Knock on effect of the virus

[Tommy T.]

35 minutes ago, Venture Forth said:

Yipes! I had no idea. Thanks for the info! What does one do if there is an accident?

 

Pray to your God.

[GeoffH]

54 minutes ago, Venture Forth said:

Yipes! I had no idea. Thanks for the info! What does one do if there is an accident?

On normal days you try the next nearest hospital if a Doctor isn't available at that one, but on holiday days most of them are likely not open.

Another issue you may not be aware of is the ambulances aren't what we in the west think of as ambulances, they're normally just a van with trolley in the back and maybe a nurse.  And even those often take hours to come to an accident, if they come at all.  One of the reasons we have a car is so we can get to a hospital if needed.

 

IMO keeping a good first aid kit at the house is a good start and first aid training for someone in the house is a sensible second option.

Edited February 19, 2020 by GeoffH

[Tommy T.]

This last weekend L and I traveled to Mati to see her aged and ailing Papa who had been checked into the public hospital the morning before.

To say it in a word, I was aghast!

Papa was lying on a cot in the corridor of the public wing as were several other patients. The rooms on both sides were each packed with at least 6 to 8 patients. The corridors were dirty and nasty and worn out. Of course, 20 or more people who were out attending their loved ones in the corridor and in the rooms with the open doors stopped whatever they were doing to stare at me - the one, tall foreigner with blue eyes. I hated it - felt like I was in a fish bowl... There were at least four cats wandering around from room to room. The oxygen bottle across the corridor from where I was seated had one of the plastic lines trailing on the filthy floor.

The family made arrangements to get Papa into a private room - regular daily rate P1,100, senior citizen rate P600. We waited over an hour. Meanwhile, a doctor came by checking patients and charts. I asked a number of questions through L and her sister to the doctor. I learned that they had already conducted blood tests and were administering a powerful antibiotic intravenously (triaxone) for his diagnosed bacterial  pneumonia along with paracetamol for pain relief. I could see that, though the conditions were appalling (more like a war zone field hospital than a city hospital) he was getting proper care. After much to-do and waiting, we were finally able to move him into the private room...

Wow! What a difference! He was laid on a state of the art adjustable hospital bed/gurney. Very clean sheets, a very clean room in an obviously brand new wing of the facility with shiny, polished floors. I was impressed. He has air/con and a really nice view of trees and plantations outside. The only thing lacking was a call mechanism for emergencies. I thought that was a bit odd, and no telephone or intercom either. But suddenly he had transferred from a third or fourth world filthy ward area to first world cleanliness and care - and for a very reasonable price. Of course, the family still needs to bring in food, but someone will stay with Papa always. I could see now that it was possible to maybe emerge from a hospital here in better shape than when entering. At first I thought it would be the reverse. I actually told L that if I ever had to be tended to in the way her Papa was first treated that I would want to be shot...seriously...

[hk blues]

Given the fact that hardly anybody here seems to pay taxes (OK - I'm exaggerating a little), and the very low cost of the national health system (Philhealth) I'm surprised at how good the public medical system actually is!  Reality is, if it's free here then you cannot expect much and most of us would need to look at something more sophisticated.  I have only one experience here of a public hospital - my son had a bad cut on his wrist.  To be fair, we were served more quickly than we would have been in the UK.

For us UK citiizens who, rightly, extol our "free" NHS let's not forget it's free at the delivery end only - we pay handsomely through national insurance for it.  

 

[Tommy T.]

39 minutes ago, GeoffH said:

IMO keeping a good first aid kit at the house is a good start and first aid training for someone in the house is a sensible second option.

That is excellent advice, Geoff. I still have most of my medical kit from my days on the yacht practicing medicine without a license. And I will continue to keep it updated. It is very difficult here to obtain things like antibiotics to just stash and hold. I need to see about improving that. I had excellent doctors in USA and Australia who willingly wrote scrips for various meds when they knew I was sailing and typically hundreds or thousands of kms from any real help. Here it is a tougher sell...

I believe a sound first aid (and more) kit is super important here and that even more than one person in any household should be trained in basic and advanced first aid - up to and including CPR, de-fib machines, bp checkers... And this equipment should also be purchased and available on hand if there is any risk from previous conditions... Sure... it isn't free, but what is life worth to anyone here on the forum?

[Dave Hounddriver]

Knock on effect seems to mean repercussions to me so I will merge the threads

 

[bastonjock]

Dentists have announced that they are having trouble purchasing face masks 

I also note that when on FB , there is a noticeable increase in the pop up type adverts for a variety of face masks 

[Dave Hounddriver]

This picture is making the rounds on Facebook.  I have no idea if it was a coincidence or not but this author predictied this virus in 1981.

 

[bastonjock]

28 minutes ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

This picture is making the rounds on Facebook.  I have no idea if it was a coincidence or not but this author predictied this virus in 1981.

 

I've seen claims that this is a man made bio weapon before 

It's all very spooky 

[Guy F.]

I wonder how good a silk scarf wrapped around ones's face would be as a substitute for a surgical mask.

I don't normally pay attention to Indian gurus, but this dude makes a lot of sense with his take on the coronavirus:

Moderators note:  Members can search Facebook for sadhguru videos, specificly number 1565716210246174, but we do not direct link to Facebook on this site.

Edited February 20, 2020 by Dave Hounddriver
remove Facebook link