As a public service during this time when Providence Alaska Medical Center says it is in crisis and may have to decide which patients live or die, Must Read Alaska is providing a list of the surgeries, mostly elective, that will be done at the hospital daily, so readers can understand the usage of services at the hospital and plan their lives accordingly.
Oct. 7 scheduled surgeries included these, a few of which are for weight reduction:
Flank Excision Neoplasm
Open Hernia
Roux en Y
TMA
Endo x 6
IHR
Gyn Sling
Dx lap with pos orchiopexy
Bronch VATS
Robot endometriosis
Lap hyst
Robot hyst
GU ureteroscopy/lith
TuRBT x 2
Cysto with bladder fulg
Frontal external ventricular drain
Closure ASD x 2
Cv ablation afib x 2
ICD implant and ablation x 2
CV stent
ECT x 5
Lap hyst
Multiple teeth extractions x 2
Lap HH/Nissen F
D&C
Lap Roux en y
Lap sleeve gast
Lap chole
Right arm washout
Thoracotomy
IHR/pedi circ
Endo x 3TH revision
CS x 1
Definitely like seeing normalcy returning.
Is it just me, or is this list getting longer every day? I am pleased to see that!
Sure seems like crisis time to me! Prov CEO just has a need tor attention, like a two year old. But all attention is not good attention.
Is your intention to minimize the urgency of the health care crisis communicated by the hospital by casting judgment on a list of procedures with no context as to the medical necessity? If you have an opinion about hospital management and resource planning then state it, the exhibit here is reckless, you can do better.
There is no health care crisis at Prov. They were blowing smoke. I’ll give you a couple of examples.
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Gyn Slings are typically done for women who have stress incontinence.
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Dx lap with pos orchiopexy is for undescended testis.
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Lap chole is the removal of a gallbladder.
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Lap Roux en y is gastric bypass weight loss surgery.
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If you’re having to choose moment by moment which patient in your facility lives and dies, as they told the NY Times, you don’t have the time or resources to do elective surgeries, and certainly not weight loss surgery. These type of elective procedures were suspended at the start of COVID to redirect hospital resources to the expected influx of critically ill patients. That they’re doing elective surgery at all puts a lie to their claims of a “crisis”. As for an opinion on hospital management and resource planning, it’s simple; management are liars and the above list of surgical procedures exposes them as such.
Thank you so much for going into all that detail. I wasn’t doing a very good job at explaining to the people who were excoriating Suzanne for publishing the lists, but you just did an excellent job. Thank you.
Yes, Nunya, thank you so much for your informative and knowledgeable post! It is good to hear from non-compromised medical professionals and workers.
One thing to consider…. Prov didn’t build the S, T and U towers to house patients. I’m almost certain that physicians pay AA office space rent and, if they can’t do their surgeries, they can’t pay their rent. I could be wrong yet, it seems like a feasible reason. Still, I think we all wonder why the ICU wasn’t expanded, equipment wasn’t acquired and staff wasn’t increased in the past year to prep for the Wuhan. ??
Very fair question, kind of a supply and demand angle on it.
A whole lot of time spending on reducing demand; distancing, masks, testing, but very little time focused on the supply side, outside of possibly ventilators.
Why not obtain the equipment to install as necessary to convert wings into temporary ICUs?
There are now supply side advantages such as vaccines and mABs, but why not go further on the supply side, as its very evident that neither the vaccines or mABs are 100% guarantees a person will not need elevated care.
there is no “supply and demand” when it comes to hospitals. They only expand when the state allows them too, based on a “certification of need”.
Its a regulated monopoly, or, at best, a regulated “small playing field”.
I have been aware of this sanctioned monopoly for awhile and I believe it is a good place to find some ways to lower healthcare costs. Surgery centers are a way for doctors to price gouge without anyone knowing it. Anybody that has had a minor surgery done notices that their doctor charged maybe $700-1400 while the surgery center charged $10,000-20,000 and think their doctor isn’t part of problem, when in reality that surgery center is probably partly owned by that doctor and all profits get funneled back to him or her and partners that are also doctors. Oh, and those partners, by the way, are often in the same specialty and get really buddy buddy and know not to undercut each other on prices. Healthcare is full of oligopolies and monopolies that are sanctioned by the government. The only exception is general practitioners and that’s why those clinics either treat you like cattle or barely get by compared to any speciality. General practitioners don’t make enough and specialties and places that require a “certificate of need” (not just surgery centers and hospitals) make way too much because they don’t have a true competitive free market, and that is in big part due to the government and lobbying efforts by the AMA.
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Sorry for the rant. It’s just refreshing to see someone aware of “certificates of need”. It’s not talked about enough.
That’s right Matt. We have found some common ground. If you are the same Matt I’m thinking of, that’s been rare. Fist bump.
