‘Don’t ride your bike or ATV’ because hospitals are full, Bethel doctor says

By
Suzanne Downing
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101
653

The chief of staff of a Bethel, Alaska health corporation is telling residents in the area to stop riding their bikes. Also their all-terrain vehicles because they might get hurt. In fact, they shouldn’t do any activity that can pose a physical risk. The hospitals are full, she said.

“In a word, it is in crisis. Perhaps collapsing,” Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation Chief of Staff Dr. Ellen Hodges said to the Bethel City Council on Tuesday, as reported by KYUK public radio.

“Don’t ride your bike or ATV. Wear your seatbelt and drive the speed limit. Take good care of your health, taking all your prescribed medications,” Hodges said. To decrease the chance of seeking health care, Hodges warned “against any activity that could pose a physical risk,” KYUK reported.

Bethel recently instituted a mask mandate for anyone occupying a public space, and has mandatory Covid-19 testing for anyone arriving via Alaska Airlines in the western Alaska town of 6,472 residents.

In addition to the medical establishment telling people not riding bikes or ATVs, the city government is taking vaccine mandates to another level. The city manager is mandating all employees must be vaccinated within the next 8 days.

Bethel City Employee union member Corbin Ford told the council that some city employees will lose their jobs because of this mandate, KYUK reported.

“You’re losing approximately 50% of the Police Department and 15% of the total workforce for the city of Bethel,” For said, according to the news organization. Police Chief Richard Simmons told the news organization that he hopes the city manager will change his mind before he loses half of the police force.

Dr. Hodges told the city council that the health system in Bethel is collapsing, and that there are few staffed beds in intensive care units around the state.

In fact, a Bethel patient was evacuated to Fairbanks for treatment this week, when normally Bethel patients are brought to Anchorage.

Dr. Anne Zink, the chief medical officer for the State of Alaska, told Must Read Alaska on Wednesday that medevacs are indeed taking unusual criss-cross routes around the state, a situation not seen before, because patients are being taken to wherever they can get treatment. Mat-Su Regional Medical Center has also seen patients coming in via medevac from Bethel, she said, although at present, are at capacity with their staffed ICU beds.

101 COMMENTS

  1. So don’t go outside and do anything fun, are you might catch a horrible convulsive virus.
    It’s good advice though.
    be careful out there everyone

  2. Was this the ‘’chief of staff “ for real or just a paid actor like what’s going on in Australia ?
    I’ll come the only people that have died of Covid I’ve been in the hospital. Bottom line is don’t go to the hospital to receive their “protocol treatment “

  3. They say there are few “staffed” beds. How much of this is due to the system requiring vacination and staff leaving or being fired?

  5. Hospitals 2 months ago: “Get vaccinated for covid or you’re fired.”

    Hospitals today: “Help! We’re suddenly short staffed!”

  6. Take good care of your health, taking all your prescribed medications,” Hodges said.
    How about daily exercise, proper nutrition, cutting back on sugar & refined oils?
    It is amazing the lack of sound health advice coming from the Allopathic community.
    Where is the talk of sunshine on your body for at least 15 mins a day, if not taking a Vit D supplement.
    How about that old favorite Vitamin C…maybe some zinc supplement as we approach “flu” season?
    This pandemic has made me less trusting of medical professionals then ever….they are obviously twisting the narrative to meet their end goal.
    Let me guess, once again we will see almost no cases of the old flu as PCR tests keep pumping out asymptomatic covid cases into the winter.

      • You are right..They never talk about vitamins. Always the meds meds meds. Wonder why we don’t listen to them anymore Greg?

          • We the free people who think for ourselves, free from medical dictatorship.

            Yes, the medical establishment knows nothing BUT emergency.

            There is more to our physical existence than just the drive to prevent death.

      • Taking prescribed medicines has nothing to do with accidents (unless you call adverse effects of pharmeceuticals an accident).

      • Are you serious? If you take care of yourself, including certain supplements such as D3, C, zinc , avoid metabolic disorders – by taking care of yourself, exercising to keep a healthy cardiovascular system, and weight – you likely will not end up in the hospital taking up valuable patient space. I didn’t. And I practice all of the above. You need to expand you world Greg, and buy some running, or even walking, shoes. And a bottle of D3 – at least 5k iu.

        • And you need to stop giving advice. The kids that are dying down here are pretty healthy. My world is about as broad as I can stand spreading from Alaska to Peru. And you can’t get any further than 25 ft away from a road.

          • And you need to expand your consciousness beyond the limitations of the physical. People die, it is a part of this reality. Being afraid and hiding is no way to live life. We all leave this planet. It is up to us to spend this time the best possible way before the inevitable comes. Release your attachment from your narrowed perception of reality and catch up to true spiritual progress. OR remain a slave to fear, whatever. Your choice.

