Curiously Awesome

Instead of being a safe refuge, city hospitals are some of the most dangerous places in Baghdad. Iraqi filmmaker and former physician Omer Salih Mahdi recently spent six weeks filming daily life inside of the hospital Al Yarmouk. He also spent time filming on the streets with the hospital’s ambulances. His documentary ?Baghdad Hospital: Inside the Red Zone,? shows an unusual glimpse of the routines of this city hospital.

Dr. Mahdi endured threats, beatings, interrogations, and even death threats in the process of creating his documentary. At one point his safety was so threatened that he decided to suspend filming. The directory of security, who was responsible for the approval of the filming project, was shot and killed during the project.

The overwhelming feeling captured by the film was chaos. The individual civilian patients who are caught in this chaos seem overwhelmed and bewildered. At one point in the film, three people in an ambulance are shown. They are very angry and yelling that they want Saddam back. This seems to be a common Iraqi sentiment. They yearn for the Saddam days ? not because they were necessarily good, but because at least the people felt secure.

Before the war, Dr. Mahdi explains that the hospital was a very quiet place that received few trauma patients. Since the war began, they now receive many people each day due to explosions, shootings, and stabbings. At the same time as the increase in traumas, they started to lose security in the hospital. There were many times when people would come into the hospital and they were angry — they had lost a loved one — and they blamed the doctors. Many physicians were even beaten.

Another issue is a shortage of medication, anesthesia, and equipment. This has worsened since the war began and since the fall of Baghdad. We were telling people to bring medications from outside because they weren’t available in the hospital. If a patient needs a blood transfusion, he had better have someone with him who can donate some blood. If you need surgery, your only anesthetic may be your family holding you down. Not only is there a shortage of medications, there is also a shortage of caregivers. The morgue is ill-equipped as well. Most of the refrigerators for storing corpses are broken leaving deceased patients literally lying on the ground in the sun in some cases.

The hospital in the documentary, Al Yarmouk, received 50-60 civilian casualties per day. This is only one hospital in one part of Baghdad. The total number of civilian casualties likely exceeds 600,000. In addition, many people are killed and buried without any registration.

Dr. Mahdi practiced medicine in Iraq for almost four years before he quit to become a journalist. He is now studying for his master’s in journalism on a Fulbright scholarship at Ball State University in Indiana.

Adam Duritz, the lead singer of Counting Crows, has been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). DID was formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder.

Duritz has been battling severe depression for years in addition to this latest diagnosis.Apparently, this disorder has contributed to the amount of time between albums and the inspiration of many of his song lyrics.

The Counting Crows latest album, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, was released Tuesday. It is their first album in six years.

It seems that Rush Limbaugh is once again attempting to make political waves with his clout.

Limbaugh is urging Republicans in states still awaiting primaries to re-register as Democratic and vote for Hillary Clinton in an attempt to prolong the race and further drain each candidate. Clinton is the chosen candidate because Limbaugh sees Obama as the tougher candidate for the the GOP to defeat – hence if Clinton receives the democratic nomination…well you see where this is going, I’m sure.

Disabled Iraqi children are now getting the wheelchairs they need, thanks to the charity, Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids.

Brad Blauser is the man behind this amazing organization.

His first step was to consult an Army medic to find out what hospitals needed. “He surprised me with his answer about pediatric wheelchairs. We’ve got so many children out in the city that the ones who can get around are following their friends by dragging themselves around on the ground, which is heartbreaking to see,” he says.

He enlisted the help of generous supporters as well as an Iraqi humanitarian group and Wheelchairs for Iraqi Kids was born in August of 2005. Thirty days later its first 31 chairs were delivered. Currently, more than 250 Iraqi families have received the wheelchairs.

Blauser says that the most rewarding part of the whole thing is the parents’ gratitude. “The children also show gratitude, even those who can scarcely move.”

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This is an amazing humanitarian effort that I think deserves recognition.

Meet “Romeo” Dev. At 2 ft. 9 inches he has got to be the world’s smallest body builder.

Living in India, Romeo is well known for his lifting abilities. He can lift 1.5 kg dumbbells, despite the fact that he himself only weighs 9 kg.

He works out faithfully every day, usually with a crowd of curious onlookers.

I just read an interesting blogpost in Tibet Will Be Free about Nancy Pelosi and a recent statement she released.

?The lack of progress on freedom and human rights in Tibet is an international concern. Just this week, the U.S. State Department issued its Annual Country Report on Human Rights documenting continued human rights abuses by the Chinese government in Tibet. The report states that Chinese ?authorities continued to commit serious human rights abuses, including torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, house arrest and surveillance of dissidents, and arbitrary restrictions on free movement.?

It continues – and is a very encouraging statement. Please read it!

Simple – they want to identify which patients to pursue for payments because they can afford to pay their hospital bill.

A growing number of hospitals are mining their patients credit information to figure out which ones are more likely to pay their bills. In 2006, almost 5,000 community hospitals provided uncompensated care, which cost them $31.2 billion.

