Thank you, Stanford! Some of us know how very important these medical services are.

What is the risk to the patients of being in contact with someone who swabs people for infection?

Has the emergency room changed things so that people aren't in a small room waiting with all the other sick people, maybe for hours? I read that people aren't going to the ER when they need to, and given my last visit to the ER some years ago, I don't blame them.

I've been so grateful to be able to get medical care without having to go in or get any more x-rays than absolutely necessary for a break, etc. Maybe the new normal could be more telemedicine, and even more remote medical sensing so that people can avoid the humiliation and potential infections of going to the ER if they aren't actually have a heart attack, or so that women especially know in advance that they will be treated with respect and not in a degrading and gross Victorian-era-psychologizing manner (they'll already know what to expect when they get there from preliminary data).

I'm really grateful for our local medical centers and personnel, but the heroism in regards to Covid won't necessarily translate to fewer women being sent home in the middle of a stroke (after hours of degrading treatment) etc. Covid19 isn't gone, neither are other infections, maybe it's time we developed a better way of handling potential emergencies so that people do go in when they should and can spare themselves the expensive, humiliating, and potential-for-infection treatment if they don't need to. At the very least that would make more room for social distancing in wait rooms.

Changing,

The hospital is in a brand new building as of November. The emergency room is much much larger and more modern.

The Life Flight's back in business I hear, too (literally). On Monday I counted three flights. It's hard to imagine having a business model where you hope for sick and dying people, but there it is.

@chris,
Lots of new modern airplanes and theater houses in the world, and they seat people closer together than ever. A new modern airplane is going to have those of us in coach crammed even closer together to make more space for the business and first class. In fact, that's the business model (as explained to me by someone in the industry) -- everyone thinks the airlines make more money by cramming people together to get a few more seats in, and that's not what's going on. They make money be creating as much misery among those who can't pay for business or first class as possible--cramming people so close they can't rest or move (or distance), scheduling things without regard to the stress/sleeplessness/need to eat, etc.--that anyone who possibly can be induced to buy a business class or 1st ticket, will get their company to or pony up themselves. The extra space is needed to get more business class room in, not to sell more coach seats, that's not how they make their money. But I digress.

The point is, bigger, new, that doesn't correlate with ordinary people being treated with more respect and concern. Tell me something that changes what ER doctors are taught about the mental health of women and how they are treated if the doctors don't know what is wrong, or see a common "atypical" presentation of a stroke in a woman. Tell me something about the sea change of attitude that makes me understand why people used to be left for hours and hours in waiting rooms with clearly sick coughing people, and now they aren't (did we used to not die of infections before this?)

Elaborate please in a way that is relevant to the concern at hand -- do they now not leave people in waiting rooms together with who knows what to pass along to each other?

Don't get me wrong, I am grateful we have these facilities and the medical professionals in this area, and I think many of them have earned their sainthood through this pandemic, but you haven't shared anything that makes me think patients are anymore respected or given more space. People can be both grateful for the broader response to the pandemic, and fearful about going to the doctor or hospital based on their own past experience.

People are generally afraid of going to any hospital due to the risk of hospital acquired infections.
It is clear that doctors and hospitals can not stay in business without ordering expensive tests and performing elective surgeries. Clearly a for profit business.
Stanford Health Care hospitals employ 14,000 people.

Is there a prioritizing list/category for elective surgeries?

[Portion removed.]

- Clearly a for profit business.

Costs too high, lower outcomes than other industrialized nations.

M4A. Get rid of bloodsucking for-profit insurance companies.

I suggest that the folks who are whining about how our world class hospitals stay afloat go to the UK where people have to wait for months in line for procedures like hip replacements if they cannot pay for a private hospital. Stanford has a program to help patients pay for health care if they are in financial trouble. Further Stanford is not a for profit hospital like Cancer Centers of America, for example, is. Check your facts folksm