So Many Problems

by Errington C. Thompson, MD –

When I was an intern, one of my fellow interns would sum up a busy night of medical admissions with a simple phase: “So many problems.”

Unfortunately, this was during morning report when we were supposed to receive a detailed summary of the patients who had been admitted overnight. This would allow me and the rest of the medical team to careful plan how we were going to take care of the newly admitted patients. The “so many problems” line gave us nothing. We basically had to scramble and figure out what was going on with these newly admitted patients and then formulate a plan for how we were going to take care of them. We have a similar problem in the United States these days. We have allowed Congress to kick problems down the road without resolution for decades. No one seems to be held accountable.

Gun Violence

More than 20 years ago, two high school seniors walked into the Columbine HS library in Littleton, Colorado with a variety of pistols, sawed off shotguns, pipe bombs, and other explosives. They killed 10 students and one teacher before committing suicide.

America cried out for action. We needed some meaningful legislation. We could have limited high-capacity magazines. A girlfriend of one of the gunmen was over 18 and she had bought some of the weapons. Allowing someone to buy a weapon which is later used in a mass murder seems to be a loophole crying out for simple action. Congress could easily write a law which holds the person who bought the firearm responsible for any crimes committed with that firearm, but nothing was done.

We hear the same tired old arguments that put the rights of gun owners ahead of the rights of the victims. Current data from the Center for Disease Control states the number one cause of death or injury for children under the age of 16 is firearms. Yet, we still have weak gun control laws. And when there is a strong one, like the 109-year-old legislation in New York that required anyone to show a good reason for carrying a firearm in public, the current Supreme Court majority will strike it down.

If you are in a public space, you should be on the lookout for some crazy man with a gun. This means if you are at church, at the mall, at a parade, or anywhere in the United States, you need to be on guard. This is just a sad fact of life right now in the US.

The recently passed Safer Communities Act is a nice start but it doesn’t come close to protecting us from random gun violence. It does not ban assault weapons. Why a civilian needs an assault weapon is beyond my understanding. The 2nd Amendment does NOT say that Americans can and should have any weapon they chose. Nor does the Safer Communities legislation enact red flag laws. (These are laws that temporarily remove guns from people who are an immediate threat to themselves or others.) The act does not hold Americans who purchase guns accountable for the violence that their guns create. This is a must. My right not to be shot, killed or injured by some crazed lunatic outweighs any Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Finally, arming teachers to protect our school children may be the dumbest idea since Wiley E. Coyote decided to capture the Road Runner. Why? Because if we quickly review mass shootings, we find that well-trained police officers, who handle guns every day, fire and miss their targets frequently. Now, inject an armed teacher who is NOT as familiar with guns as a police officer into the confusing mix of a mass shooting. I see very little good that can come out of this situation. I see teachers becoming scapegoats as angry parents are wondering why the teacher didn’t save their child.

Healthcare

ObamaCare was/is a nice foundation to build a better American healthcare system. There are major loopholes in this landmark healthcare law that need to be closed. We know that mental health and eye and dental care were not covered. Insurance companies still have too much say on who and what gets covered. Why are drug companies allowed to advertise on television? How does this advertising improve patient care? If drug advertising does not improve patient care, then what’s the point besides confusing patients and physicians? Our government must be allowed to negotiate drug prices. Americans should be able to walk into a hospital or Emergency Care center and ask for an x-ray or a lab test without seeing a doctor. The x-ray gets done and a board-certified radiologist reads the x-ray, and an official report is given to the patient within 1 hour of test being performed. Why can’t we get this done?

The one thing that Covid pandemic has shown us is that our supply chains are simply terrible. Having all of X or Y product made in China or Singapore is a bad idea. We knew it was a bad idea when these huge corporations placed their manufacturing plants in these remote areas but, of course, the profit was too great for these mega-corporations to pass up. So, we have had shortages in the hospitals of just about everything that you can think of—masks, sterile gowns, simple IV solution, antibiotics, IV potassium, and ventilators, to name just a few of the items that we have either run short of or run out of in the hospital. The bottom line is we must manufacture these critical hospital supplies in the US. Yet, as far as I can tell, Congress isn’t seriously addressing this huge national security problem.