Consumer advocates are concerned about the potential for misuse of this information by the hospitals. Hospitals may opt to deny or cut a patient’s care if they find information leading them to believe they won’t pay their bill. Hospitals assure us this won’t happen…however, many hospitals do ask their patients for permission to access their financial records. This authorization is carefully buried in the fine print, however. Another concern is the hospital’s access to a patient’s financial records for the purpose of scouring for information about credit lines, which could then to used to encourage a patient to utilize this credit to pay their hospital bill, despite high interest rates or other costs.

This definitely has the potential for misuse and might put a patient at risk financially.

Some hospitals that have begun checking patients’ financial information will do this when they first register a patient for treatment; other hospitals hold off until after patients have received care. Hospitals are not allowed to refuse to treat a patient in an emergency. Private hospitals typically are not required to provide nonemergency treatment, but public hospitals are often required to give even nonemergency care that’s medically necessary, depending on local laws.

Interestingly, Equifax Inc., one of the credit bureaus, has developed a separate credit score that is specific to health care that will predict whether a patient can be expected to repay their medical bills. The health-credit score is a number derived from a patient’s traditional credit report. Equifax recently developed this number by matching up a cross section of hospital payment records with patients’ credit reports to look for common patterns.

Also of note is the fact that SearchAmerica Inc. is a company that mines credit bureaus for data on behalf of its hospital clients. Their client roster has doubled in number to 900 since 2005. As a patient registers for treatment at their hospital, the company advises the hospital on whether they are likely to qualify for financial assistance. Additionally, SearchAmerica generates a health-care credit score, which utilizes factors in a patient’s history such as how they pay their hospital bills. After the patient receives care, the company then factors in the size of the bill and reports to the hospital how likely it is that the patient will pay their bill.

There is a gray area about how much latitude hospitals have to legally check their patients’ financial information. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, hospitals are allowed to obtain patients’ credit reports after they have permission. After a patient owes money, the hospital then becomes a creditor and has strong grounds for checking a credit report even without permission, especially when a bill is long overdue.

Some industry officials argue that a hospital typically takes on the role of creditor once a patient walks in their door, and so has the right to check credit reports without permission before any care is delivered. Federal law seems to support this view, though it’s difficult to be certain without knowing every specific circumstance in which hospitals are pulling the reports prior to delivering treatment. Credit bureau Experian Group Ltd. states that it requires hospitals to get authorization for credit checks.

Think eating disorder and you likely think of a teen disorder as they desperately try to force their body into being something unattainable.

Recently however, psychologists are noticing a rise in eating disorders among women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Typically, women over 30 are not getting noticed or treated easily as they are flying under many physicians’ radars.

It’s been tagged the “Desperate Housewives Effect” due to the portrayal of many middle-aged women on the popular television series. They are all very slim and young looking. Older women today are under tremendous pressure to stay young-looking and thin.

Many middle-aged women who are battling eating disorders are revisiting their demons. Almost 95 percent suffered eating disorders in their youth and are suffering relapses in middle age. Mid-life stressors that may trigger relapses include divorce, aging parents, children leaving home, menopause, and simply aging.

One physician believes that an eating disorder may stunt emotional growth in a woman. Though she may be physically in her 40s, emotionally she is still a teenager. Patients often lack confidence and typically do not feel in control of their lives.

The common thread between all eating disorder patients is low self-esteem and body-loathing. Also identified is a particular personality temperament that makes an individual more prone to eating disorders: worrisome individuals with low self-esteem and high anxiety levels. Abuse, grief, and loss are other factors making one more prone to eating disorders.

Recognizing and admitting the disorder is a key step to recovery. Media awareness could definitely help here. Many celebrities have admitted their own struggles in their youth, however only a few have hinted at ongoing struggles as they age.

…not being sleepy!

The parents of two Bronx preschoolers are suing the city, charging that their children were removed from class – and handcuffed by a school-safety officer – for not napping during naptime.

Apparently a substitute teacher took the children to an empty classroom on Nov. 17, 2006, and left them there alone. After a short time, the school-safety officer entered the room, cuffed the children’s wrists, and then went on to terrify them by telling they that they would never see their parents again.

One child remembers that a man who was dressed like a police officer walked into the room, sat at a big desk – “like the one the judge is on” – and threatened them.

“He was police,” one of the boys said. “He said, ‘You know what happens when you don’t go to sleep in there? . . . ‘When you go to jail, you’re not going to have no fun, no TV, no toys.’ ”

The families are seeking unspecified damages. The city Department of Education and the NYPD, which oversees school-safety officers, did not return requests for comment.

Minority patients are more likely then white patients to rate received health care as fair to poor. This is particularly true of Chinese-Americans, blacks born in Africa, and Vietnamese-American patients.

Researchers at Harvard University surveyed 4,334 people in 2007. Surveyors asked patients questions like how quickly they were able to schedule appointments and whether their doctor explained details in a manner that was understandable. Generally, whites rated their experiences higher than most minorities.

91 percent of whites rated the care they received as either excellent or good. Chinese-Americans rated their care at 74 percent, African-Americans born in Africa were 73 percent, and Vietnamese-Americans were 72 percent.

According the the study, 63 percent of whites were able to get doctor appointments the same day or the day after they needed care. This percentage was 42 for Cuban-Americans and 39 for African-Americans born in the Caribbean.

The consistency of the findings makes this impossible to ignore or blame on patients’ perceptions. Steps need to be taken to improve these perceptions.