Last Thursday I received a call from my daughter. She is four and a half months pregnant and had started spotting. It wasn’t the first time but the worry that it engendered in everyone sent her off to the emergency room at Marin General Hospital. I got in my car and made the trip through the rain and arrived at the hospital around nine in the evening.

I was worried that my daughter was not ok. I pulled the car into the dark, wet parking lot and took five minutes to put my pretend brave face on. I walked into an emergency room that was slammed with patients. A child sat in a chair holding his broken arm. People were scattered around the waiting room in various seating arrangements. Wheelchairs held the weary and broken. There were probably forty people in the place. It was like purgatory. Waiting to be seen. Waiting to go home.

I spied Amy’s boyfriend, Rico. Next to him sat his father. I recognized him from pictures I had seen at the couples apartment. Rico introduced us and we hugged. He seemed like a very nice person. I sat between them and Rico updated me. Amy was in a room behind the “do not enter” double doors being attended to by nurses, doctors, scanners, readers of scans, phlebotomists, and more.

The double doors opened and an attendant wheeled a young man out into the waiting room. He looked tired and had a badly swollen leg. I took the opportunity to slip past them and into the back. I walked down the hall and found Amy in Room 10. As soon as I saw her I felt she and the baby were going to be fine. The first thing I said to her was “You look beautiful”. She smiled and said “Thanks, Mom”. Read the rest of this entry →

There are millions of untreated sick people in this country and new nursing graduates cannot find work. This was first true in Northern California. As the economy worsened this situation has spread across the country.

Older nurses that had left the profession have returned. This is because they or their spouses have lost their jobs. Now, there is little to no turnover at hospitals across the country.

So, there is both a need for more nurses and a lack of turn over. In some states there is a mandated nurse to patient ratio. The way hospitals are getting around this is to layoff the support staff for the nurses. In other states they give far too many patients to each nurse. No matter where you live nurses are greatly overworked.

A perfect storm is brewing. Young unemployed registered nurses will be pitted against unionized older nurses. Health Care Reform will find its cost containment at the expense of the workers and not from the insurance companies and their overpaid, overindulged CEO’s.

There are other ways to provoke and intimidate the nursing profession. Right now there is a strike at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. The hospital is attempting to impose a gag rule on its nurses. They will not be allowed to speak "ill" of the way the hospital is functioning.

This is the point of view of Temple:
"If you want your constitutional rights, you need to go somewhere else."
-Robert Birnbrauer, Human Resources, Temple University Hospital

Here is a quote from Patty Eakin who has worked at Temple for two decades as an e.r. nurse. What if Eakin wants to testify in Harrisburg about the dangers of low nurse-to-patient ratios, as planned? "How can I talk about that if I can’t in some way reference my own workplace? They want to stifle our ability to advocate for things like that," she explained. "Clearly, we’ve been documenting inadequate staffing at Temple — and [administrators are] claiming, ‘We need to keep things internal, and away from the public.’ They want to have it both ways. ‘Stay within the hospital walls and we’ll fix things.’ But they don’t."

This strike is not about more money.

Nurses stand up for patients. Nurses point out dangerous situations in hospitals. Nurses report negligent doctors. Nurses are the first line of defense in protecting the quality of health care in this country.

Nurses need our support.

www.TempleWatch.org
Pennsylvania of Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals
AFL-CIO
National Nurses United
National Nurses Organizing Committee
Massachusetts Nurses Association
Caregiver and Healthcare Employees Union
California Nurses Foundation
Registered Nurse Response Network

My daughter, Amy, is in acupuncture school in Berkeley. A friend of hers just moved to Norway and sent this email discussing health care in a truly civilized country.

Mom,

Here is the last email in a thread from my friend Catherine who I went to acupuncture school with. She recently graduated and moved to Norway with her husband and 2 kids. This is a bit of her experience with the health care system in Norway. I thought it was interesting.

The interesting thing about Catherine is she is an insider. She used to be a pharmaceutical rep for a big company. But she decided she would rather not sell her soul, so she got out!!

