Mark Wilkerson talks about the pressure he’s under after being laid off from his job as a supply clerk. He doesn’t know when he’ll find work and is struggling to manage his health without insurance. But Mark believes God will bless him. “It’s gonna be all right.”
Hearts and Minds
“Everybody in here needs help or they wouldn’t be here.”
Maybe I’ll Get Better on My Own…
“I was here about a year ago. But since I don’t have any health insurance I try to avoid the hospitals.”
Ounce of Prevention
“Every single day I see patients that say they’ve lost their Kaiser insurance.”
I’ve seen a lot of judgemental comments on You Tube, but most of the people depicted in these stories appear to be folks that would rather be working and have health insurance instead of being on the system. As it was discussed throughout the health care debates, most of us are one pay check or illness away from disaster.
I graduated from Highland School of Nursing in 1956. Yes, there was a very excellent three year School of Nursing, with the Nursing School Student’s dormitories situated right where the present Emergency Room and other parts of the Hospital now sit! The nursing students nearly staffed the whole hospital on all three shifts in those days. But projected population pressures for Alameda County dictated that increased patient space would soon be needed; so space for the School of Nursing and it’s students were a part of the space cost, in 1967.
All my personal respect and admiration go to the staff I now see working in Highland’s Emergency Room. Ecological, economic and all levels of political problems now complicate the health and welfare of patients who rely on Highland’s Emergency Services. I am expending all my political energies and influence to bring about universal, single payer health care, so that all people in our abundantly wealthy country will have all of their medical needs addressed in a very timely fashion!!! I believe that no person in a technologically advanced civilization, such as the U.S., should have to sit for sixteen hours in a waiting room in order to receive attention to their health care needs!!! Lillian S. Ruano, (retired) R.N., P.H.N. and School Nurse.