Speaker 1: It's nice side with Dan Ray. I'm Boston Radio.
Speaker 2: I know the audience can turn over every hour, So
Speaker 2: let me just take a moment before we get back
Speaker 2: to our phone calls. I have Alex and Alice lined
Speaker 2: up first to come up this hour. This statement from
Speaker 2: the head of the Massachusetts General Hospital today is it's
Speaker 2: it's written by a combination of pr staff and lawyers.
Speaker 2: And that's a that's a tough, tough group. Okay. So
Speaker 2: for example, they talk about, uh, that we face a
Speaker 2: quarter billion dollar budget gap over the next two years.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of money. That's that's a quarter of
Speaker 2: a billion dollars over the next two years unless we
Speaker 2: take immediate action that's in caps, to allow us to
Speaker 2: continue with planned in future investments. That's one of those
Speaker 2: words investments. What does it really mean? So they talk
Speaker 2: about examples frontline support, immediate investments in support staff and
Speaker 2: other resources to relieve burdens on clinicians and frontline staff,
Speaker 2: including compensation. That sounds to me like we're going to
Speaker 2: rehire people, I would think, but I don't know. New technologies,
Speaker 2: accelerate technology investments to modernize our digital tools like digital pathology,
Speaker 2: improve networks in Wi FI and AI capabilities that scale
Speaker 2: to streamline administrative tasks can allow technicians to put their
Speaker 2: full focus on patient care. If someone can interpret that
Speaker 2: for me, I'd appreciate it. Research infrastructure, invest in research cores,
Speaker 2: laboratories and staff support work environment, improve the experience of
Speaker 2: our patients and our people with near and long term investments.
Speaker 2: There's that word again, to modernize our space and address
Speaker 2: long standing needed improvements, including but not limited to are along
Speaker 2: with campus word salats, community health scale community health programs
Speaker 2: to extend their impact. What does that mean? They talk
Speaker 2: about our strategic organizational redesign. Think about the amount of
Speaker 2: time and money they spent to come up with these
Speaker 2: words that frankly don't mean anything to the average person.
Speaker 2: Reduced redundancies. Why do you have redundancies in the first place.
Speaker 2: A limited number of management and administrative positions throughout the
Speaker 2: system will be eliminated, consolidated, or rescoped. I've never seen
Speaker 2: that word before, rescoped. That's come up. They paid some
Speaker 2: consultant a lot of money to get that word. Rescoped.
Speaker 2: Focusing resources on critical patient facing and mission supporting work,
Speaker 2: patient hyphen facing and mission hyphen supporting work whenever you
Speaker 2: can work a couple of hyphens in, that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: Improve efficiency by removing management and administrative layers. Really we
Speaker 2: aim to reduce bureaucracy. That's a good thing. Enhance decision
Speaker 2: making that's a good thing. Improve communication, and foster a
Speaker 2: more agile environment. Word salad empower staff. Frontline staff will
Speaker 2: have more direct access to leadership, promoting transparency. Oh, that's
Speaker 2: an important word. Transparency, accountability, and better understanding of team challenges.
Speaker 2: Anybody wants to come on from mass General Brigham tomorrow
Speaker 2: on my show and explain what this press release actually means,
Speaker 2: You're more than welcome. I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: What has been your experience in hospitals in Massachusetts recently?
Speaker 2: The context for me is Obamacare. Obamacare supposedly was going
Speaker 2: to make everything simpler, better, and easier. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's made it's simpler. I don't think it's made it better.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's made it easier. I think it's
Speaker 2: more expensive. I think it's more convoluted. I mentioned earlier
Speaker 2: today I talked with a friend who had to take
Speaker 2: his son to an emergency room. It wasn't a life
Speaker 2: threatening emergency, but to an emergency room. When he got there,
Speaker 2: he was told he will see a doctor in seven
Speaker 2: I think it was seven or seven and a half hours.
Speaker 2: That's a long time to sit in emergency room, don't
Speaker 2: you think. And by the way, it's on a day,
Speaker 2: on a day which is pretty quiet. Then go to
Speaker 2: Alex and milis Alex, appreciate your patience. Next next on nightside, Alex.
Speaker 3: Hey, danger dining. I'll tell you my odyssey. So I was.
Speaker 3: I was scheduled for a procedure on the eighteenth of November.
