LONESOME? DOES SOCIAL MEDIA HELP OR HURT?

If you are lonely, you are not alone.

One source says 60 million Americans suffer chronic loneliness.

Studies show that loneliness can cause a lot of health problems.

Now, we're being told the problem is getting worse because of social media.

That seems strange because social media connects people. 

Social networking on the internet helps if used to promote face-to-face 

conversation, but if used as a replacement for that.

So, I suppose the lesson is that it's okay to do Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Don't use it as a substitute for face-to-face interaction with others.  

Another Way to Reduce the Cost of Healthcare

Locally grown produce on sale at Uptown Market in downtown Columbus, GA, Saturday, May 27, 2017.

It’s no secret that the cost of healthcare in the United States is highest in the world, but  overall quality is low among developed nations. The United States ranks 37th in the world according to the World Health Organization.  As you probably know,  just about all of the developed countries in the world but the United States have universal healthcare.  Certainly the top ten do. While the debate on whether to go single-payer or continue for-profit is important, there is another way to drastically reduce healthcare costs that gets very little attention.  Poor diet reportedly is a major contributor to the cost of healthcare in the United States.

This was graphically pointed out by a Harris County farmer at a Wednesday night group discussion at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Columbus, Georgia.  He provided some very interesting information from the Sustainable Food Trust. (Click on that link and you can read the report on The True Cost of Food Conference that was held in San Francisco.)

The report tells us the following:

Diseases related to poor diets in the United States account for 86% of healthcare spending.

Obesity annually costs taxpayers $2 trillion in healthcare spending.

About $5 billion is spent on  reactions to food dye.

877 million pounds of pesticides are used each year by industrial agriculture.

Americans spend about 6 percent of their annual income on food now as opposed to 16 percent in 1960. European countries spend 9-15 percent.

The U.S. government annually spends $20 billion taxpayer money on agricultural subsidies.   That  keeps primary crop prices low, which keeps food prices low.

The Government spends $153 billion annually on assistance programs to low-income earners, $75 billion of that in food stamps.

The market favors producing food on an industrial, unsustainable scale. “Sustainability,” in this context, means providing for the current generation without inhibiting the ability of future generations to provide for themselves.

So, the real cost of food is much more than the money you pay for it at the supermarket. For instance, your taxes pay for the $20 billion agricultural subsidies.

Just think about the social costs and dollar costs of  things like rising healthcare costs, air pollution, water pollution, climate change,  illegal immigration, allergens, and others.

So that’s what some believe is the problem. How about solutions. Our Harris County farmer listed these:

— Reward environmentally responsible food production.

— Use money from government subsidies, crop insurance, and food stamps to make sustainable food more available and accessible to the public.

— Raise taxes on artificial-chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

— Create healthcare incentives and encouragement to eat healthy food.

— Create investments in local, sustainable businesses.

— Pay agriculture employees better wages and improve working conditions.

You have to admit, cliché warning, that’s certainly food for thought.  One thought I have is that there needs to be a national educational program to inform the public about the benefits of following a healthy diet.

One of the stands featuring locally grown produce at the Uptown Market on Broadway in downtown Columbus. The market is open Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon.

 

 

Giving and Receiving Care

CARING FOR YOU, CARING FOR ME TRAINING SESSIONS AT UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST FELLOWSHIP OF COLUMBUS, GA

Coping with being a longterm caregiver can be a costly affair, physically and emotionally. Just ask anyone who has ever done it.

However, there are ways to make it less costly, and that’s what the Rosalyn Carter Institute for Caregiving is all about.

Gayle Alston, MS, Director the RCI Training Center of Excellence, explained the program recently at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Columbus, Georgia.

There are a number of ways to do that.  Probably topping the list is to remember that if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to take care of someone else.

Taking care of yourself includes making sure you have some time for yourself. To get that time you’re going to need help from others. If a friend offers to come over and sit a while so you can get away from the house for a while, don’t be shy about accepting that offer. If they are true friends they will mean it when they say it.

If you want to learn more about this you can attend Caring for You, Caring for Me training sessions offered in October at the UU Fellowship of Columbus. It will be led by Maureen and Jim Humphies who recently participated in a Trainer workshop at the Rosalyn Carter Institute for Caregiving.  Maureen has been involved with the RCI since 1990.

If you would  like more information you can call the Humphries at (706) 505-8223, or email maureenhumphries1946@gmail.com or humfriesjim43@gmail.com.

 

 

The Bloomberg Donation Stirs Memories of Meeting Eleanor Roosevelt

When I finished reading in the Rotarian magazine about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropic foundation’s gift of $100 million to support polio eradication efforts,   memories came flooding in about this crusade which was started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The one that stands out the most for me is when I interviewed Eleanor Roosevelt and Dr. Jona Salk in  January of 1958. I was working for WSB Radio in Atlanta at the time.  The station sent me to Warm Springs to do a piece for NBC Radio.  Mrs. Roosevelt and Dr. Jonas Salk, developer of the Salk polio vaccine, were among those who gathered at the small Georgia village made famous by FDR to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the National Foundation  for Infantile Paralysis.

I don’t remember what either of them said, but I do remember the impressions I got from those interviews.  Mrs. Roosevelt was gracious and all I had to do was get her started. Her words flowed easily as she enthusiastically talked about the Foundation. Dr. Salk was a lot more reserved and didn’t appear as comfortable being interviewed.  That could have been because she was an international public figure a long time before he became one. 

Not only did NBC Radio air rhe report nationally, but originated the Today Show with Dave Garraway, and Queen for a Day on NBC TV from Warm Springs that week.  

The Rotary Foundation has raised many millions as a global partner with Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the World Health organization, UNICEF, U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  The effort has paid off with polio just about eradicated world-wide.

