Cop who illegally arrested Utah nurse loses at least one of his jobs.

(Just a video reminder for those who may have forgotten this incident.)

Courtesy of KSL: 

A Salt Lake police detective whose arrest of a University Hospital nurse sparked a worldwide outcry was fired Tuesday from his part-time position at Gold Cross Ambulance. 

Gold Cross officials said Jeff Payne's termination was effective immediately. 

"Although Jeff was not working for Gold Cross Ambulance at the time of the incident, we take his inappropriate remarks regarding patient transports seriously," the company said in a statement. "We acknowledge those concerned individuals who have contacted us regarding this incident and affirm our commitment to serving all members of the community with kindness and respect. We will continue to maintain our values of outstanding patient focused care, safety and the complete trust of the communities we serve." 

Payne also remained on paid administrative leave from the Salt Lake Police Department on Tuesday for his role in the arrest of nurse Alex Wubbels on July 26. 

That's right this guy was actually a paramedic, and he STILL mistreated a nurse like that.

I also hope he loses his job as a cop, because the guy is clearly a menace to society.

But just in case he doesn't the hospitals are taking steps to protect their medical staff.

Courtesy of Wapo:

The University of Utah Hospital, where a nurse was manhandled and arrested by police as she protected the legal rights of a patient, has imposed new restrictions on law enforcement, including barring officers from patient-care areas and from direct contact with nurses. 

Gordon Crabtree, interim chief executive of the hospital, said at a Monday news conference that he was “deeply troubled” by the arrest and manhandling of burn unit nurse Alex Wubbels on July 26. In accord with hospital policy and the law, she had refused to allow a Salt Lake City police officer to take a blood sample from an unconscious patient. Wubbels obtained a copy of the body cam video of the confrontation and, after consulting her lawyer, the hospital and police officials, released it last week. 

“This will not happen again,” Crabtree said, praising Wubbels for “putting her own safety at risk” to “protect the rights of patients.”

If you still think that the police are not out of control in this country, just remind yourself that this hospital, in freaking Utah, just had to create a policy to protect their doctors and nurses from the local police. 

Utah nurse arrested for following protocol and not allowing a police officer to take blood from an unconscious patient. Update!

(That is a very troubling video to watch.)

Courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune: 

A nurse says she was assaulted and illegally arrested by a Salt Lake City police detective for following a hospital policy that does not allow blood draws from unconscious patients. 

Footage from University Hospital and officer body cameras shows Detective Jeff Payne and nurse Alex Wubbels in a standoff over whether the policeman should be allowed to get a blood sample from a patient who had been injured in a July 26 collision in northern Utah that left another driver dead. 

Wubbels says blood cannot be taken from an unconscious patient unless the patient is under arrest, unless there is a warrant allowing the draw or unless the patient consents. The detective acknowledges in the footage that none of those requirements is in place, but he insists that he has the authority to obtain the draw, according to the footage. 

At one point, Payne threatens to take Wubbels to jail if he doesn’t get the sample, and he accuses her of interfering with a criminal case. 

“I either go away with blood in vials or body in tow,” Payne says. 

After Wubbels consults with several hospital officials and repeats the policy, Payne tells her she is under arrest and grabs her, pulling her arms behind her back and handcuffing her. The footage shows the detective dragging Wubbels out of the hospital and putting her inside a patrol car as she screams, “Help! Help! Somebody help me! Stop! Stop! I did nothing wrong!”

This nurse is extremely professional in how she interacts with the police, and even has her supervisor backing her up on the phone, and still this asshole manhandles her and treats like a common criminal.

That is a man who became a cop, not to help people, but to use the uniform and the authority it represents to bully people into submission.

It should be noted that the nurse never said no to the officer and instead was simply relating to him the hospital restrictions on what she could do to comply with his request when he arrested her.

Heavy.com relates that the officer, Jeff Payne, has NOT been fired and remains on active duty, though there is an internal investigation.

There are also reports of other officers in the area harassing medical staff in hospitals and this seems like a fairly widespread problem in Utah.

No lawsuits pending as of yet, but I think the hospital and this nurse have a very strong case for one.

Personally I hope that the hospital gives this woman a commendation for doing her job in the face of such a terrifying situation, and perhaps a nice raise would not be out of the question as well.

Update: The two officers have been placed on leave.

House Republicans finally manage to pass Republican "health care" bill with 217 votes.

Paul Ryan showing how the GOP members of the House will offer free breast exams to help alleviate health care costs for women.