Speaker 3: It was in the Platian and it happened to be
Speaker 3: at the MGH, and thank god, all went well. But
Speaker 3: after that, a few weeks after that, I had another
Speaker 3: issue and then come to find out that I wind
Speaker 3: up with a hernia, which I had a schedule and
Speaker 3: the had schedule an appointment with with a specialist and
Speaker 3: before the new year, he told me you're all set.
Speaker 3: I go to check on my appointment and he said
Speaker 3: as to me, oh, by the way, we're out of
Speaker 3: network now, so we're no longer taking Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Speaker 3: And I says, why did you tell me? After the
Speaker 3: after the first of the year, I you know, I
Speaker 3: could have gone elsewhere where a doctor that was in network,
Speaker 3: and you know, like because I've been paying So they
Speaker 3: said to me, well, you know that's nothing to do
Speaker 3: with us. Just called your insurance company. For long story short,
Speaker 3: the cardiologist that I had seen at at mg H,
Speaker 3: he has a colleague that's a specialist and he happened
Speaker 3: to be in network. So I kind of lucked out
Speaker 3: in that regard. But I just wanted to say something
Speaker 3: between the insurance company and the hospitals, the patient gets,
Speaker 3: you know, the short end of the deal.
Speaker 2: Well, let me let me ask you this. You you
Speaker 2: were resc who who rescheduled you after the first of
Speaker 2: the year, if your insurance carrier was changing, was that
Speaker 2: the doctor?
Speaker 3: Well, they said, I could see this provider, but I
Speaker 3: would tell you out of pocket expensive. You know, it
Speaker 3: was on a network because they decided that the that
Speaker 3: they were, you know, taking Blue Cross, Blue Shield and Alex.
Speaker 2: You didn't understand my question. My question was if let
Speaker 2: us say I owned a restaurant. Let me keep it simple.
Speaker 2: Let us say I owned a restaurant and I knew
Speaker 2: I was going to close the restaurant on December thirty first,
Speaker 2: and you called on December twentieth and said, my wedding
Speaker 2: anniversary is on January tenth, and I'd love to have
Speaker 2: a wonderful meal on January tenth. And I took the
Speaker 2: reservation knowing that the restaurant was going to close. And
Speaker 2: when you showed up on December tenth, the restaurant was closed.
Speaker 2: You'd say, well, why'd you take it? Why did someone
Speaker 2: schedule you if they knew that the insurance carrier that
Speaker 2: you had was no longer going to be accepted by
Speaker 2: Mass General? Is what you seemed to That seemed to
Speaker 2: be the story.
Speaker 4: You told me exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was after the first to the year.
Speaker 2: So why did that person schedule you? Why did someone
Speaker 2: before the first of the year say, oh, come back,
Speaker 2: we'll do the surgery for you after January first, knowing
Speaker 2: that you wouldn't have insurance for that. Who was that knucklehead?
Speaker 3: It was one of the staff members. And you know
Speaker 3: they said, well, we apologized, but I says, an apology
Speaker 3: doesn't do me any good because I have paying now
Speaker 3: if I wasn't lucky, it's they say, it's who you know?
Speaker 3: Is my cardiologist?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you got a breakage. I get it. It
Speaker 2: doesn't matter to me. Congratulations, congratulations Alex. You were able
Speaker 2: to do a workaround because you're a smart guy. Okay,
Speaker 2: congratulations on that. But that is what I'm more interested in,
Speaker 2: is not the fact that your cardiologist was a really
Speaker 2: good guy, that he helped you, Okay. I'm more concerned
Speaker 2: that you were put in a position by Mass General.
Speaker 2: They scheduled you for a procedure inappropriately. They should have
Speaker 2: known that your insurance was going to lapse as of
Speaker 2: January first. That's the point of the story that's most
Speaker 2: important to me, the fact that you had a good
Speaker 2: cardiologist who did a work around for you. You were lucky.
Speaker 2: You were lucky. I was thanks you, Alex, appreciate you.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, Alex, appreciate bye bye again. What I'm
Speaker 2: looking for here is conversation, not so much about your
Speaker 2: specific success. I mean, I'm glad that Alex had success,
Speaker 2: but that's like somehow working within the system because you
Speaker 2: get lucky. Most people don't get lucky. I'm concerned about
Speaker 2: the system at this point, which ten years ago, Obamacare
Speaker 2: was going to be the magic pill, right, it was
Speaker 2: gonna work for everybody. Now there's complications I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to blame President Obama per se, But did we know
Speaker 2: that the border was going to be open? Did we
Speaker 2: know that thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions
Speaker 2: of people going to stream the cross and they weren't
Speaker 2: going to use our emergency rooms, our nation's emergency rooms.
