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digby: Now they're trying to dominate medicine
https://digbysblog.net/2022/07/31/now-theyre-trying-to-dominate-medicine/Digby's Hullabaloo Posts
Now they’re trying to dominate medicine
Published by digby on July 31, 2022
This is really frightening
I don’t know why, but this terrifies me as much as anything they’ve done. It’s one thing to try to take over school boards but taking over hospitals is life and death:
When his blood oxygen dropped to what he described as a critically low level in September, Victor Rohe knew he had “a bad case of covid.”
But like growing numbers of conservatives here in southwest Florida, Rohe didn’t trust the doctors at Sarasota Memorial Hospital to treat him, even though it’s part of one of the state’s largest and highest ranked medical systems.
Rohe, a longtime Republican activist and self-described strict “constitutionalist,” instead rented his own oxygen unit and hooked it up at home. For the next several days, Rohe battled his coronavirus infection in his living room, relying on medical advice from friends and family members.
“If I went to the hospital, I believed I would die,” said Rohe, pointing to online videos and conspiracy theories he watched raising questions about the care some coronavirus patients received at the hospital.
Now a year later, Rohe is part of a slate of four conservative candidates trying to take over control of the board that oversees Sarasota’s flagship public hospital, highlighting how once-obscure offices are emerging as a new front in the political and societal battles that have intensified across the country since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Although the contenders are considered underdogs to win on Aug. 23, health policy experts say the campaign is a troubling sign of how ideological divisions are spilling into the world of medical care as fights over abortion, the coronavirus and vaccines increasingly fall across party lines — alarming doctors, hospital administrators and medical experts.
“All you need to do is look at how [school boards] have now become very political … and how boards of education have ignored the science of education,” said Michele Issel, a public health professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “There’s this new disregard for the professional training that medical people have, and a disregard for the science of what is best for the population.”
The Sarasota candidates, at least three of whom are skeptical of coronavirus vaccine mandates, are rallying behind the theme of “medical freedom.” The term is increasingly being utilized by the conservative movement nationwide and hits a belief that patients aren’t given enough control over their medical care. Proponents point to vaccine mandates and difficulty accessing unproven coronavirus treatments like Ivermectin that were touted by politicians but rejected by physicians.
snip//
But like growing numbers of conservatives here in southwest Florida, Rohe didn’t trust the doctors at Sarasota Memorial Hospital to treat him, even though it’s part of one of the state’s largest and highest ranked medical systems.
Rohe, a longtime Republican activist and self-described strict “constitutionalist,” instead rented his own oxygen unit and hooked it up at home. For the next several days, Rohe battled his coronavirus infection in his living room, relying on medical advice from friends and family members.
“If I went to the hospital, I believed I would die,” said Rohe, pointing to online videos and conspiracy theories he watched raising questions about the care some coronavirus patients received at the hospital.
Now a year later, Rohe is part of a slate of four conservative candidates trying to take over control of the board that oversees Sarasota’s flagship public hospital, highlighting how once-obscure offices are emerging as a new front in the political and societal battles that have intensified across the country since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Although the contenders are considered underdogs to win on Aug. 23, health policy experts say the campaign is a troubling sign of how ideological divisions are spilling into the world of medical care as fights over abortion, the coronavirus and vaccines increasingly fall across party lines — alarming doctors, hospital administrators and medical experts.
“All you need to do is look at how [school boards] have now become very political … and how boards of education have ignored the science of education,” said Michele Issel, a public health professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “There’s this new disregard for the professional training that medical people have, and a disregard for the science of what is best for the population.”
The Sarasota candidates, at least three of whom are skeptical of coronavirus vaccine mandates, are rallying behind the theme of “medical freedom.” The term is increasingly being utilized by the conservative movement nationwide and hits a belief that patients aren’t given enough control over their medical care. Proponents point to vaccine mandates and difficulty accessing unproven coronavirus treatments like Ivermectin that were touted by politicians but rejected by physicians.
snip//
I guess it’s fine if people decide to kill themselves because they are ignorant fools. But they should open unaccredited ignorant fool hospitals where they can rub ivermectin all over each bodies while singing YMCA to their hearts content. Taking over municipal hospitals that are used by everyone is outrageous.
Florida is home to a whole lot of elderly, sick people. Do they all have a death wish?
2 replies
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Just when you think we can't get MORE divided. 
