LA County USC Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brad Spellberg reveals our failed healthcare system’s inconvenient truth.
A lousy healthcare system kills
Dr. Brad Spellberg was on MSNBC discussing overwhelmed ICUs in Southern California. He said their ICUs have been full for several weeks now. Worse, the battle is getting worse every day that passes.
When asked about suboptimal care because of medical staffing, the doctor concurred. He said most hospitals are starting to move out of the standard ratio. That is, the number of patients per personnel is getting out of whack, which ultimately endangers patients’ health and survival.
“Space is not the problem,” Spellberg said. “The problem is trained, staff. It takes years to train an ICU physician. It takes months to years to train an ICU nurse.”
When the host critiqued the healthcare system’s handling of the COVID-19 crises while concurrently praising our healthcare system as “incredible healthcare and treatment,” surprisingly, the doctor unexpectedly pushed back.
“I think we could quibble with the quality of health care in the United States,” Spellberg said. “Many countries do it much better than us. There is plenty of objective evidence around that. And I hope after we get through COVID, we can have a real discussion about how to fix our broken healthcare system.”
The doctor also pointed out that, in fact, our health care system already rations it. So when you hear about a single-payer Medicare For All system rationing healthcare, know that it is the private sector that enriches the executives and shareholders.
Well said, doctor.