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 2: And now you see Mass General is going to lay off.
Speaker 2: It's going to do a two percent budget cut. I
Speaker 2: wish the federal government was as efficient as the Mass
Speaker 2: General Hospital, but I wish the Mass General Hospital was
Speaker 2: running it a little bit anticipates a little bit. This
Speaker 2: is crazy. We're coming back on night's I feel free
Speaker 2: to join the conversation only line opened six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four to ten thirty. A lot of folks have been
Speaker 2: complaining it's tough to get through. Tell you right now
Speaker 2: six seven, two five four ten thirty your thoughts on this.
Speaker 2: When Mass General we've had Steward, which was a disgrace. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's just a flat out disgrace, and the Boston Globe
Speaker 2: did some great reporting on that, by the way, But
Speaker 2: this is also really question and when when I read
Speaker 2: this press release, which none of you are going to
Speaker 2: read or very few of you are going to read
Speaker 2: maximizing our impact. They're basically trying we're going to maximize
Speaker 2: our impact. How are we gonna do that. We're gonna
Speaker 2: cut two percent of our budget and we're gonna lay
Speaker 2: off probably two hundred, minimum two hundred people. That's how
Speaker 2: we're gonna maximize our impact. What are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: Coming back on Nightside.
Speaker 1: Now, back to Dan ray Mine from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ the news Radio.
Speaker 2: Now, let's try to catch up a little bit here
Speaker 2: Alice and Beverly. Alice, appreciate you working through the news.
Speaker 2: You're next on Nightside, Go right ahead, Hello Alice. Okay,
Speaker 2: we'll put Alice on hold. Maybe she's walked away from
Speaker 2: the phone, which is not a good thing for Alice,
Speaker 2: and we will go next to Geene and Everett. Geene
Speaker 2: and Everett, you are next on Nightside. Go ahead, Gene.
Speaker 7: Hi, Jam, good evening. Thank you so much for talking
Speaker 7: about this is so important. Listen, about a month ago,
Speaker 7: I was in the emergency with my husband. We got
Speaker 7: there six p m. We were there all night. We
Speaker 7: got out at four o'clock am, sitting near waiting, waiting.
Speaker 7: We were seeing about an hour and a half before
Speaker 7: we left. Period.
Speaker 2: Who was the care you or my husband?
Speaker 7: He's a hot patient. Ye, hey and crazy.
Speaker 2: That had to be nerve wracking, particularly for her heart patience.
Speaker 7: And then and then there were other people in the
Speaker 7: waiting room and some were drug addicts, and I had
Speaker 7: to then at four in the morning go to my
Speaker 7: car in the garage with my husband holding him up. Okay,
Speaker 7: how do you think that felt? It was scary? No,
Speaker 7: the place was crazy. People were throwing up, one was
Speaker 7: throwing up, someone else was doing this, and that it
Speaker 7: was nuts. But listen, I wanted. What I want is
Speaker 7: I want the governor to take a hard look at
Speaker 7: a wake up call. This is a wake up call.
Speaker 7: We've had many hospitals going down recently. We know that. Okay,
Speaker 7: they have to realize send the migrants home, start building
Speaker 7: more housing. We can't handle any more people at all,
Speaker 7: and we have to send others back. Start taking care
Speaker 7: and be concerned with us US Massachusetts citizens, please and
Speaker 7: stop the all the migrant and woke craziness. This is
Speaker 7: the time to be serious about fixing the problems we
Speaker 7: have right now and not creating more people. I'm concerned
Speaker 7: I know people who work at MGH and they do
Speaker 7: administrative work. They need their jobs. Some have six children,
Speaker 7: you know, Others have you know, mortgages and everything else.
Speaker 7: What were these people supposed to do? This is not
Speaker 7: the economy where there's a million jobs out there tomorrow.
