Here’s a modest proposal for keeping people at work and getting some folks back to work. Under the poorly thought out orders issued by our governor hospitals all over the state are barred from performing elective surgeries. The rationale for this (supposedly) was that hospitals all over the state would need available beds to sop up the overflow from NYC. In fact on March 31 the governor announced that patients were going to be sent to upstate hospitals. Of course a week later the Syracuse newspaper was reporting that there were 350 empty beds in Syracuse hospitals while those hospitals were plunging toward possible bankruptcy. Yesterday we learned about layoffs in the local healthcare industry as beds sit unused waiting for a flood of patients from NYC that is unlikely to materialize. Why not allow upstate hospitals resume outpatient surgeries on a limited basis as long as a percentage of beds are kept available for the long anticipated but yet to materialize flood of NYC refugees. This would get some people back to work or kept at work while still allowing for an eventuality that becomes more remote every day.