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Speaking to this point, it has been ridiculous that the medical establishment hasn’t been heavily promoting at every chance for everyone to get fresh air, exercise, zinc, and vitamin D3, etc regardless of vaccine status because studies have shown already that those help more than anything else at reducing risk. And as soon as it was discovered that the disease was airborne they should have been talking about ventilation because in the “hierarchy of controls” that was developed from decades of research, ventilation and effective air filtration and sanitation is far superior to masks. It’s a shame we allowed the media to get us so fixated on whatever is controversial. Well, for me, it’s beyond a shame, it’s a tragedy and the media could have always had their hands slapped by the medical establishment, but that never really happened. The media does what the media does and only the medical establishment has had the power to keep them in check and they haven’t done that at all, in respect to keeping us off of controversy. They allowed themselves to get roped into it and stirred it up more. This is one of the ways I feel like we have devolved due to social media polarizing us 250 characters at a time.
The Bio-Ethical collapse of Providence upper mgmt is disgusting.
The attempt to create alarmism, in our community, to enact a mask mandate in Anchorage is frightening.
As doctors and medical field professionals you would assume they would understand the efficacy of masks – which are minimal at best.
Upper mgmt at Providence is obviously carrying out there duties from a political perspective.
When the blatant hypocrisy becomes obvious – it becomes very difficult for discerning people to believe anything they tell us.
SHAME on them!
Anyone receive their fear tactic letter from the Medical Executive Committee at Providence, signed by Kristen Solana Walkinshaw, MD, Chief of Staff? Keep it for evidence. Those that violate their elected Oath of Office, Hippocratic Oath and or participate in crimes against humanity must be remembered and prosecuted.
Did you see the notice at the bottom of this letter: printing and postage for this letter was paid for by Alaskans for Posterity (AK4p).
More dark money pushing this tyranny on citizens in Anchorage, Alaska! Go away and leave us alone!
Right now, due to a lack of available ICU beds and staff, “the only operations that we can possibly do are imminently, life-threatening operations — like, someone’s about to die in the next six hours,” he said. “And so, care is being massively delayed.”
This is from Providence Heart Surgery program in ADN article today.
The fact that it is all agenda-driving propaganda, and false, means nothing to you I guess, Bill.
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It has already been demonstrated beyond argument that Providence Hospital is NOT in crisis, and their ICU is NOT full of COVID patients. Their CEO’s pernicious and malicious recent statements are only further proof that Providence, like so many other institutions in the USA today, is profoundly corrupted by corporate interests and the power plays of the political establishment. They are towing the establishment line on the Wuhan Virus, as malevolent and false as it is, because that is what is going to benefit their bottom line. To sociopaths, that is ALL that matters — that, and the accrual of ever-more power.
Your argument is with the head of the Heart Surgery program and your suggesting he is giving out false information is BS.
Unlike you, Bill, I, and most here in this forum, are not so ignorant, naive, cowardly, and intellectually bankrupt as to immediately and automatically accept the pronouncement of those persons in authority and power, merely because they are in authority and positions of power. Just the opposite: we know, from personal experience as well as from the infinitude of historical evidence, that those in positions of authority and power should NEVER be automatically trusted, but should be treated with DIStrust and skepticism
This has nothing to do with in general persons of authority but of a specific one that you are calling a liar.
Like I said your argument is with him and further he is spot on with his heart patients all have the need for ICU beds for their recovery (something that can’t be guaranteed).
All you’ve got is your bullchit.
If the weatherman says it’s raining in your area and because of that you tell everybody in your department that doesn’t have a window that its raining. Some people say, “No it’s not. I’ve been outside and it’s not raining” You think those people are just saying that because they have had a problem with you in the past and they have a problem accepting that it is raining, so you call them names and call them liars and tell EVERYONE that those people will cause everyone to get needlessly wet. Then the weatherman, in order to save face, jumps in with you because he knows how important public approval is and to never look wrong so he can keep having the authority needed to be a weatherman and to keep people listening to him so he can keep people safe…. And perhaps it is raining where the weatherman is but it’s not raining for anyone else which makes him furious because it forces him to adjust what he said and say “they don’t understand. It will rain in their area. It just hasn’t yet” …. you get the point.
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If the hospital is overwhelmed, and they knew they needed to be prepared for surges because they have been “following the science”, then why are they so ill prepared and telling the public they are having to choose who gets needed care because they don’t have the capacity while they are performing elective surgeries? I’ll tell you why. It’s because they have lost their ability to be objective and to be honest soldiers in this fight because they want to maintain that their chicken little stance has always been warranted, even if it means they have to sandbag and then say “we can’t do anything more”. Wonder if that head of surgery ever said Trump and maskless people are killing people and if it weren’t for those people this pandemic would be over.
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I know what I just said irritates the heck out of you. You should reflect on why and what it will take for you to believe that perhaps yourself and others have invested too much into being chicken little. Keep in mind, I’m not saying Covid isn’t real. All I’m saying is risk should always be calculated and measured and we have never had that sort of calculated approach since the beginning of this pandemic and if you can’t see that, then you have invested too much into being and believing chicken little, partly because of your hatred for Trump, like so many other people.
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