(03-14-2020 04:57 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  If there's anything to be learned from Italy, its how we dont want to be under a "national" healthcare system when something like this hits. And something like this hits every 10 years.

Reading articles today, several from Italy have admitted what their system's shortcomings were, which we covered in ths forum over the past week:

1. There can be wait times for ordinary hospital beds (not ICU's, just beds) under normal conditions in Italy. That means their system doesnt have the minimal number of beds for normal times, because they dont have the money for them. When something like this hits, their system becomes pure sh*t.

2. Primary care in Italy sucks. Most of the people show only mild symptoms when they get coronovirus. If they wanted to go get tested, they would have to report to their primary care doctor. The issue there is, under normal situations, you can wait all day in their office, and still not get seen. So you have to show back up bright and early the next day and try again. People with mild symptons didnt want to go thru that, ansd so they simply didnt go and get tested, and went around in public with the virus. This is nothing new. Each year for the past 5 years, Italy has seen an extremely high death rate from the ordinary flu. While part of that is due to their aging population, the root cause is that their primary doctor system is completely screwed up so that when there is something like a flu outbreak, its impossible to get in to a primary care doctor. What we're seeing in Italy with the Cornovirus isnt new, they have had this same issue for the past 5 years with the ordinary flu, despite vaxx'es being available.

3. Emergency care in Italy is a "right", which means if you are afraid you might have some sort of flu/cornoavirus, you immediately check into the hospital because you cant be denied access there, like you can at your primary care doctor. This overwhelms the emergency care system, which is too small under normal conditions. This is why Italy was screaming about hospital bed shortages back when they only had 3000 cases of coronovirus in the country. Furthermore, it so quickly overtaxed their system that they accidentally put coronovirus patients in rooms that werent closed-ventilated, and that caused the virus to spread to others in other rooms quickly. Hospitals became a breeding ground in infecting people.

It does sound like some parts in the USA as well. Sometimes big cities like NYC and L. A. do have wait times for beds when you get a rushed of people going there. That is where most of the people who have no primary care/doctor because they made $1 more to get medicaid or they can't afford medical insurance and all that.

There are many rural areas had hospital closed down or no doctors at all. Our medical system is not as perfect either.