Personal Autonomy

As I’m typing this, West Virginia is racing to pass an anti-abortion bill. This is so wrong on so many levels it really is hard to understand. First, there is the religious level. I don’t understand why so many Christians believe that it is okay to mandate that their interpretation of the Bible is correct and should be forced on everyone else in the US. It was just 15 or 20 years ago that these same Christians were in fear of living under Muslim law. They argued that their religious freedom was in jeopardy.

The thought that life begins at conception is a religious belief. One can easily argue that human life begins at birth or when the mother first begins to feel the baby move. These are all arbitrary.

In our society the ability to decide one’s destiny is key to our well-being and happiness. A decision in the middle of the night—or a rape by a stranger or family member—should not commit a woman, or worse, a teenage girl, to motherhood for the rest of her life.

Raising a child is called a blessing by some. It is clear that if you don’t have the means, raising a child can be a huge burden. Some estimates state that it can cost over $250,000 to raise a child in the US over the first 18 years of the child’s life. No one wants to do the minimum for their child. We all want to do better. We want our child to have every opportunity to be successful.

One of the biggest problems that I have with these anti-abortion laws is that they make an exception for the life of the mother. That really sounds good, but in reality what does it mean? Suppose a 24-year-old woman presents to the emergency room with abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding. Overall, she is healthy, but she is diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy. The treatment of an ectopic pregnancy is to remove the fallopian tube. This is in fact an abortion. Right? You are removing the fetus which is stuck in the tube.

Now, here’s the part that causes doctors to pull out their hair. Suppose this same 24-year-old has normal vital signs. She is stable. Is her life in danger right now? Probably not—but as that fetus continues to grow, over days to weeks, is she in danger of having a life-threatening hemorrhage?

Yes. So, is the doctor supposed to wait until the patient begins to deteriorate? Or should the doctor operate when the patient is stable and her life is not really in danger? The patient has the best chance of survival when she is stable. Yet, the physician has the best chance of getting in trouble with these new laws if he/she does what’s best for the patient and operates early.

This is simply nuts. Woman must be allowed to make the best decisions for themselves in consultation with their doctor. Period. This should be the law of the land.

More Work to Do

We have to realize that there are consequences to doing nothing. “Nothing” can no longer be acceptable. When I was in high school in the late 1970s, we were debating, on the debate team, climate change/global warming. We now know that the intense wildfires in the West and the terrible flooding in St. Louis and Kentucky are linked to man’s burning of fossil fuels, which has caused increased levels of carbon dioxide and methane in our atmosphere.

On a national level we have talked and talked and talked about climate change. We have allowed the energy industry to convince us that there is such a thing as “clean coal.” The time for discussion is over. Climate change is not some abstract theory. We are living it. Today. Americans are dying because of our inaction.

We need meaningful legislation that kicks in now, not in 2050! We need wind and solar farms that produce real energy. Nearly every house in sunbaked areas like Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and Southern California should have solar panels on its roof. Anyone who mentions nuclear power has clearly not been paying attention to what we are talking about, and should be placed in time out with those who are promoting off-shore drilling as risk-free and safe.

Subversion

Let’s not forget that Donald J Trump tried to subvert our election process. January 6 was a coup attempt. Trump and those who aided Trump broke the law and should be placed in prison. It is that simple.

Problems

We do have a lot of problems in America. The vast majority of our problems are solvable. We need to stay engaged. We need to hold our elected officials accountable. It is easy to get discouraged and throw our hands up in despair. Now, is the time that we have to band together and focus on pushing America to a better future for all of us.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed here, as well as assertions of facts, are those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Urban News.