Can't remember when I last posted in this thread. It has been beyond crazy with the massive screening tests of the local population and all the bureaucratic restrictions coming from above, but also because the region had a record number of tourists as hardly anyone did international tourism. I had the great idea to move amidst all this madness for practical and strategic reasons, and various colleagues came down with something or other (non COVID related). The overload of work fell in those of us who were and are not on sick leave for the time being.
At some point I had the strong feeling that we passed a threshold of some sort and that now we are officially at the stage of irreversible damage even when it's going to take weeks or months before it becomes evident. It was like "seeing the unseen" and it was as obvious as 1+1=2. This was when I was dealing with the aftermath of the massive screening tests of the healthy population. My agenda (and everybody else's) was overbooked many times it's maximum permitted limit in just one morning for several consecutive days. Determined to do triage and prioritize anything life threatening or related with Primary Health Care, leaving any bureaucracy or follow up related to the pandemic of people with NO symptoms at all as my last priority (and getting a hard time from administration for doing that), I realized not only the irreversible damage, but also the absurdity of everything. And I'm still dealing with that (the massive screening tests). To be fair, not everybody is asymptomatic. Some had a minor cold or even a real flu. I'm definitely not looking forward for the flu season, as mild as it might come. Funny that they test about everybody except for the doctors at Primary Health Care.
There are very few aspects left of the Primary Health Care that used to be available in the past. For the most part, it's almost unrecognizable. I'm "lucky" in the sense that I know most of my patients. Nevertheless, further medical visits were cut down to a total of 4 per day in order to avoid people from coming to the Health Center, all in the name of a pandemic with ZERO mortality. People are not getting primary health care which is the main pillar of a population's health.
The other day I actually had to treat a person with a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) decompensation as practically a cover agent. I'm not even talking about any complementary protocol, but just the standard and mainstream treatment protocol. If I chose to do the COVID test, then the person gets confined and practically speaking, gets barred from attending the health center even when a close follow up is essential. You know, I actually have to listen to the patient's lungs! So with the family, we agreed to not do the test and do what we already knew the person had - a COPD decompensation. And NOT to our surprise, the patient got better with the standard treatment. How long before they come after us for applying common sense medical criteria?
They stopped doing spirometry tests in the entire region because you actually have to blow through a tube and spread your breath around. The test is crucial to evaluate pulmonary function which in itself is essential to determine treatments that might prevent pulmonary infections in a bad Winter season. They're still making the tests in France, so I sent a patient to find out if they will receive Spanish patients.
No nebulizations are still allowed either. I'm reduced to recommending prices on amazon so that some patients can buy their own machine for the next Winter in case they need it.
They definitely went too far and unfortunately, they intend to even push for more damaging changes. Retrospectively, these last months have been pretty harrowing. Thanks God for small mercies, people with humanity and common sense, loved ones and this forum.
The other day the following story made it to the local news. I caught on es.sott.net and not in any mainstream source:
The family of a woman who died of cancer after ‘three months without a face-to-face appointment’ have denounced the health authority in Spain’s Burgos. Sonia Sainz-Maza, 48, died on August 13…
www.euroweeklynews.com
It definitely rings a bell. It is as if "telemedicine" removed whatever little empathy some people had to begin with. Suddenly, you're just another name on a list with a phone number attached and the doctor is just trying to call as fast as possible in order to deal with everything plus the COVID nonsense and its bureaucracy. A health center turned away a +40 year old man with a heart attack for possibly similar reasons. He died. And these are stories that actually made it into some sort of news outlet.
Things are set up in such a way that people's most basic rights to health care are not met, all in the name of "a good cause". An observer could conclude a thing or two about the nature of this world without going to an esoteric school to learn about hyperdimensional realities, or having hard core knowledge about pathological systems. In fact, seeing how systematic and damaging are the directives from above and how they are fairly universal around the world, makes me realize how brainwashed and asleep you have to be in order to not see the true nature of this reality. There's a systematic evil force at work here and unbeknownst to most people, we're making choices at each moment of the day as further restrictions are put into place.
I will continue to do my best with what I've got, prioritizing the best I've learned from a system which is no longer - high quality primary health care for the population. Drawing a line, even if it's only energetically and symbolical. It's pretty bad when they get mad at you for trying to do your oath of first doing no harm.
Just some thoughts as I catch my breath. To be honest, I rather read continue reading one of those recommended books in the romance thread. I'm sure that's understandable.