Courtesy of ABC News: 

House Republicans have passed their ambitious plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, after several fits and starts, sending the measure to the Senate, where it is expected to be significantly revised. 

The bill passed the House in a narrow 217-213 vote. All Democrats opposed the bill. 

Democrats warned that the changes will leave Americans worse off. 

“Make no mistake, many people will die as a result of this bill,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said. 

Republicans, who have been promising to repeal and replace Obamacare for seven years but have struggled to coalesce around a specific legislative proposal, said they planned on keeping their promise to constituents. 

“Our constituents did not elect us to do what is easy. They elected us to do what is right,” Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., the chairwoman of the House Budget Committee, said on the floor.

And sadly the Republicans still failed to do what's right.

The New York Times laid out this bill's winners and losers.

Winners:

• High income earners: You know, like the Trump family and friends.
• Upper-middle-class people without pre-existing health conditions: Goes without saying.
• Young, middle-class people without pre-existing health conditions: Yep.
• People who wish to go without insurance: Unless of course they get injured or get a catastrophic illness that is.
• People who want less comprehensive health coverage: Same response as above.
• Large employers: Duh!
  
• Medical device companies, indoor tanning companies and a few other medical industries: Well as long as we are helping those poor indoor tanning companies.
  

The Losers:

• Poor people 
• Older Americans, in most states 
• People with pre-existing health conditions, particularly in some states 
• State governments 
• Hospitals

You know another group of losers are the Republicans who voted for this bill today.

And that's why the Democrats sang a little song for them after the bill passed:

The American Health Care Act just passed the House by the smallest possible margin, barely getting the 217 votes needed to pass. And as the bill passed, House Democrats began singing and waving goodbye to their Republican counterparts. 

“Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!” they sang as voting finished. 

It was a pretty remarkable act of trolling on the House floor, but one that illustrates just how divisive health care is as a political issue. Democrats are absolutely, positively sure that Thursday's vote will doom their more vulnerable Republican colleagues — and maybe then some.

The Democrats know full well that the chances of this bill getting through the Senate are slim and none, and Slim just left the building. (Sorry, that's one of my Dad's jokes.)

Currently this bill is not only disliked by the majority of the American people, but virtually every health care organization on the planet also opposes it.

Which includes, The American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American College of Physicians, National Nurses United, National, Physicians Alliance, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Like the Democrats said,  “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!”

Sarah Palin finally posts pictures of Todd in the hospital recovering from his accident.

Courtesy of Palin's only remaining media outlet Facebook:

So grateful for your prayers and support during Todd's recovery! He's in a good place - on the couch - insisting if there's any good season for injury, it's now. 

"March Madness is a great distraction," Todd reports. "And catching up on 'Deadliest Catch' and 'Bering Sea Gold' episodes is some awesome motivational therapy. I can't wait to get on Bristol Bay waters and pick fish with the family!" 

In our 35 years, I've never seen the guy have to literally hold still, sit down, and take a (winced) breath. And I've never seen Todd so touched by the kindness shown during difficult days. 

"It's overwhelming and I'm not worthy of these well-wishes," he said. "I wish I could repay people for caring. Makes me want to do more for others, especially when they're down and out. Maybe that's part of the purpose in all this." 

It IS overwhelming, friends' goodness permeating the situation. Todd is always, always doing what he can for others, and rooting for anyone going through life's trials. It's amazing to realize his character is recognized outside of our four walls. He's got a great heart... to go along with two inflated lungs now, metal holding bones together, and stitched up epidermis that makes him appreciate good health more than ever. 

"I can't thank you guys enough," Todd said. "The past few weeks showed us it's not just family circling the wagons; I don't think we'd ever realized that before. People out there who are hurting a hundred times worse than I was can use our prayers and any kind gesture. Maybe I can only repay by offering the same to you."

 Well we asked for pictures, and now there are pictures.

Of course I notice that we still have no pictures of the snowmachine.

Bristol Palin tries to do damage control.

Courtesy of Bristol's Instagram account: 

For all the people saying I gave birth 11/4/15............. here is my IV that was started on 12/22/15 when I was admitted, my baby girl was born 12/23/15 🖕🏼stop trying to create controversy where none exists, desperation is the ugliest thing

Oookay, well if that is true then how does an image like this exist?

Those are not the same numbers.

And another thing why in Bristol's post is the IV in the opposite hand?

Now see this does not clear anything up, and in fact only creates more confusion and raises more questions.

Holiday greetings from the Palin gals.

Courtesy of the Mad Mama of the Mat-Su's Facebook page:  

Merry Christmas! I hope you had a joyous day and can keep the Christmas spirit alive in your heart and home all year long. Love from my girls and me. 