          • Are you telling someone they can’t speak their mind Greg?

            How very 3rd grade of you.

            Last I checked you are not the arbitrator of truth, nor the last word in medical science.

            Regardless if you agree, and especially if you don’t, people have the right to voice opinions you find hysterically upsetting.

            Doing the internet equivalent of fingers in ears yelling not listening isn’t becoming. It is, however, in your character

  10. More fear porn just to keep you from living. Stay at home and let your idle minds be the devil’s play ground. Much safer. The only thing that happen there is the rotting of your morality.
    .
    What a pathetic place mankind is going to.

  11. I see no mention of hydroxychlor, ivermectine or monclonal treatment.
    They must be following the science.
    You get a shot, and you get a shot and everyone gets a shot!

    And they wonder why no one believes anything they say.

    • Of course not. Big pharma makes little money off of those very effective treatments and there is also far more money to be made by patients lingering in needed hospital beds on oxygen assist rather than treating with low cost therapies and moving them out. There are a handful of common sense practitioners getting some of these treatments for their patients.

      • Just so you know, monoclonal antibody treatments are effective because they’re putting lab-produced antibodies, not the ones your body would develop naturally, into your body to fight the virus. They are administered via an IV in an infusion center, not just by a shot. They are also not FDA-approved and are being distributed under an emergency use authorization, and they cost anywhere from $1250 to $2100 per infusion. The government is currently covering the cost for this non-FDA approved treatment.

        However, the vaccine is administered via a quick shot with about 15 minutes of monitoring afterward. It causes your body to develop its own antibodies to the virus. The Pfizer vaccine is FDA-approved. And vaccine doses generally cost around $20, which the government is also covering.

        So I’m sorry, but how is Big Pharma benefitting more from the vaccine than monoclonal antibody therapy? The vaccine IS the quick, low cost therapy. It’s faster to administer, cheaper to produce, and costs the taxpayer less money. If anything, Big Pharma WANTS you to use monoclonal antibodies when you get sick instead of preventing getting sick in the first place with the vaccine. They get paid 100x as much when someone unvaccinated gets sick and gets a monoclonal antibody infusion.

  12. Staying healthy by taking vitamin C. Vitamin D. Zinc and to get zinc into your cells quercetin is good. Otherwise zinc is useless because it can’t get into your cells. Keep your immune system healthy! Breathing fresh air and exercising and eating real food is imperative to good health through the cold and flu season. I wonder how many doctors recomend this?.

  14. You can’t tell people what to do. You can only Hope they are obedient. Every parent who has had a prodigal child whom knew the right way to do things and what their parents wanted has had to come to accept their prodigal child will do what they will do. You are left sitting alone deciding what you will do, you can can sit around your kitchen table complaining over your child’s choices doing what Heathens do getting drunk off their misery, or you can let go and Pray.

    Two places people either turn to are Booze and Sex, or the Bible and prayer. I really feel for Southwest Alaskan residents, they don’t know it yet they are Alaska’s communist region experiment. If there is anywhere in Alaska coming closest to a communist form of government it’s Southwest Alaska.

  15. Who am I to argue people into common sense and reality. Years ago I was told the unfortunate belief by a person who stated in the bush where commodities can be scarce saran wrap and rubber bands were the means in prevention of contracting a venereal disease or pregnancy. AND who knows if sarscov 2 which is not done with the human race yet, is not sexually transmitted. Do the CDC know? Or any other world authority? I know it infects the T-cells as HIV, it doesn’t have the same hiding quality as HIV, so our immunity will eventually rid it but what it does during the viral .old process to the human body is devastating with the cytokine storming.It is eliminated from the kidneys via the bladder and colon, meaning the viral load is in the urethra and the anus meaning if it’s not sexually transmitted yet…it is a virus and can mutate to become sexually transmitted. An airborne virus that has the capacity to mutate to be sexually transmitted

  19. This is the whole mindset of the left: fear, fear, fear and dependence upon government. They have tried to destroy the risk taking, independent spirit of America and replace it with this crap. Don’t ride a bike or ATV what a crock.
    Don’t give in; fear is all they’ve got.

  20. Meh. I don’t take orders or advice from people who eat themselves into an early grave from type 2 diabetes. Looks like our rubenesque Ellen is herself a drain on the healthcare system.

      • Type 2 can be hereditary, but most cases are created by diet and lifestyle Greg. So Fire didn’t need your know-it-all input.
        .
        “The bottom line is, unlike type 2 diabetes, type 1 is not caused by a person’s diet or lifestyle. Instead, it’s an autoimmune disorder, in which the immune system overreacts and starts attacking insulin-producing cells. When this happens, your body loses its ability to produce insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar. This causes blood sugar levels to rise, which can lead to serious complications.“
        Medical Web

      • Managable if you have deep pockets.
        If it was so important to keep people healthy, why isn’t insulin given away as freely as the vaccine?