Speaker 7: It's bad times right now. And I just got my
Speaker 7: gas bill and it's five hundred and fifty dollars for
Speaker 7: one month, thank you very much, because they were allowed
Speaker 7: by the state to get a big raise. Is that
Speaker 7: because everyone hates us because we have guess heat? I
Speaker 7: don't know, but it's not right. And people are suffering
Speaker 7: in a lot of ways in the state, and we
Speaker 7: need better governance and serious governance, no playing around anymore.
Speaker 7: This is bad and this is really bad that these
Speaker 7: people are going to get laid off and lose their jobs.
Speaker 7: It's putting really people in danger. I'm sorry. I feel
Speaker 7: so bad for people. And in the hospital's good and
Speaker 7: the nurses are great there, the doctors most you know,
Speaker 7: everyone there is great. But you know, maybe they shouldn't
Speaker 7: build five hundred hospitals all around them. Maybe they shouldn't
Speaker 7: be expanding so much and focus on what they have.
Speaker 7: And I also think that the government. The government should
Speaker 7: have right now in action a plan for Since we
Speaker 7: are not going to have enough nurses and doctors, why
Speaker 7: don't you give a little incentive for people to go
Speaker 7: to college to become nurses and doctors. Help them so
Speaker 7: bide in paying out loans for everybody in the world
Speaker 7: who wanted to become a you know whatever.
Speaker 2: Well, great plea, Thank you very much for the conversation.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the conversation. Talk later by let me go
Speaker 2: to Tom in West Virginia. Tom next to nights. I
Speaker 2: go ahead.
Speaker 6: I think that woman.
Speaker 4: Can you hear me? Okay, yes or no?
Speaker 2: Yes? I can.
Speaker 5: I hear you from the wind.
Speaker 4: Out of my sales. She took the wind out of
Speaker 4: my sales. I'm sorry, and you know.
Speaker 5: No, because.
Speaker 4: One third of the world lives an abject poverty, that
Speaker 4: what is not our fault as Americans. I hope people
Speaker 4: understand that. And I know there's good people that come
Speaker 4: from foreign countries that Joe Biden said come in here
Speaker 4: and claim asylum. But I'm sorry these people did not
Speaker 4: put into the social service system. And Mass General is
Speaker 4: a wonderful hospital, and I'm heartbroken to hear that people
Speaker 4: will lose their jobs because they've essentially been overwhelmed by
Speaker 4: people that don't have health insurance.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you this. We're looking at probably tom about.
Speaker 2: I'm going to guess a minimum of two thousand people.
Speaker 2: They have eighty two thousand employees, which is a huge number,
Speaker 2: the largest employer in the state. They're probably going to
Speaker 2: lose two thousand. They're going to probably lay off at
Speaker 2: least two thousand people. My concern is that that no doctors,
Speaker 2: no nurses, should be laid off and let them now
Speaker 2: look at some of these extra admitutmsers and people who
Speaker 2: are not providing directly medical care. This is bad for
Speaker 2: this is and I read this press release. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you had a chance to listen to some
Speaker 2: of the paragraphs of the sentences. I read nothing but
Speaker 2: word salads. I mean, it says nothing. It's just good
Speaker 2: words put together. And you know, it's almost as if
Speaker 2: it's the being counters and the political consultants who are
Speaker 2: running the hospitals as opposed to medical providers.
Speaker 4: All I can tell you is that with Obamacare, and
Speaker 4: I'm a talk radio junkie, I listened to conservative talk
Speaker 4: radio and progressive talk radio, and after Obamacare was passed,
Speaker 4: Progressive Radio was talking about this was probably twenty sixteen,
Speaker 4: that the reality is we want to get Hillary Clinton
Speaker 4: in there and we want to go to single payer healthcare. Now,
Speaker 4: you're probably a well seasoned traveler. Meet people in England
Speaker 4: and Ireland with good teeth that have socialized medicine, and
Speaker 4: the answer is there are none.
Speaker 2: Go to Canada, and go to Canada and try to
Speaker 2: get medical treatment at the hospital. Good luck with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know it sounds all well and good,
Speaker 4: And I will repeat myself. I grew up in Foxboro, Massachusetts.
Speaker 4: I went to high school with highly educated white liberals
Speaker 4: that think that single payer health insurance is the cure
Speaker 4: to America. And they love the quote Bernie Sanders of
Speaker 4: Nordic socialism. Well, those Nordic countries in Northern Europe. Number one,
Speaker 4: they strictly enforced their immigration laws.
