what's the point of these articles anymore?
I know its a rhetorical question but lets look at the start, flash headline. "Younger Albertans put on ventilators, as Doctors have to choose who gets ICU.
Its a standard red herring article as the report doesn't substantiate that. But its textbook bait and switch. Is it honest?
It seems based on the one Doctors comments. The same Doctor on the large picture with deep imploring "save me eyes.
She states;
"But we know that their chance of survival is much less than, for example, someone who is 30, 40 maybe 50 years old. So we're having to have conversations at the beginning of admissions that although they may want to go to the intensive care unit, it may not be an option. And those conversations are happening more frequently," she said.
"And that's not something that we're used to saying. I mean, we're used to being able to do everything we can."
So she's stating a hypothetical the standard "we have to make decisions on lives" (which hasn't happened yet with Covid patients in this pandemic in Alberta) But its being reported as a factoid.
In the same article:
AHS recently added 20 additional ICU beds to adult hospitals around the city. Niven says 20 more beds can be opened, in stages of 10 at a time, under the current surge capacity plans. And he expects the next wave of 10 will likely be necessary within a week.
While Niven hasn't faced scenarios where people who should go to the ICU can't, he is witnessing another startling phenomenon.
Another poster asked, what should we expect from articles. Well, reasonable reporting. There is a difference between factual relaying of information and tabloid tactics. Not every news article should read as an opinion column. There are columnists that write those.
Not every reader responds well to alarmist tactics being used. Its a problem, because as much as concern is valid, in the hospitals the overhyping of what those situations are now is misinformation.
Similarly last week Dr Markland who compared Edmonton ICU to NY at peak of pandemic, misinformation. Its highly dangerous to be distorting the situation in ICU, because it causes people to question the information, and start to wonder more about the validity of such information. just saying.
. All is relative to covid now, but at the time it was worrying and she did many of the things we do now on a daily basis (distance, hand hygiene, no masks though).
