Shame on the University of Arizona
Or on the politicians who forced the University to play the money game.
Friends,
I taught for three years at the University of Arizona, and I love Arizona. My daughter Darcy lives there and works for school districts as a lobbyist, trying to keep the private education industry from taking over the school systems.
So, I was on my way to Tucson to meet my great grandson for the first time. He's a little guy, four months.
For a cool photo of Nick and tiny Cassius, subscribe to the Church at Perelandra College.
About ten miles short of Tucson, my van swerved off the road into the median. I suspect I hit one of the many big rig tire casings strewn along the 1-10. Anyway, before finding my way out of the median, I ran into something.
Fast forward to Banner Hospital, which is the reason I am including this post in Rats.
When I taught at UofA, the university medical center hospital was a quite reputable institution. But since then, apparently Banner Health, a private for-profit company bought them out, and now the place is sketchy at best. Some examples of the care I received: 1. I could have left Intensive Care after two days but they wouldn't or couldn't allow or arrange that because they didn't have room. 2. so I remained in the ICU for four days being treated with seizure medication I didn't need and which my outside doctors advised strongly against. 3. I was supposed to get an MRI and they couldn't fit me in. 4. At 10 am on my third morning I finally felt like eating and ordered scrambled eggs and ham, which was supposed to arrive in 10 minutes, but instead, my order came sometime after noon and it was pot roast and carrots.
Anyway, I'm not the only person who has had problems with Banner, I presume, because the rating on Yelp is 2.
So, what we have is one more example of a public service being taken over by a business, which most always means declining service in the pursuit of profit.
And this selling of a great university hospital to a gang of profiteers is unconscionable. Let's do what we can to make the privatization of schools, hospitals, libraries, prisons, and whatever else can be done better as a public service than as a chance for pirates to get even richer, a priority in all our voting decisions.
Please.
Hooray for my Darcy.