Speaker 2: They have immigration laws. Yeah. Well, they have no immat
Speaker 2: to speak. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And the Bernie Sanders and his Bolsheviar friends, Bolshevik friends
Speaker 4: do not mention that.
Speaker 5: And uh, you know, if that works great.
Speaker 4: For Finland and Sweden, wonderful. But those are different countries
Speaker 4: with different populations. It's not going to work in America.
Speaker 4: What we'll work in America is the thriving economy of
Speaker 4: where we have manufacturing jobs and the employers can give
Speaker 4: their employees benefits such as medical and dental. If we
Speaker 4: go back forty years ago, that was not necessarily an
Speaker 4: issue in America. But we open our borders. I don't
Speaker 4: begrudge immigrants for wanting to come in here from wherever,
Speaker 4: but we can't take care of the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: And I think, I think well, and I think that
Speaker 2: somehow the chickens are coming home to roost here a
Speaker 2: little bit. So we'll have to see what happens. It's
Speaker 2: funny mg H and Well now called mass you know,
Speaker 2: and MGB Mass General Brigham. They're going to lay off
Speaker 2: people to whatever extent they want. Meanwhile, uh, there are
Speaker 2: lawyers running into courts across America to stop any sort
Speaker 2: of cutbacks at the federal level. Oh, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's kind of the stories of two of uh
Speaker 2: two cities. Here. You have what's going on at at
Speaker 2: at Mass General Brigham, which is maybe it's necessary, but
Speaker 2: that's a place I don't want to see cuts taking place.
Speaker 2: I would much prefer to see a lot of the
Speaker 2: fat and waist in the federal government eliminated. So it's there's, there's,
Speaker 2: there's really a couple of theme to our story tonight.
Speaker 2: So thank thanks for thanks for calling in and thanks
Speaker 2: for supporting me on this one. Thank you, Tom, appreciate
Speaker 2: your call.
Speaker 5: Take care, Dan, by bye YouTube, Thanks good night.
Speaker 2: Here's the Yes News at the bottom of the hour,
Speaker 2: ten thirty exactly, we're right on time. I got Bob,
Speaker 2: I got Glenn, I got Larry, and I got some
Speaker 2: room for you. Six one, seven, nine three one, ten thirty.
Speaker 2: We will talk about this until eleven, and we will
Speaker 2: move on to another topic. I promise coming back on Nightside.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan on Boston's news radio allR.
Speaker 2: We got full lines. Let's keep rolling here. People are interested,
Speaker 2: and Bob is in Rhode Island. Bob, appreciate you calling.
Speaker 2: You were next on Nightside. Go ahead, Boby, Bye, Dan.
Speaker 5: I did I got a question for you?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 5: Why are you such a Trump supporter? Okay, take a
Speaker 5: look at your flora one K. It's doing better and
Speaker 5: it's having done and Biden was more and more responsible
Speaker 5: than anybody else we're putting you and everybody else that's
Speaker 5: in the stock market in a good position. Why are
Speaker 5: you such a Trump supporter?
Speaker 2: Well, you're about the first person in a while that
Speaker 2: has suggested that. What makes you think I'm a Trump supporter?
Speaker 5: Well, it's obvious just listening to you. Give me, give
Speaker 5: me an example to support Trump and everything, almost everything.
Speaker 5: You say, there's gonna be waste taking off of the government.
Speaker 2: Well, do you want to waste? What waste? Let me
Speaker 2: ask you would you like do you like waste in
Speaker 2: the government or would you like to see waste take
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 5: There is a lot of waste in the government.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, fair enough. That's that's that's a position that
Speaker 2: I would suspect you might take it.
Speaker 5: So let me ask you this because you're a Trump supporter.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, let me ask you this question. What is
Speaker 2: the current What is the current federal debt?
Speaker 6: Bob?
Speaker 5: I don't know. It's pretty high, I know that much.
Speaker 5: But you can't blame the Democrats for all that.
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm not blaming democrats. I'm blaming everybody. Do
Speaker 2: you want to know what it is?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you tell me what is the sixteen billion whatever?
Speaker 5: The heck it is.
Speaker 2: It's a little more than that. It's thirty seven trillion.
Speaker 5: Dollars, okay, and that's been building up for years and
Speaker 5: years and years and years.
