If your name is Hugo Chavez and you’re the soon to be ex President of Venezuela, the answer is “Not so good.”

In case you’re wondering, that’s a strike as in a military surgical strike, not the surgeons in Cuba going on strike. Although because the Communists are all about labor strikes against Capitalist War Mongers, try it in a country run by Communists and you’ll find out that their prisons run much more effectively than their hospitals. Not any more pleasant, but more effective.

Americas: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is dying of cancer in Havana, in a live demonstration of Cuba’s vaunted socialized medical care. He went there instead of Brazil because he wanted to make a political statement. What irony.

As party cronies hover at his bedside, Cuban officials bark orders to the government in Caracas, and red-shirted Chavistas hold vigils, all signs are pointing to an imminent exit for the Venezuelan leader who controls a huge part of the world’s oil.

He’s going out exactly as he wouldn’t have liked — helpless and at the mercy of doctors, a far cry from the blaze of heroic socialist glory he might have preferred.

Most galling for him: It didn’t have to happen this way.

His expected demise will be entirely due to his gullibility to leftist propaganda and bad choices that came of it

Apparently unlike their Soviet mentors, the Cubans can’t even run good hospitals for their rulers. At least in Russia if you were high enough in the Communist Party, you’d go to a hospital and get care not available to the Proles. Not so in Cuba where everyone gets sucky care. Pelosi et al, were smart enough to exempt themselves from Obamacare.

According to a 2011 report in the Wall Street Journal, Chavez chose Cuban medical care over the world-class treatment in Brazil for “political” reasons.

“While Mr. Chavez often lauds Cuban doctors, switching from Cuban to Brazilian care would have suggested the Cubans aren’t capable of world class care.

Res ipsa loquitur.

As Chavez dies, Cuba itself may go down too if Venezuela’s energy subsidies end. Cuba’s regime, ironically, might be the last victim of its own foul health system.

In baseball this would be a double play, or as the announcers call it, “A twin killing.” In business this would be a “win win”.

Even Castro was smart enough to go to Spain when he was really sick. Seems his illness was made worse by his Cuban doctors, so he high tailed it to Madrid in 2007 and was cured.

I know that I’ve probably been overly political of late, but this is actually pretty funny even if you think Obamacare is a good thing. That’s it all true is just an added benefit.

That’s a Rogue Medic like post title, isn’t it?

Death risks higher for heart attack survivors living near major roadways

Heart attack survivors who live about 100 meters (328 feet) or less from a major U.S. roadway face increased risk of death from all causes, according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.

In the Determinants of MI Onset Study of 3,547 heart attack survivors (average age 62), researchers found:

• Those living less than 100 meters (328 feet) from the roadway have a 27 percent increased risks of dying over 10 years than those living at least 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) away.
• Those living 100 to 199 meters (328 to 653 feet) from the roadway have a 19 percent increased risks of death.
• Those living 200 to 999 meters (653 feet to 3,277 feet) from the roadway have a 13 percent increased risk of death.

Those are the hard numbers, but what do they mean? Do people who are more ill tend to live in more urban areas and closer to major roadways? Are there implications of an urban life style versus a rural one?

“We think there is exposure to a combination of air pollution near these roadways and other exposure, such as excessive noise or stress from living close to the roadway, that may contribute to the study findings,” said Murray A. Mittleman, M.D., Dr.PH, study author and director of the Cardiovascular Research Unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Mass.

In this case I have to wonder if thinking = guessing.

“People with lower levels of education and income are more likely to live in communities closer to a major roadway, so they are bearing a larger burden of the risk associated with exposure than people with more resources” said Mittleman, who is also associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

People with lower levels of education and income are also less likely to go to follow up appointments, understand or follow doctors instructions, get prescriptions filled, and be diligent in taking prescription medications. Not to mention less likely to eat healthier foods, because as any home economist can tell you, junk food costs less than healthy food. I wonder if the researchers went to any of the homes that were close to the highways and observed first hand the living conditions of the people who were more likely to die? Or the people who were more likely to live for that matter?

OK, I’ll give you a required warning here. As Rogue Medic says, the plural of anecdote is not data. I, on the other hand, refer to them as observational data. While I don’t have a grant and thus couldn’t do a double blind study, I can tell you that from my years in EMS that ER (and other specialty) physicians for the most part have no idea what the living conditions of their patients are. Maybe primary care doctors do, but often they are only tangentially involved in the in hospital care of their patients. I’ve seen patients with implanted devices, such as central lines, sent home to incredibly filthy homes where there is not ONE person who can help them keep the injection sites clean, let alone sterile. People sent home on ventilators with only elderly, debilitated, relatives to take care of them. I think if some of these physicians were to visit the homes to which they are discharging patients, they’d be frankly shocked if not horrified.

“From the public policy point of view, the association between risk of death and proximity of housing to major roadways should be considered when new communities are planned,” Mittleman said. “From an individual point of view, people may lessen the absolute risk of living near a roadway by paying attention to the general prevention measures, including quitting smoking, eating a heart-healthy diet exercising regularly, and keeping blood pressure and cholesterol under control.”

