teaching.

Nursing is not just for the ladies. It is an equal-employment career field. With specialized training, nurses command additional salary that employers are often happy to pay. Nurse-practioners are in strong demand, as are nurse-anesthesiologists. Trauma nurses are also in demand.

The down-side? There is a nursing shortage across the United States. Nurses often work long hours in less than optimum conditions. The work itself is demanding, stressful, sometimes heart-breaking. Nursing is a profession, rather than a job. It requires a dedication that sometimes causes stress at home. Milady, the love of my life, is currently finishing a string of 12 hour days that her employer requires, preparing for a certification by an accrediting agency. I haven't seen much of her lately. I support her in her career, and I'm thankful that we don't have small children in the home that need her.

If you're a college freshman or sophomore looking for a challenging career, consider nursing. If you're looking for a career change, consider nursing. The possibilites for a motivated, intelligent nurse are limitless.