Sigrid EllisJan 20, 2023

My mom has been waiting at the emergency department for almost 12 hours now. Severe abdominal pain, uncontrolled vomiting. She's in the waiting room because there are no beds, no rooms. The waiting room is so crowded her friend had to go wait in the car.

When I was a kid NBC Nightly News used to run stories about the awful conditions in Soviet countries. Waiting in lines for toilet paper. Unexplained shortages in stores. Inability to get medications. Overcrowded emergency rooms.

Show threadSigrid Ellis

The point was that the U.S. was better, that capitalism was better than communism, because we didn't have those conditions.

I think the upshot is that any country whose governance is trying to steal as much as possible from people and give it to massive corporations, criminals, and billionaires is going to produce conditions of overworked scarcity for the 99% of us who are not billionaires and corporate shills.

Jan 20, 2023 at 3:55amWeb
Show threadSigrid EllisJan 20, 2023

And, meanwhile, my 75 year old mother is sitting in an overcrowded waiting room, trying to get a CT scan to see if there is something terribly wrong.

I am not sure where we start in order to replace this with something that doesn't harm people. But I'm going to try everything I can think of.

Show threadSigrid EllisJan 20, 2023

Anyway.

The episode of Dark Angel I just finished doesn't look very futuristic at the moment. It just looks .... like a lot of people's lives.

Show threadJennifer SlackJan 20, 2023
@sigridellis
I hope you are able to get her good care.
Show threadSigrid EllisJan 20, 2023
@JenniferSlack Thanks. It's out of my hands, she's 400 miles away.
Show threadCheryll1950Jan 20, 2023
@sigridellis Good luck. I was in ER for 12 hours suffering with kudney stones in severe pain, ultimately admitted. Staff themselves overworked, tried their best, kind and compsssionate. 60 years history of stones, never seen process like today. Four months to the day, two procedures later, sepsis infection and finally resolved. Medical community fantastic. Flaws similar to a socialized medicine system in our for profit system. Insane.
Show threadSigrid EllisJan 20, 2023
@cjleach yeah. The staff are all doing their best.
Show threadYsaJan 20, 2023
@sigridellis I hope your mom's finally been seen and that she's able to get answers and help. :( What a nightmare.
Show threadSigrid EllisJan 20, 2023
@ysabet yep. Surgery will be soon.
Show threadYsaJan 20, 2023
@sigridellis I hope it goes smoothly!
Show threadニルス・スキニールJan 20, 2023
@sigridellis
Most Russian people were better off under communism than under the current crapitalism. Especially if live outside Moscow
Show threadニルス・スキニールJan 20, 2023
@sigridellis
Aside from the fact that those lines were exaggerated, all societies are subject to shortages when resources and supply chains break down.
Russia had many shocks in 20th C, each 100 times greater than US COVID-19 shock. Russia has also been subject to many shortages over 300 yrs, attributed more to its abysmal climate and insanely long supply chains.