Okay so I have a confession to make.

I really tried with this most recent pregnancy NOT to go all conspiratorial.

After all not EVERYTHING these people do can be a lie, a manipulation, or a made up part of the family mythology. Right?

Right?

But then things started to happen.

First we had the whole question of "Who's the daddy?"  Which neither the Palins nor Dakota Meyer seemed interested in putting to rest. (Why would somebody just let that go on?)

Then we had all of these rumors that Bristol gave birth sometime in November. (No confirmation so could just be people talking on the internet.)

Next there was the fact that Bristol phoned in her participation during Tripp's child custody case. (Well there are legitimate reasons for this, besides hiding a recent birth. Right?)

That was followed by the birth, and the Grizzled Mama's Facebook page showing her holding the newborn which originated from New Orleans.

Posted by Sarah Palin on Thursday, December 24, 2015

WTF?

Now that has been followed by a post from our friend Malia Litman in which she called all of the area hospitals every day since December 11th and found that Bristol had NEVER been a patient at any of them.

I give up. Apparently EVERYTHING these people do is a lie, a manipulation, or made up part of the family mythology.

Al Jazeera reports that Catholic hospitals are spreading rapidly and that it negatively impacts the medical choices that are available to women.

Courtesy of Al Jazeera:  

Catholic hospitals provide care for 1 in 6 patients in the United States; they are, collectively, the largest not-for-profit health care provider in the country. As secular hospitals merge with Catholic ones, many health care organizations and the communities they serve are on edge. In Washington state, for example, mergers mean that nearly half of hospital beds are in facilities controlled or influenced by the church, and in many regions a Catholic hospital is the sole provider. Nationwide, Catholic health care providers grew by 16 percent from 2001 to 2011. The number of secular nonprofit hospitals dropped by 12 percent in that period; the number of public hospitals fell by 31 percent. 

Catholic health care providers are bound by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, a document issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that governs how health care providers should deal with reproductive issues, end-of-life care, the “spiritual responsibility” of Catholic health care and a variety of other concerns. The range of women’s health care options that Catholic facilities offer is limited — sometimes, like when a pregnancy goes wrong, to a deadly degree. And while most doctors have an ethical obligation to inform patients of all their options, Catholic facilities routinely refuse to offer even abortions necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life; their doctors are also barred from telling a patient with a nonviable pregnancy that there are other, often safer options available elsewhere, lest the patient seek care at another facility. (LGBT patients may also run into problems, whether it is with hormone therapy for transgender patients or simply the right of married same-sex partners to be treated as next of kin in making health care decisions).

Proponents of Catholic health care say that which services religious hospitals offer is a First Amendment issue and that the separation of church and state requires the government to remain hands off. Catholic hospitals provide necessary care to the sick and in need, through a well-funded religious institution with many devotees and volunteers who do excellent, important work. 

But Catholic hospitals receive enormous amounts of state and federal funding, in the form of large tax exemptions, Medicare and Medicaid dollars and specific grants for certain types of care. In 2011, Catholic hospitals received $27 billion in public funding, not including tax breaks — nearly half their revenue. Catholic hospitals employ and serve populations that are not predominantly Catholic. One-fifth (PDF) of physicians at religious hospitals reported facing a “clinical ethical conflict” in which their medical judgment was at odds with the hospital’s religious policy. Because Catholic hospitals receive public funds and care for a diverse population, they should have a duty to serve the actual health needs of their patients and the ethical obligations of their staffs over church dogma. 

Instead, they put the dogma first. As a result, rape victims are routinely refused emergency contraception in Catholic hospitals. Women with life-threatening ectopic pregnancies, which are easily ended by a shot of methotrexate or a minor surgery, often find an entire fallopian tube unnecessarily removed — decreasing the odds of future pregnancy — if they seek care at a Catholic facility. And, as Means discovered, even in life-threatening emergencies, Catholic hospitals regularly refuse to terminate pregnancies and may face penalties, including removal of church-affiliated status, if they do so to save the life of the mother. In one case in Arizona, a pregnant mother of four went to a Catholic hospital’s emergency room with a condition so life-threatening that her chances of imminent death without an abortion were nearly certain. She was too ill to transfer to another facility, so the hospital’s administrator, a nun, approved an emergency termination. The woman lived. The nun was excommunicated. Her standing with the church was eventually restored, but the hospital lost its 116-year affiliation with the Catholic Church. 

