Letter - Shouldn't have to sacrifice standards for life

Like-minded extreme right wing lemming. I.
Bushland, TX     10/29/2009 2:00 PM

Hmm....Eat your rasins larry l.

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larry l.
Alexandria, MN     10/29/2009 12:41 PM

"Post script: So larry l. can get some comfort, I am a Douglas County tax payer, having left the North Star State to get an edjamacation and save you from Communism." Hmmm . . . I think that's all I'm going to say, Hmmm

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Patricia W.
Alexandria, MN     10/28/2009 8:14 PM

robert r. you continue to be wonderful!

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robert r.
Oakton, VA     10/28/2009 8:08 PM

Good. Still on task. Point(s) of clarification necessary. A 'ventilator' simply performs a physical task, that of moving air or an oxygen/air mix in and out of the lungs; nothing more. A 'respirator" accomplishes the physio-chemical task of getting the oxygen into the blood stream and carbon dioxide across the pulmonary capillaries and back into the oxygen/air mix and out of the body. Saunter into a ICU and you'll never (no such thing as never) witness a "respirator". Conversely a surgical center performing heart surgery, most frequently employes a 'heart-lung" machine performing the physiological exchange of vital gases...often in harmony with a ventilator. Hollywood has stolen the correct nomenclature for something we can possibly all agree is a bit jazzier i.e." They just put Brad Pitt on a respirator...it must be BAD." The poor kids and adults in the Iron Lung, were "in" ventilators...the opposite approach; pulling good air in, rather than pushing good air in. ad nauseum. May we crunch a few numbers? . One decent ventilator costs ~$70K FOB, An intensive care nurse's salary in Minnesota '08, ranged from 52-102Kpa,mean~73K. A respiratory therapist somewhat lower. Daily Intensive care for a patient on a ventilator--$31,574. The first two days-the most expensive and on down to a comfortable $10,794 with a ventilator and $6,700 for care without. Factor that those were numbers from 2004 (Ohio State Univ.) Asset allocation will, in this pandemic- if it plays out as a worse case senario- will be paramount. Sadly, it's cost - benefit intensive and explains why home care and hospice care exist and prosper. Ethics committees, also standing in the Emegency Department doorways have their work cut out for them. Meanwhile wash your hands, cough into your elbow and stay away from me. Post script: So larry l. can get some comfort, I am a Douglas County tax payer, having left the North Star State to get an edjamacation and save you from Communism.

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LL L.
Alexandria, MN     10/28/2009 6:18 PM

They were called that when they had the people in them that had polio. Guess, it is better with a nicer name?

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b.a. c.
Osakis, MN     10/28/2009 6:16 PM

I'm not 'very' old, but I've seen enough friends and relation off. If it came down to a choice, I'd prefer to have a kid on the machine, rather than me. "Ventilator"....seems that they used to be called 'iron lungs', didn't they?

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LL L.
Alexandria, MN     10/28/2009 4:03 PM

Even a healthy person that is very old and might catch this flu and need a respirator when there aren't enough----choices would have to be made whether to give the respirator to an old person with a short time left or a child that would have many many years to live. People seem to think that the answer is just have enough equipment available for every possible thing that could ever go wrong. That isn't even realistic.

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larry l.
Alexandria, MN     10/28/2009 3:44 PM

No, I hear what you're saying LL L and I don't think it sounds horrible. My grandmother, who died fifty years ago, was bedridden for three years before she died. A lot of what's going on today, including medicare, wasn't yet available. But I'm positive she wouldn't have wanted to live another day the way she was, and i think it would have been cruel to make her do so.

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larry l.
Alexandria, MN     10/28/2009 3:26 PM

Right, Robert. If you've never lived in dear old Alexandria you don't have a right to an opinion. So, there!

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LL L.
Alexandria, MN     10/28/2009 1:13 PM

I think that it has always been that way until Medicare came along and very very old people started getting procedures done that nobody really thought were going to save their lives but the insurance would pay so they started doing those things. Maybe, grandma lived an extra 6 months in intensive care. Sometimes it might really sound horrible but people are going to die. We haven't figured out yet how to make people live forever.

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