Email from Amy to Catherine:

I’m good, thanks Catherine:) Just trucking along as usual, a little burnt out on school but that is to be expected especially when you are on the 4.5 year plan like me!

Thanks for the paper. It is so eye opening when we juxtapose how things could be (Norway) with how things are in the US. I completely understand why you would want to live in Norway, it sounds like a much more grown up and reasonable place than the US. You are so right about elder care in the US-it is downright sad. I fear for the time when my mom and step-dad will need more help with daily living. It creeps me out to think that they could be in such a place as we have here!

Did you hear about the health care leg that passed the house? In order to pass reform (and its a watered down version at that) the house had to put provisions in the bill that the public option cannot cover abortion services. Its a massive blow to the pro-choice movement. Way to go USA! sheesh.

Hope you are doing well Catherine! Healthy and happy in Norway!

Best,

Amy

From Catherine to Amy:

Well, my husband started a bioenergy company here, so he’s getting very busy. He’s also starting to teach at the Technical University here and we are planning to start up 2 more companies (of which I will be CEO). One will be based on my acupuncture and herbs practice, and we’re talking about another one which will be a biotech company focusing on dermatology. I was planning to start my practice sometime next year, but a patient just literally walked through the front door of our house and asked to be treated. She is a neighbor and when she found out that I’m an acupuncturist, she started telling me about her fertility problems. Now she’s a patient. I also had another person a few months ago, but I had to turn her away (also for infertility) because my house was just a maze of boxes. Now, at least I have a spare room set up with a massage table. It’s pretty exciting. I still have to figure out how to import herbs, etc., but I can get by on what I brought with me. Just today, my daughter’s teacher asked me to teach a Qi Gong class!! Goodness sakes, I guess they’re just desperate for things like that since Suzanne would probably laugh that I’m going to be teaching Qi Gong!

Integrative medicine is very good here. People here still complain, but that’s because they don’t know how good they have it. When I complained about this bump on my knee, my doctor scheduled an MRI. It took 3 weeks for the appointment, but so what? The whole thing cost about $30 and that was including an X-ray. If I had been a tourist, it would cost $300, which is the actual cost of the MRI. So my question was, then why would an MRI cost me 10 times that in the US? I just don’t get it. My doctor didn’t get it either. They were very worried that I might have to pay $300 if I didn’t get my resident number in time, but I thought that $300 would be a reasonable co-pay in the states. My doctor’s appointment cost about $20 per visit and I can go see her as often as I want. In fact, I can always see her within a few days (or that day if it’s an emergency). In the US, I can’t see my PCP unless I make an appointment the month before. I asked my doctor to recommend me for physical therapy for my back pains, and she wrote me a referral which allowed me to get 10 treatments for which I paid $30each time. If my physical therapist thought I needed more, then I can always go back and get a continuation on the referral. Plus, any chronic diseases are covered for free. So, for my diabetes, all my medications would be free and any hospital stays, or hospital visits related to diabetes would be free. Doesn’t that make sense? When I told my doctor that people in the US with chronic diseases (especially diabetes) are being dropped from their insurance plans, they just thought that’s crazy and stupid since it just costs more if the disease progresses.

Preventative medicine is a bigger focus here than in the states. Also, I found it interesting that vaccines aren’t pushed here. The doctor recommends certain vaccines, but they don’t make even certain childhood vaccines mandatory. In fact, they’ve stopped giving chicken pox vaccines to children unless the parents specifically asks for it since they’ve found that the chicken pox provides immunity for other viruses and when you get it as a child, it’s far milder and the children seem to be healthier in general. Duh!!! In the US, we couldn’t even enroll our kids in daycare unless we got a signed paper from the doctor with a list of all their current vaccinations. Here, the school didn’t even ask us about vaccines.

I can go on and on about it.

I have been keeping up on the whole health care reform. In fact, all of Norway is keeping up with it. Since people here are generally liberal, they are appalled by what the US is going through right now. They can’t even believe the issues being talked about. They can’t imagine taking away any choices for women in general. But then, this is a country that made it a *LAW* that every company board must comprise of least 40% women. Talking about shattering the glass ceiling. Another subject that I get all riled up about and go ranting and raving.
All this from your 3 short questions.