        Passed on generically seems to be a common excuse for those who don’t take care of themselves. Instead of doing something to change their own health, they blame genetics. Convenient.

  22. A planned epidemic of the “Vaxxed” now taking place. But, no one in break the narrative of the establishment less the people wake up to the planned Genocide.

  23. You mean “don’t ride your ATV because if you go to the hospital they might kill you with the fake protocols for the fake covid”

    • They really mean “be extra careful riding your ATV and make sure you’re wearing a helmet because so many burned-out medical staff have moved to less stressful jobs and the hospitals are so full and understaffed that you’ll have to wait for hours in the ER, and hopefully they’ll have room if you need to be admitted, but if you need to be transferred somewhere else for care, you might die waiting or die en route because even the hospitals in Washington and Oregon are full.”

      If you get into a car accident, or your appendix bursts, both of which are issues that are out of your control, you might die because there’s no room for you in the hospital and not enough people there to take care of you. They wouldn’t give you a fake protocol. They’d get reamed by the insurance company or CMS, or both, for giving you something unproven that wasn’t supported by medical necessity. And I’m pretty sure most providers value having a job and getting paid.

  25. If you lose your taste and you end up in a hospital full of woke nurses, and the capacity is now 50% of what it was because the healthy doctors with good immune systems have been fired. You will probably survive but you may have to use tele health. Don’t forget you are not alone but you can treat the virus and put it behind you..

    Putting the Coronavirus into Perspective:
    About 80 percent of coronavirus deaths are among Americans who are 65 years or older.
    Those under the age of 50 account for just five percent of all coronavirus deaths.
    Those under the age of 18 account for less than one-tenth of a percentage-point (0.06 percent) of all coronavirus deaths.
    If you’re under the age of 50 years old, you’re more likely to be struck by lightning in your lifetime than first contract and then die of the coronavirus.

    • In the bush my Grandfather received a porcupine quill in his foot. It was excruciating and traveled up to his ribs. No doctors of course; no hospitals. My other grandfather removed it without accoutrements. Good luck everyone.

      • One can only wish that every bottle of booze in the villages were used for medicinal purposes, but we both know that isn’t true. Every year villages are burying those who drink their selves to death and if they had COVID the state steals there death to add to the lies for more Federal money.

    • Interesting that this health official recommends masking and staying indoors. So basically following recommendations that killed so many in New York. While Florida did relatively well, without shutting down and required masking.
      Nothing about getting fresh air and keeping your immunity up by taking C, D, Zinc, Niacin, Quercetin and EGCG.
      Almost everyone will come down with covid whether your jabbed or not.
      Im guessing that the jab rate is relatively high in the Bethel area.

      • Reed, Florida led the nation for something like 4 weeks in a row with people hospitalized and dying. I’m not sure where you’re getting your facts from, maybe it’s your definition of relatively that’s the problem.

        • Last I checked New York far and away leading in total c19 deaths over Florida when comparing number of residents.
          I wasn’t claiming that Florida on a particular day or month always has a lower rate.
          Financially New York is suffering significantly more than Florida, because of the shutdowns. Residents are moving from the State of New York, while Florida is adding residents. Now I’m talking about over the course of a year, not daily or monthly.

  28. Having lived for 20 some years in a village and then regional center in Bristol Bay, I can tell you that people are super dependent upon 4-wheelers and snow machines for getting around, even the kids. But watch the cargo come off a mail plane some time and you’d see box after box of soda pop, Crisco and cigarettes bound for the village stores. They have far more to fear from rogue government and poor diet than riding ATVs and bikes.

    • What villages where you in besides dillingham? How’s Bryce doing? I was in kmo and kgk. Surely you saw kids and people ripping around on four wheelers and snow goes at extremely high rates of speed just being stupid. That’s what she’s talking about. I don’t know anyone that’s died before the age of 65 by eating magootic. I’m not sure it’s anymore bad for them being made out of Crisco or by their traditional animal fat recipe. Pop and cigarettes are some of the few vices that the whites have done to hurt natives. But as they say, everything in moderation.

  29. Here’s a novel idea! Instead of shoving toxic crap down everyone’s throats how about adjusting to the the workload in the hospitals! And, aknowledge the crap vaccines don’t work and begin dispensing ivermectin and HCQ to the masses.

  30. Sooooo, the mandates and vaccines, etc. are not working in Bethel, yet all the docs at the assembly meeting and posting letters to the editor on ADN.com are telling us we should to the same thing?

  31. So we have a medical system that makes money hand over fist. $7 for some Tylenol, but they can’t seem to afford to make their system robust enough to actually service the community. Maybe if the hospital management wasn’t so full of politicians, we might actually be able to handle what is going on.