Speaker 2: Correct and probably be.
Speaker 5: The guy that's straightened it all out. He can't know.
Speaker 6: That's why.
Speaker 5: Here's the question.
Speaker 2: Here's I got another question for you, if you don't mind.
Speaker 2: This one's an easier one.
Speaker 5: I don't mind.
Speaker 2: Who's going to pay the thirty seven trillion dollar debt
Speaker 2: when the bill comes due?
Speaker 5: The United States citizens?
Speaker 2: Which group of United States citizens?
Speaker 5: Everybody?
Speaker 2: Everybody? Now, I don't know. I would bet you you're
Speaker 2: like me, a baby boomer, right.
Speaker 5: Yes, I am seventy four years old.
Speaker 2: Okay, no problem, that's fine, that's fine. It's not gonna
Speaker 2: be our generation, Bob, It's gonna be your kids. Well,
Speaker 2: because our generation.
Speaker 5: Don't have any kids. I don't have any kids.
Speaker 2: Well see, then then your kids won't pay for it.
Speaker 2: But if you did have kids, if you did have kids,
Speaker 2: it would be your kids, my kids, grandchildren, great grandchildren.
Speaker 5: At some point, about you and me, about you and
Speaker 5: me ourselves, Well, why can't we do it? You must
Speaker 5: be a very rich man.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, you'd be surprised.
Speaker 5: One K and Trump's gonna what do you want to do?
Speaker 5: How do you think Trump's gonna be? Is that gonna
Speaker 5: be good for the stock market? What he's doing, all
Speaker 5: the all the programs and stuff he's trying to force
Speaker 5: on our throat.
Speaker 2: I would I would only say, Bob that if that,
Speaker 2: if we could look at the government, it is a
Speaker 2: an organization that has built been built upon layers and
Speaker 2: layers of waste, layers and layers of waste. Uh. And
Speaker 2: if we can eliminate I said, if we could eliminate
Speaker 2: waste and provide more help to people who actually need
Speaker 2: the help. We just let me ask you a question,
Speaker 2: if I could, Would you agree with me that over
Speaker 2: the last four years during the Biden presidency, our borders
Speaker 2: with Mexico were wide open?
Speaker 5: Yes, I do I agree with that. I'm not. I'm
Speaker 5: not I'm in favor of it. That was one and
Speaker 5: fifty years ago. Everybody in I see, Oh, I can't
Speaker 5: they do it in Mexico you're so worried about.
Speaker 2: Well now now now I understand where you're coming from
Speaker 2: a little bit better.
Speaker 5: You.
Speaker 2: First of all, the Biden administration for years said no
Speaker 2: the borders aren't open. But you're an honest man, and
Speaker 2: you would you you favor open borders, which is okay,
Speaker 2: Which is okay. I appreciate that along with open borders
Speaker 2: comes child trafficking, comes guns.
Speaker 5: I don't agree with that. I agree with you. That's
Speaker 5: no good.
Speaker 2: Comes comes fentanyl. Do you know how many? How many
Speaker 2: young Americans die of fentanyl poisoning every year? Do you
Speaker 2: have any idea what that number is? No, I don't, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you what the number is about
Speaker 2: seventy five thousand young Americans, mostly people in their late teens, twenties,
Speaker 2: and thirties, die when you and I were growing up. Oh,
Speaker 2: it's more than too bad. It's more than too bad.
Speaker 2: It's you know, it's it's tragic.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry about it.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you're sorry about it. Okay, So what
Speaker 2: are we.
Speaker 5: Gonna do about it?
Speaker 2: Well, certainly Biden didn't, that's for sure. Let's give someone
Speaker 2: else a chance. Bob. I appreciate your call. It's always
Speaker 2: call more often. You're you're a gentleman, and I appreciate
Speaker 2: your call.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much, Big Dan. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Have a great night. Let's go to Glenn. Glenn, you
Speaker 2: were next to night side.
Speaker 6: I have to pull all right. A week ago at
Speaker 6: this time, I had the pleasure or mispleasure of having
Speaker 6: a sleep study at Beth Israel Hospital. My friend Tim
Speaker 6: Will spent the night with me. I'm more asleep a
Speaker 6: night here.
Speaker 2: Really, So you had a sleep study? What would you
Speaker 2: have to sleep study for?