The Overburdened, Understaffed Emergency Room – Part 2

The Medical Center Emergency and Trauma Center's ambulance entrance

  I asked the nurse assigned to me, “How many doctors are on duty tonight?”  She replied , “Two.”  That confirmed my suspicion that The Medical Center’s Emergency and Trauma Center was understaffed that night, Sunday, April 3, 2011. That suspicion had been formed when another nurse, the one assigned to triage, told me that wait times would probably be up to seven  hours for some of the many people sitting in the ETC waiting room, and the average wait would be about five hours.  Because I had a head wound and was on a blood thinner which could have increased the chances of internal bleeding, I didn’t have to wait that long.  I got to see a doctor in about two hours from the time I signed in. 

So,  my impression was the ETC was like emergency rooms all over the country, overburdened and understaffed, but was it? In my opinion, that  night, Sunday, April 3, 2011, it was.  However, it was not a normal night. I learned just how abnormal it was when I posed a few questions to Marion Scott, who is Director of Communications for the Columbus Regional Medical System.  I decided to let her speak for herself unedited. This is what she wrote to me.

On the night you were treated, staffing in the ETC was at the “best practice” standard as set by the national Emergency Nurses Association. Staffing ratio is one nurse to four patients.
 
There were two emergency physicians in the ETC that evening; again, an appropriate staffing level under routine conditions. Residents from our teaching program do not routinely work in ETC. They do report to the ETC for duty when we call “trauma,” a designation indicating extraordinary and severe patient volume that increases staffing across clinical and non-clinical support areas. We typically have one to three trauma cases in a 24-hour period. In the 24-hour period during which you were treated, we had 20 trauma cases – seven to ten times the normal trauma volume.
 
You also asked about the number of patients treated in the Emergency and Trauma Center who cannot pay for care. For our last full fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2010, 86 percent of the total patient encounters through the ETC were uninsured and 33 percent resulted in uncompensated care. The Medical Center’s total uncompensated care for last fiscal year was just over $32 million.
 
As you and I have discussed, the greater issue related to emergency care is the number of people who use an emergency room for minor illnesses and injuries and for primary care. Approximately 40 percent of the patients treated in The Medical Center’s ETC could have been treated in a more appropriate setting, such as their physician’s office or an urgent care center. The result of inappropriate use of an emergency room is overcrowded emergency rooms with long waits, inefficient use of hospital resources and higher costs for patients and insurers.
 
Also, many people treated in an emergency room for minor illnesses and injuries do not have a physician, or “medical home.” It is so important to have a physician with whom you can establish an ongoing relationship and who will understand your health and medical needs and provide continuity of care.
 
There are no easy answers or quick fixes to these serious problems. We can address the issues through education, communication, and services to assist the uninsured in finding programs that might help them and to assist people without a physician in finding a medical home. 
 

The Overburdened, Understaffed Emergency Room – Part 1…Again

Since it has taken so long to get the information I wanted to use for part 2 of this series, I figured I would run Part 1 again so it will be fresh on your minds.  I’m shooting for Monday as posting day. I think you’ll find what I have learned interesting. Meanwhile, here’s Part 1 again.  

If you really want to know what an emergency room is like, go as a patient. I did just that when I went to the Columbus Medical Center Emergency Department on  Sunday night, April 3, 2011.  It’s a really nice new facility,  with a professional and friendly staff, which is now a state designated Level Two  trauma center that serves 13 counties in West Georgia and East Alabama. But, there were problems, and they are the same problems emergency rooms face all over the country. 

Since I definitely suffered a trauma when I fell backwards onto a sidewalk, hitting my head, I figured I wouldn’t have to wait long to receive treatment.  After all, there was a really big lump on the back of my head, and I am on a blood thinner for my heart condition atrial fibrillation, which meant I could have been suffering internal bleeding.  I was wrong.

It was on a Sunday night and the emergency room was packed with people waiting to be treated. I knew that all emergency rooms stay very busy because people, who don’t have healthcare insurance and can’t  afford to pay for treatment,  go there to be treated for non-emergency conditions, things like colds and sore throats. But I figured that triage would get me in fairly soon after arrival. After all, a head injury with possible internal bleeding should trump a cold.

I estimate that it took about forty-five minutes from the time I signed in until I saw the triage nurse, a warm, empathetic lady,  who honestly explained the situation.   (Being more concerned about my condition, I didn’t think to advise the staff that served me that I might do a blog on this, so I won’t be using any names.)  She said that some people would be waiting seven hours, and that the average  wait for a night that busy was probably five.  I let her know that with a head injury, on a blood thinner, with possible internal bleeding, I couldn’t wait five hours. She said she knew that and my wait would not be that long since I was a three.  That put me in the middle of the triage line.    There are five triage categories. She explained that five is for people whose condition is the least  urgent.  One, she said,  is for people who need to see a doctor immediately.

Since it was an unusually busy day with a lot of vehicle accidents, including one that involved five motorcycles, there were more number ones than normal.  I would estimate that it took about two hours for me to see a physician, a really nice man, who decided I should have a CT scan.  He said the big bump on the back of my head, an external injury, concerned him a lot less than a possible internal jury.   Fortunately the scan showed my brain had not been injured.  He gave me instructions on caring for a concussion and , after an almost five-hour visit, a friend, who had taken me to the emergency room, drove me home.

Though retired, my reporter’s curiosity , which, after fifty years as a broadcast journalist will probably never go away, inspired me to learn more about  the emergency room situation, not only at the Columbus Medical Center, but nationally.  The common description used by reporters that the facilities are overburdened and understaffed had a true ring to it after my experience.  I’ll tell you what I have learned and discuss some possible solutions in a future post. Stay tuned.