A collapsed medical system will involve several inevitable consequences that are best to contemplate and come to terms with now. While some of these consequences were initially mentioned and threatened with the covid mess, they’re became reality in Los Angeles and other places when authorities instructed EMS services not to transport seriously ill patients who appeared to be near death and with little hope of recovering. There is a link to one such article below. You can Google to get a whole lot more if you wish.
Basically, emergency medical service crews were instructed not to transport or use oxygen on patients that they didn’t think would survive because hospitals were full and because there was a shortage of oxygen. It’s called triage based on the availability of services and supplies, and people with lower levels of education and experience were being instructed to make those decisions about who got treated. Who lived and who died.
This was with a “pandemic” that amounted to nothing more than a bad flu year. What happens when there is a true pandemic? Or a disaster with massive casualties? Or a war? Or economic collapse?
What happens when there is a shortage of pediatric formulation of amoxicillin or acetaminophen or ibuprofen? We've already seen a bit of that. What will happen with a true pandemic, perhaps one in which the mortality rate is substantially higher without life-saving medications?
So here are a couple tidbits to contemplate:
People are going to die. Potentially, a whole lot of people are going to die. (Actually, we all die, sooner or later.) Ill people who live quite comfortably at present will die ugly deaths without their maintenance medications. Trivial injuries and illnesses today will escalate to life-threatening situations tomorrow, especially without antibiotics and good nutrition. Pain will become more common, and more feared, than death. The psychological repercussions of a major event will be extensive.
Imagine your neighbors and colleagues who have all grown up in a land of plenty and who have very little experience with death. Now add in just one death of a close friend or family member for each of them. Multiply this, and their reactions, by thousands. What if they experience more than one death? What if these deaths could have been prevented with simple antibiotics or herbs? What if said neighbor or colleague knows, or even suspects, that you have the medication that could save a sick family member?
With a collapsing medical system, it’s reasonable to anticipate a society that is without the rule of law. That will make access to even basic medical services less likely. In addition, with a collapsing medical system and quite likely water and sanitation issues, eventually old diseases re-emerge to plague the living. And very few people will know how to identify or treat these diseases.
In this situation, you will become your own little Los Angeles. Your resources will become very limited. You will have to decide how they are allocated. You will need to accept that some people are going to die no matter what you do. You will have to deny resources to those who will inevitably die, to save them for those who can be helped. This may include denying help to your own family members. There will be nothing you can do to change these inevitable consequences. And you will bear the burden of these decisions.
This is triage on an entirely different scale than what is used in an immediate disaster situation. It’s difficult to contemplate. Regardless of your training or experience, you won’t be prepared for what you will see. None of us will be.
Death is a difficult thing to deal with. It is hard when a doctor tells you that your unborn baby is going to die and there is nothing anyone can do about it and it isn’t your fault. Been there, done that, don’t want to do it again. I can’t imagine what it would be like to go through something similar, but knowing that if I had prepared, I could have prevented some unnecessary deaths. Preparing can mitigate what you experience to some extent. You have to have your own supplies. Beyond that, faith in God and His eternal purposes and prayer for His guidance and peace will see you through. If you don’t yet have that faith, now’s a great time to work on developing it.
Links to related posts:
References:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-los-angeles-ambulance-transport-ems/
1.7.21
for preppers that in the med services - first responders - PD or FD departments >>> watch out for the "lockdown" and "forced relocation" in serious SHTFs like full out pandemics - it won't only be supplies that get scarce - when desperation sets in forced duty shifts will follow .....
ReplyDeleteNice post, Jennifer. The problem is that most of the people who would directly benefit from reading it will not be the ones who actually read it.
ReplyDeleteMost people have little more than a package of Band-Aids, maybe a tube of Neosporin, and a small bottle of pain reliever of some type in their medicine cabinet. They give little thought to the need to store extra medication that they are seriously dependent on.
When Trump was referring to the WuFlu as "the Chinese virus," a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official was miffed, and he threatened to cut off Chinese antibiotic exports. Given that the US is extremely dependent on Chinese antibiotic production, many people in this country were horrified.
Using that example, and given the current international tensions, I asked my doctors for an extra prescription of my medications to use if the supply chain broke down. I then took the prescriptions to a pharmacy that accepts GoodRx coupons and was able to fill the prescriptions at a very modest price. (My insurance regulates discretionary medication re-fills.)
Although none of my medications fall in the life-saving category, I have told people that if they are unwilling to pay out-of-pocket for what ARE actually life-saving medications, they have just told me how much they think their life is worth to them.
If the people who would benefit most from reading articles here would read them, we'd have over a hundred million visit per day. Everything here is for the very few who will listen and learn--and have something in written/digital form that they can share with like-minded individuals they meet. It does absolutely boggle my mind that most people do not have anything more than Band-aids and Tylenol.
DeleteGood idea on the GoodRx coupons.
We get extra insulin--the cheap stuff--from Walmart. My husband has built up a good supply of the very expensive "boutique" insulin that he uses in his insulin pump, but that seems to have a shorter shelf life than the cheap insulin and sometimes he has to throw a bottle away. Anyway, the cheap insulin will work in regular syringes for the 4x daily injections he used to take, if need be.
Jennifer, about sharing "with like-minded individuals," you may be interested to know that I visit numerous survival-related web sites every day. Every few days, I send emails concerning a wide range of survival topics, with links to various articles, to several dozen people. These people span the gamut. A few are unprepared. Some are partially prepared. Some are very well-prepared, possibly more than I am.
DeleteYour articles rank No. 1 in the number of links I have sent to these people.
Keep up the good work.
Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to say this now before the disasster of 2023 makes it impossible; I've learned a lot from reading your books and blog theae last 8 or so years and for that i am grateful. I feal less unprepared for what is coming.
Exile1981
It's only been four years. Some days it feels like eight. ;) I feel better prepared, too, for having done all this research and writing.
DeleteJennifer, I too, am an avid reader of your blog and of your fine books and can enthusiastically recommend them to others! This is my response to your post of today. My son is a practicing physician at a top tier hospital in the United States. He specializes in pulmonology, critical care. Not long ago were were discussing health care in the United States and his closing statement to me was, "... our current system of healthcare in this country is unsustainable; it will collapse. I don't know when, but it cannot continue as is." Let's all do all we can to prepare... and thank you Jennifer for helping us to that end.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for sharing your son's observation. Our healthcare system definitely cannot continue as is.
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