| Oklahoma public health officials haven't told us all the bad news, but we have about 16 days to change the projections. University studies appear to concur on the Oklahoma impact of Covid-19. They think we're two weeks away from the worst of the pandemic's stress on medical facilities. Two of the three factors they posted seem manageable.
|  A solution to this apparent shortage of ICU beds needs to be discussed and solved in days, not weeks. |
| The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) created this forecasting model that projects future coronavirus cases and deaths in the United States overall, as well as in individual states. NPR reported that IHME “produced projections very similar” to the model that White House officials were using for their projections. IHME’s modelers said that they did not take into account President Donald Trump’s social distancing guidelines when they built their model, but they did take into account which each individual state did. “Ultimately, these forecasts were developed to provide hospitals, health care workers, policymakers, and the public with crucial information about what demands COVID-19 may place on hospital capacity and resources, so that they could begin to plan,” IHME wrote. How can wee Prepare? Families, even extended families; should take this time to communicate contingencies for illness. From delivery of meals & medicine, to helping with children when a parent gets sick. Or how to isolate a sick person within a home, so others in the home stay well? |  The state will need a coordinator of hospital resources, so that patients in severe distress aren't running from hospital to hospital, city to city, looking for a place to provide inpatient care. |
"Chickens Coming Home To Roost.."
| I can't help but add this ironic comparison. Bed shortages are nothing new to the public mental health state infrastructure. For 10 years our legislature & governors have done nothing to fix the problem. They make campaign promises and then do nothing. Do you think the governor will let the jails serve to handle the overflow of patients for Covid-19? Just let the cops arrest the inflicted? That's currently his and his predecessor's public policy for psychosis. The severely mentally ill currently occupy about 35% of the Tulsa County Jail beds. The sheriff speaks openly about the problem, but no one seems to listen. Oklahoma City's county jail is even worse. It contributes greatly to the high death rate in Oklahoma's jail system. Detention officers get no training in mental health care, unless volunteers like myself come and provide that training. | Oklahoma law requires a 'certificate of need' before any new hospital can open in this state. It's a horrible protectionist policy which prevented us from having more beds. Sadly, our current hospitals are the ones enforcing the limits on capacity, in the name of higher steady occupancy. I still recall the days when hospitals were largely run by faith groups as a ministry. the Catholics are renown for this type of ministry. As a child I recall the hundreds of nuns who gave their lives to caring for the suffering. Those are all gone. the corporate hospitals made deals to keep the religious names, because it's good for public image. But hospitals are big business. They've bought up nearly all the private practice clinics in the metro areas. And don't let their 'not for profit' claim fool anyone. These hospitals are making vast sums while using state laws to limit any real competition. |
