Travel ban starts in Mass at midnight Monday (Jan 26 - Jan 27)

[JDDavis]

No MBTA service on Tuesday.

Obviously all schools will be closed Tuesday.

Only essential emergency state personnel will work Tuesday

This means banks, restaurants, stores will be CLOSED Tuesday.


($500 fine for violation of travel ban).

Only emergency and medical and other essential persons should be on the road.

Governor Baker has spoken.

[merrily]

1. Not to nitpick, but I have never seen a more awkward, halting, stilted announcement

He seemed to have a lot of trouble reading it.

The snark at the media was gratuitous and perhaps ill-advised, given he is only starting his term (first and last, I hope).

[JDDavis]

2. It was strange

He seemed snide to me.

Can we say "drunk with power"?

He always seems to have smirk in his face, except when he broke into tears lying about firshermen during a debate.

[merrily]

3. Fake crying over one's own lies is always touching.

For one thing, today, he probably hated having to tell most residents of Massachusetts not to report to work simply because a few might die, as they did as a result of the blizzard of 1978. Luckily for him, he did not have to specify that they get paid for Monday night or Tuesday.

Having spent time in a hospital, I know this is no laughing matter. The area around Mass General, for example, is a high rent district, even more so than Boston generally. I don't know how aides can afford to live close by. With no MBTA service, how the hell are they expected to get to the hospital?

I was in Spaulding Rehab for a while, too. At times, even in fine weather, there was one whole nurse plus one whole aide on the entire floor for the 3 to 11 shift.

At one point, I called my closest relatives to say goodbye simply because my fever was spiking and the nurse could not get hold of a doctor to authorize even an aspirin. As soon as she could, she came in with washcloths and ice water to put on my forehead. Literally saved my life that way. Again, no weather emergency or holiday. Just an ordinary, understaffed evening at Spaulding.

[JDDavis]

4. Something about Mass General I learned from 2013

During the "shut-down" by Gov Patrick on Friday after the Marathon bombing, I'm sure you remember.

Mass General now has cots and beds available for staff to stay overnight from one shift to the next, for hundreds of employees.

Don't know about any other hospital in Boston or other cities.

[merrily]

5. I don't know about hundreds of employees, but they've had folding beds

for doctors on overnight duty. They set them up in the visitors' lounges on each floor at night. Since patients are fed, medicated and bedded relatively early and the lounges are darkened, sometimes with drapes drawn, many patients never notice.

The residents and interns also had dorm-like rooms for sleeping, given the inhuman hours they are expected to keep.

As you may have guessed by now, I have been "blessed" with a number of inpatient stays, some of them long.

Something else you may or may not not have known: Mass General was the model for the hospital in the old Dr. Kildare films.

It also has a small museum nearby--free admission--tells about things like the first time ether was used, etc. I found it very interesting.

[JDDavis]

6. Thanks, yes, I went the that museum exhibit

Sorry to hear you spent so much time as a patient there, but I hope you are better now.

"The General" has over 3000 employees and associated contracted personnel, so I am sure essential personnel number in the hundreds on any one shift.

Many Boston area hospitals have beefed up their "emergency response" systems and facilities since 9/11 and even more since the Marathon bombing events of 2013. This includes services for adequate staffing in all essential departments, as well as plans to get people to and from work.

[merrily]

7. I've long used the shuttle system and the shuttle drivers would fit under any definition of

essential. They move people from neighborhood health centers (and therefore various neighborhoods) back and forth to the General and also from parking lots and garages to the General. I don't know which new arrangements have been put into place, but I am sure Massachusetts General has taken care of it in its usual thorough, systematic fashion. (Ever notice the carriage that served as its first ambulance in the main lobby of the main building? Whoever thought to save that all these years? Ditto the stuff in the museum.)


Thanks for the well wishes. The issues are such that cure or full recovery is not possible. Hence my return trips to the ER and inpatient care. However, I could very easily have died all the way back in 1996. I didn't. I owe my near miraculous survival to the surgical and other care I got at Mass General, very much including the nurturing nurses and nurses' aides.

[bobGandolf]

8. He still is shocked about his win!

Watching him yesterday, I did not come away with a good opinion of him. He reminds me of the guy, in the back of the room,who snickers at everyone, and whispers snide comments, about whoever is speaking.

[JDDavis]

9. yeah, I have the same opinion of him

Charlie Baker is a very lucky, not-so-little little white boy who had a brain on his shoulders and only used it to make money for the last 30 years. (His last paid salary was about $3.5 million a year)

Now, he's realizing he's ONLY gonna make $150K a year and is stuck in this horrible job for the next 4 years. Can't speculate, cant tell dirty jokes anymore, and will be blamed for the rest of his life if something goes wrong. Of course he will deny any responsibility if it does go wrong.

Typical Republican