Friday, July 31, 2009

Your Forearm, Please


"They" will also decide when healthcare is mandatory. A surgeon writes to Lew Rockwell:

I am a surgeon in the Baltimore area. My main hospital decided to run a “Swine Flu Drill” for the employees and doctors over the last 2 days. Apparently, the general public was excluded because only hospital workers get swine flu. I am sure that the ability to coerce employees had nothing to do with it.

All entrances were blocked by security and tables were set up with 3 nurses. People lined up and answered embarassing private questions regarding bowel habits and the like. They then had their temperatures taken. All of the information was recorded on data sheets along with the employee ID number. Once “cleared”, they had their forearms marked with indelible ink! I kid you not: a red mark yesterday and a blue mark for today.

Not unsurprisingly, people with fevers and who had signs of the flu were allowed in without further comment.

As for me, I avoided the hospital yesterday, but had no choice today. I knew the nurse leader at the table and simply told her that I did not consent to any medical exam. Of course, she said, “I am just going to take your temperature. I responded, “I just don’t consent to any medical exams.” One of the other nurses literally barked, “What is your employee ID number?” To their bewilderment, I simply asked if I were free to go into the hospital, which they allowed me to do (this time).

I thought that there would be outrage among the staff. Of course, blue and red indelible ink are not tattooed IBM unique identifiers. However, one would think that coercive medical exams, a complete lack of privacy, rampant HIPAA violations, recorded answers with identifiers, ignored symptoms, body marking, all without any chance of preventing one case of flu, would raise someone’s eyebrows in disdain and horror. I was told that this was “just a training exercise”. The question is: who is being trained and for what purpose?

No comments:

Post a Comment