Speaker 6: My doctor wortered it. She wants to know if I
Speaker 6: have apnea sleep apnea. So they you know, they put
Speaker 6: stuff in her. They taped stuff to your body and
Speaker 6: your nose. And it went from eight thirty till five
Speaker 6: thirty in the morning. Yeah, and the technician so called
Speaker 6: kept waking me up. I only got two hours asleep
Speaker 6: thirty nights, five thirty the morning. He kept saying, turnal,
Speaker 6: go on your back. I need data. Well, first of all,
Speaker 6: I told him I don't like to sleep on my back.
Speaker 6: I have nightmares. I don't know. It's a child. I
Speaker 6: scream in my sleep, like God, don't let me die.
Speaker 6: I get sleep proalysis. I said, I can't. Oh, we
Speaker 6: need data. It's only for a half hour and then
Speaker 6: you can turn you know. Every time I was you
Speaker 6: sound like.
Speaker 2: You had a great time gLing. Geez, oh, I certainly did.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, did they figure out if you had sleep apnea?
Speaker 2: Let me guess you got sleep apnea.
Speaker 6: No, I don't know what they figured out. I haven't
Speaker 6: gotten the results yet.
Speaker 2: Okay, but when you when you, when you get the results,
Speaker 2: please let us know, because I'm sure there are people
Speaker 2: out there waiting with baited breadth of no whether or
Speaker 2: not you're sleep apnea. But that's okay, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well, in the guy barely spoke English. He was
Speaker 6: a foreigner. He was yelling through a PA system, and
Speaker 6: he sounded like he had masks on. He was almost.
Speaker 2: He's probably in the other room, he made right, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: And uh, and when you're gonna get when you're going
Speaker 2: to get the results.
Speaker 6: I don't know because I still haven't gotten the results.
Speaker 6: I had a blood test in October because I'm tired
Speaker 6: all the time for no reason. I still haven't gotten
Speaker 6: the results from that.
Speaker 2: Well, you got to get more sleep, then you won't
Speaker 2: be so tired.
Speaker 6: Well, no, the more the more time I sleep, fine,
Speaker 6: I can sleep like a baby and still be tired.
Speaker 6: But the point is, I mean I can drink caffeine
Speaker 6: and sleep like a baby and wake up tired and sleep.
Speaker 6: The first thing I did when I got home was
Speaker 6: sleep all day. My schedule got inverted.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, how does that lot apply this uh,
Speaker 2: this experience with what we're talking about tonight.
Speaker 6: Well, I take all the hospitals. I don't know if
Speaker 6: they're becoming more corporatized, Like I noticed that when hospitals
Speaker 6: merged then they laid people off like banks to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I think that's an astute observation that
Speaker 2: there are a lot of hospitals that are looking at
Speaker 2: it from it's the bean counters, who are you know?
Speaker 2: You saw that with the Steward disaster here in Messa.
Speaker 6: I know, And I get bills that I don't have
Speaker 6: to pay for. I thought Obamacare was supposed to pay
Speaker 6: I have all kinds of insurance and I'm still getting
Speaker 6: bills that I ignore.
Speaker 2: But that means you're part of That means you're part
Speaker 2: of the problem if you ignore the bills.
Speaker 6: Right, Well, yeah, but of course I'm supposed to be
Speaker 6: you know covered.
Speaker 2: I look, I think that's the field, you know. I
Speaker 2: think Obamacare was sold to us. The group that loved
Speaker 2: Obamacare the most was insurance companies.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 2: We've been being boozled because sleep study. I will tell you.
Speaker 2: I will bet you that that sleep study that that
Speaker 2: you uh experienced, if you underwent, I'll bet you they're
Speaker 2: going to charge you about three thousand dollars for that
Speaker 2: sleep study.
Speaker 6: Well, they can put me in dinner's prison because I
Speaker 6: ain't gonna say it.
Speaker 2: Let me know what the results are. Okay, Yeah, I.
Speaker 6: Wish they would treat me like an illegal, but that's
Speaker 6: another story.
Speaker 2: Maintain their sense of humor, that's important. Okay, thanks by Yeah,
Speaker 2: I have to you gotta you go crazy the simple
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 6: Tell me about it, all right, let me know.