  32. OR is the problem that they have let go of so many Drs & RNs that they can’t help people?
    Why isn’t anyone getting treatment to help them? Singapore is using ivermectin and other treatments. They only have 59 deaths out of almost 6 million people.

  33. I remember reading an article earlier that Greg Forkner reassured everyone that the villages were totally on board with the vaccines. So how could the hospitals be at their limits? I don’t need to ask for a friend.
    .
    Waiting for your explanation Greg.

  34. 27 years I lived in Bethel. Not once have they had an intensive care unit, even after the last half Billion in renovations.

    Bethel is like the Anchorage City Council, liberal. Fear mongering specialists. 73% vac status on the Delta, herd immunity way past accomplished, yet YKHC still has it’s paid pimp for stimulus dollars hard at work in the Legislature, screaming for emergency powers. Let’s hear it for Tiffany Zulkowski.

    Forensic Audit YKHC and you’ll see they had way more than enough money to put in an intensive care unit.

  35. According to the Alaska Covid-19 Dashboard, which is updated at noon each day,
    20.2% of hospitalized patients are hospitalized with Covid-19. This figure includes both confirmed and “suspected” cases, the definitions for which can be found by following the FAQ link at the bottom of the hospitals dashboard page.

    Of course, these numbers don’t apply in Bethel, where city workers are running front
    end loaders down the streets, scooping up the Covid-19 corpses.
    BTW, if that’s a current picture of the good doctor, it looks as if her health could benefit from a bike ride. Or two….
    M.John

  36. Almost all of those ATV, sideby, or snowmobile injuries are a result of drinking. That’s what they do in Bethel.

    • Muktuk and a Bud. But if the New Green Deal wackos prevent the Eskimos from future whale hunts, then pick up the satellite phone and remind the wife to call Dominos for delivery. Extra anchovies works.

      • Satellite phones, snowmobiles, high-powered rifles, ATVs, Dominos Pizza are all favorites in the Bush Life. Thank you……inventors. But Bud never goes good with muktuk. That’s why we also like Peptobismol.

    • Undoubtedly that’s the cause, and we know it’s the culprit for machinery injuries.
      A communist region residents either turn to Booze or they turn to the Bible. God’s Word for ones protection and comfort is better, because it doesn’t bondaged the “drinker” as booze and drugs and self pity do.

  37. I hope you all don’t need a hospital. They are overwhelmed by covid patients. For everyone’s health they will hopefully start refusing to treat people who have chosen to all but deliberately get covid!!! It’s coming. And NOT because 2-4% of doctors and nurses who should know what we’re up against and how to prevent it have been fired for not protecting their patients. It’s mostly uneducated aides and techs being fired.

    • Techs are usually smarter than th RNs. I was one and spent a lot of time teaching degreed nurses the finer points of EKG analysis.that they didn’t teach in the nursing programs. 20plus years of doing and seeing beats a week of classes hands down I had MDs with fellowships asking my opinions. They seldom disagreed with me. I go a lot of “told ya so” laughs!

  38. Well, yeah. When you impose draconian mandates on your employees, and half of them either quit or get fired as a result, you’re not going to be able to provide services anymore. The solution isn’t “stay home and give up life,” however; it’s “pull your head out of your ***, swallow your pride and reverse the draconian mandates so your employees can get back to work.”

  39. My husband routinely visits emergency rooms in all of the Anchorage hospitals due to the nature of his job. They are not full. Please everyone go investigate for yourselves and report, report, report! And if they tell you it’s a crime to take a picture they are full of it! The police will not enforce you to delete it.

  40. Instead of giving silly advice such as “don’t ride your bicycle”, why isn’t this “health official” telling Bethelites to push themselves away from the dinner table. A recent CDC study indicates that almost 80% of Covid hospitalizations are in the obese & overweight! How about it Dr. Zink? Don’t you think it is past time to address, literally, the 800 pound gorilla in the room?

  41. ?????? I can’t with the idiocracy behind the mouths of “mEdIcAl sTaFf”…..I think Alaskans know how to handle four wheelers and dirt bikes just fine. AK’s keep on livin’ life as you have been.

    • You would think they would, but every year I was in the bush, somebody was always dying in our village or surrounding village from not wearing a helmet or rolling their Honda. Speed was always the culprit and lack of common Sense but that’s why they call it an accident.

  43. I’d have no issue with her saying a version of:

    Remember we’re having a health care crisis, please take extra precautions.

    That would be common sense and a reasonable public service. What she said is nanny state quasi threatening.

  44. Then there shouldn’t be a problem, right? After all, Dr. Fauci’s Magical Miracle Cure solves all problems, doesn’t it?

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