Catherine

The divorce papers came in the mail today. Two thick envelopes filled with the legalities of our lives. One was addressed to me. The other was addressed to Ron. Even though we knew it was coming both of us were stunned. It felt hollow.

Eleven years ago we were married in a beautiful ceremony surrounded by our friends and families. It was a great day. We were married in the Sonoma Mission.

We had our reception in the backyard of a beautiful Victorian home. The only thing we asked our friends to bring was food. We had a Klezmer band. All of the band members are friends.

But today we are divorced and now I can receive my first husband’s social security. This means that we can do things like eat and make the house payment. If you don’t think this can happen to you take a close look at the pictures. I bet we look a lot like your family and friends. (Here is the entire story on the off chance that you haven’t already read it.)

We will remarry next year when Ron will be on medicare. We will have a big party and it will be on his birthday. You are all invited. And, yes, we can remarry and keep the benefits.

This is what Time Magazine pulled from the Huffington Post article about Ron and me.

‘The only thing that happens is a check mark in a box in a courthouse.’
MARY MCCURNIN, a Rancho Cordova, Calif., woman, on her decision to file for a divorce in order to reap financial benefits. By getting the divorce, McCurnin, who is happily married to husband Ron Bednar, becomes eligible to receive the Social Security payments owed to her deceased first husband

They will be hearing from me!!!!!!! Fuckery. God damn it. Nothing about our four illnesses. Nothing about our loses due to those illnesses. Just me wanting money.

For those of you who do not know, my husband and I had two major illnesses each that lead to our filing for bankruptcy which ruined our credit which decreased our chances of employment. So we decided that we would get divorced so I could receive social security widow’s benefits from my first husband.

Shit. I can hardly speak/write.

[Adding the CBS video from June 5 - *They* got the story right, talking about the illnesses. --egr]

Mary and Ron on CBS Morning News 5 June 2009

Here is an article on Huffington Post about Ron and me. It is about us getting divorced so I can claim my first husband’s social security. We need to do this because both of us have medical problems and health insurance issues. In other words: get sick, find out insurance is worthless, file for bankruptcy, get sick again, incur bad credit cause you were sick and out of work, can’t get a job cause you have bad credit cause you were sick or can’t find work cause employers don’t want to pay for health care for people over 55 and, finally, fall behind in your mortgage and wonder how long it will take for the banksters to show up for your home. Getting divorced will give us $1200 more a month. This is not much money but is better than none. Excuse me while I go throw up.

From the New York Times:

If private insurers are pushed out of the market, the group said, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”

Here is a link to the AMA website so you can tell them how you feel about their lust for power and money.

Here is my email to the "Health Care Providers" of the AMA:

"Against the public option? Against the public? Ever try to take care of your family without decent health care. We are 37th in the world in health care. What is wrong with you greedy people. I am shocked. I shouldn’t be since I have been following your organization for forty years. You are traitors to your oath."

I just tried the link and it is suddenly not working. Try this one.

I have been influenced by the health care system in ways. At the age of nineteen I married my childhood sweetheart, Bill. He was older than me by only one year. I worked as he finished college and went to medical school. As Bill moved from medical school to his residency and to the practice of emergency room medicine I witnessed the disintegration of continuity of care and the escalation of costs. Bill continually fought for his patients. He was dismayed at the power that the corporate structure began to exercise over him and his patients.

Bill was diagnosed with viral encephalitis in 1987 and died in 1989. The health care policy he was covered under was one of the last high quality policies to be written. While he was sick the insurance company changed the coverage for me and our children. Fortunately, Bill’s coverage was very good. I think that they were afraid to discontinue him because of his profession. This would not be the case today. The medical insurance industry will slice and dice anyone they can. Doctors do not have the influence they used to.

Ten years ago I remarried a wonderful man. Ron and I Read the rest of this entry →