Kind of reminds me of those ads for miracle weight loss drugs. “Our product, along with a healthy diet and regular exercise will help you lose weights. Of course results vary and there is no guarantee” I’ve got news for you, a healthy diet and regular exercise will help you lose weight without any miracle drug. In fact, health diet and regular exercise are the ONLY things proven to help you lose weight.

Since we don’t really know the exact causes of the increase in deaths, how can we make public or medical policy decisions based on this study? Hmmm…

And finally,

The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Environmental Health Science funded the study.

The EPA is a federal agency with a vested interest in proving that air is more, not less, polluted in the 40 years since the agency was created to clean up the environment. Only if they’ve been this ineffective in improving air quality, I have to wonder what they hell they’ve been doing with our money all these years?

Study: One-third of N.J. emergency room visitors aren’t sick enough to be there

TRENTON — One out of three people who went to emergency rooms at two hospitals in Newark and Long Branch didn’t actually have medical emergencies and could have been treated at less-costly doctor’s offices or clinics, according to a study released today.

And a comprehensive effort to educate and follow up on these patients reduced emergency room visits at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch by more than 20 percent by the end of the study.

The second part is encouraging, but the bigger question is if that effort can be expanded throughout the system. I’d wager that the numbers are the same or maybe higher in most other urban areas.

The most frequent ER visitors had health coverage through Medicaid and FamilyCare, but said they couldn’t get an appointment with their doctor, or did not understand what constituted an emergency, according to the study, which was also conducted by the state Department of Human Services and the New Jersey Primary Care Association, which represents health clinics.

Is it cynical of me to suggest that a lot of the patients on Medicaid don’t have primary care physicians or just find it inconvenient to work around the doctor’s schedule as opposed to just calling 9-1-1 for a (free) ride to the ER (also free), where they can get their prescriptions refilled for (free)? In other words how much is lack of education and how much is just lack of incentive to see a primary care physician. My son has pretty decent health insurance through his employer. Still he has a $200.00 co pay for ER visits. That’s on the high end, mine is only $30.00. I know other people who have $100.00 co pay. People on welfare have no co pay. Therefore there is absolutely no reason for them to not use the ER. That’s human nature, not education.

I, and I’ll bet just about any provider who reads this blog, can tell stories about people who have called 9-1-1 for an ambulance ride to the ER to get prescriptions for over the counter drugs such as Tylenol, Motrin, Aspirin, and decongestants. Why? Because if they walk into their local big box pharmacy and pick those items off the shelf, they have to pay for them. However, if they get a prescription for the same medication, it’s free, free, free. Not for us of course, but for them. They not only don’t have to pay, but unlike you and me, there is no co pay for prescriptions.

The team “made sure they had follow-up appointments, and education on what’s an appropriate use of the emergency room without turning people off,” Eric J. Wasserman said, chairman and medical director for Newark Beth Israel’s Emergency Department. The team was trained to explain “there’s a better way of doing this – to get care just as efficiently without the wait and having to come to a crowded emergency room.”

Intensive (and expensive) one on one follow up resulted in the improvement. So, what will happen now that the $4.8 Million dollar federal grant is gone? Will the hospitals fund those staff positions that were covered by the grant? My guess would be not without reimbursement. So, the program will fall by the wayside and soon things will go back to the status quo.

If anyone in the government were serious about reforming health care finance then they would impose co pays and other financial penalties for abusing 9-1-1 and ERs. Only they aren’t so they won’t.

Health group: No more cheesy photo ops for President Obama

President Obama may be the leader of the free world, but if a national group of health care professionals has its way, traditional shots of POTUS tucking into cheesy pizza, greasy burgers and soft serve will be verboten!

The 125,000-member Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine today will petition the White House to abolish all future staged photo opportunities with the president gobbling french fries and fried dough — staples not only of the presidential campaign trail but the rail-thin chief executive’s summer vacations on Martha’s Vineyard.

That would be 125,000 doctors who are much smarter than we are and feel entitled to tell people how to live their own lives. Interestingly, about 120,000 deaths per year are attributed to errors by doctors.

Maybe the Physicians Committee for Sticking Our Noses Into Other People’s Lives should look at that and see if they can help their peers kill fewer patients per year. Maybe doctors should be required to wear warning labels on their lab coats. WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that being treated by doctors is hazardous to your health! Certainly we should not see pictures of President Obama eating a physician, since that sends the wrong message to “sick kids”.

Oh yes, the justification for this, as it so often is with the Nanny State contingent is that it’s “for the children”.

“millions of sick kids due to excess calories, excess fat …”

Millions? Really? Is that a verified number MS. Levin? Or did you as we say around here, pull that one out of your ass?

You know what else is bad for people? High blood pressure. Maybe MS Levin should think of people like JayG, whose head is in danger of exploding when  he sees this tripe. Think of the millions of bloggers, MS Levin. Have you no decency?