Refusing to provide female patients with a full range of reproductive care is discrimination. Intentionally providing substandard care when safer, better options are available is monstrous. It means women see their bodies damaged, their fertility impaired and their lives threatened. Low-income women and women in rural areas face the greatest hardships, since they may have no other option for care except a Catholic hospital. Rural living means there may not be another hospital for miles. Poverty means finding a provider that accepts Medicaid and is nearby; distance equals more gas money or more time on public transportation and off work. For many women, the closest abortion clinic is hundreds of miles away. Religion should not be an excuse for public health institutions to discriminate so broadly and do such harm. 

This is just another way that religion is attempting to control the lives of women in this country, and it simply should not be tolerated.

We are in the 21st Century, isn't it time to move past these superstitious restrictions on our lives?

Your morning wake up call.

The healthcare costs that the Republicans keep blaming on Obamacare have nothing to do with it. Have you ever heard of Reagancare?

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

What’s that you say? Hospitals are mandated to give away free services? 

Yes. In response to some earlier bad behavior from hospitals called “patient dumping,” a mandate for unfunded medical care was created and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. It said, “Hospitals provide care to anyone needing emergency healthcare treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay.” 

That’s right, Reagan created a universal coverage mandate, forced the private sector to pay for it, thereby creating the world’s most expensive, least efficient health-care program. Hospitals hated it, the poor and indigent took advantage of it, and prices were jacked up in response to it. Eventually, the costs spread to everyone else. 

Given that history, it is no surprise that hospitals were quietly pleased with Obamacare. After the Supreme Court ruled on the legality of the new rules in June 2012, hospital stocks rallied. It should come as no surprise: They get to remove a huge cost that they had no ability to control. They also get a massive number of new paying customers. And they now have some control over who their patients will be.

Yes the man who claimed to want to keep government out of our lives created a law that put the burden of caring for those without insurance or money onto the hospitals, which forced them to make up the cost by gouging insurance companies, who in turn gouged their customers. In other words, us.

And then when President Obama came up with a plan to reduce the cost of insurance, and remove the burden from hospitals, thereby lowering the cost of medical care and prescription drugs, he was accused of being un-American and undermining the freedoms of the American people.

In other words the man who has worked diligently to protect our citizens from the unseen tax placed on them to cover uninsured hospital visits, is vilified. While the man who created that problem in the first place, is idolized.

Not only that but in order to protect Ronald Reagan's destructive health care mandate, his Republican heirs are willing to bankrupt the entire country.

Hillary Clinton in hospital for blood clot.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been admitted to a New York hospital after the discovery of a blood clot stemming from the concussion she sustained earlier this month. 

Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines says her doctors discovered the clot during a follow-up exam Sunday. Reines says Clinton is being treated with anti-coagulants. 

Clinton was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital so doctors can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours.

Not good news. These blood clots can be a REALLY big deal and can lead to very serious health problems, such as pulmonary embolism, and even death.

I would just like to take a moment to give a big shout out of "Fuck You" to all of those asshole conservatives that claimed she was faking her fall to get out of testifying about Benghazi before Congress by the way.

Oh wait, I'm sure she is probably faking this too, right?

P.S. And yes before you ask I AM concerned about what this means for 2016. But of course now is not he time to dwell on that.

Time to "ooh" and "aww." Here are pictures of Levi, Sunny, with brand new baby Breeze.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail Online:

 Levi Johnston's and his girlfriend Sunny Oglesby have introduced their baby daughter to the world for the first time. 

The couple posed for a family portrait at at Matsu Regional Hospital in Wasilla, Alaska, after welcoming the child around 5.30am yesterday. 

Levi, 22, who was dressed in army fatigue trousers, a green T-shirt and cap, is seen cradling the newborn alongside his partner, a 20-year-old school teacher. 

The couple named the girl, who weighed just over 6lbs, Breeze Beretta Johnston.

 I would just like to point out that there have NEVER been any pictures posted in the press of either Sarah Palin in the hospital after "giving birth" to Trig, nor of Bristol after giving birth to Tripp.

Take from that what you will.

Something about this picture....

I am not usually someone who has an immediate emotional response to images, but this one, from the NBC News coverage of the book about Gabby Giffords written by her husband, has never stopped haunting me.

To be honest, I am not sure I can put into words exactly why it speaks to me the way that it does, but there is something about how fragile Gabby looks, and how tenderly the President in holding her hand....

Anyhow my friend Loriah did a screen capture and sent this to me, so I thought I would share it with all of you, and invite you to share what the photo says to you.  Perhaps in that way I will better understand my own response.