Speaker 2: What happens in this one. I'm gonna bet you. I'll
Speaker 2: bet your buck you got apnea. If they test you
Speaker 2: for apnea and they're gonna come back and tell you
Speaker 2: got sleep apnea.
Speaker 6: I'm telling you, well, I hope you could have.
Speaker 2: We could have saved the taxpayers three thousand dollars and
Speaker 2: just comes with the diagnosis.
Speaker 6: And I think where quickly Tom from with Virginia. I
Speaker 6: think he was talking about the difference between a homo
Speaker 6: genius culture and a heteral genius socialized Madison works in
Speaker 6: a homo genious culture. But we're a heterical genius culture.
Speaker 2: Great, great student observation, and you use that we have
Speaker 2: just used those words correctly.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, we have immigrants with the sniffles that can't
Speaker 6: speak English and the emergency room. I mean, I hate
Speaker 6: to be rude, but yep, yeah, well you.
Speaker 2: Don't hate to be rude, but you don't enjoy being rude.
Speaker 8: Let me put it like that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know. Thanks when I talked to you later,
Speaker 6: good night, Yeah, thanks too, doctor you.
Speaker 2: Soon be better, be better. Back at night Side right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: Back to the phones we go. We're going to go
Speaker 2: next to Larry in Oxford. Hey, Larry, welcome, mister Ray.
Speaker 9: I think that both the Fuggal government of which you're
Speaker 9: talking about from time to time this evening, and also
Speaker 9: the General Brigham are facing the same kind of problems,
Speaker 9: which is a leadership issue, and the leadership has been absent,
Speaker 9: probably because the board hasn't been careful at the maths
Speaker 9: General over the last few years, and they really need
Speaker 9: to look at the balance because running a major teaching
Speaker 9: hospital or particularly a Hobbard Teaching Hospital. There are three
Speaker 9: critical people, the hospital administrator, the president of the hospital,
Speaker 9: who was usually a doctor, and the chief nurse. And
Speaker 9: I was very close to the chief nurse who is
Speaker 9: my wife at another Harvard Teaching hospital. She's now been
Speaker 9: dead and gone for over ten years. Critical issues, very
Speaker 9: critical issues. Now in the federal government, we've had President Trump,
Speaker 9: President Biden, President Trump, and then those in front those
Speaker 9: who came before him, a couple of them, including President Obama.
Speaker 9: And I said, the leadership was absent there. The leadership
Speaker 9: was absent. They didn't have a clue sometimes about what
Speaker 9: to do and how to manage the Congress, manage the
Speaker 9: judicial system, which has has a role to play in
Speaker 9: our constitution. And the fact of the matter is the
Speaker 9: leadership has been absent in both places. Until US comes back,
Speaker 9: it's not going to change.
Speaker 2: Okay. So, as someone who has had some experience and
Speaker 2: with with hospitals, in hospitals, hospital management, what do you
Speaker 2: think this augur? Is this news today from mass General Brigham?
Speaker 2: Does that augur well or at all?
Speaker 9: Because the fact of the matter is they're not going
Speaker 9: to know who to lay off, you know, and how
Speaker 9: to balance it. So that you don't get into trouble
Speaker 9: with more trouble because you get the wrong people gone.
Speaker 9: It's a real problem, all right, sir.
Speaker 2: I wish that. I wish that you were, you know,
Speaker 2: more optimistic about it. But I think you have a
Speaker 2: realistic view, So I appreciate it.
Speaker 9: I ladiate and blind, and I'm promised senior officer in
Speaker 9: the Air Force. You know, I have to tell you
Speaker 9: it's leadership is an issue, and leadership is something you've
Speaker 9: got to stay with all the time.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. I mean, if you want to talk about
Speaker 2: if you want to talk about sports, the successful sports
Speaker 2: franchises have they always have. They have to have great athletes,
Speaker 2: but they also have to have great leadership.
Speaker 9: So I you know, I think until it happens in
Speaker 9: the federal government, and I don't think it's there now,
Speaker 9: and I don't think it's been there for over a decade. Yeah,
Speaker 9: maybe longer.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for the next Democrat who's like Jack Kennedy,
Speaker 2: and looking for the next Republican who's like Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 9: Now he had to look for an FDR or Aarry Truman, like.
Speaker 2: I'd like to try to have one from each party.
Speaker 9: As an example, sir, then you can go to General Eisenhower.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a great military commander, not probably the greatest president
Speaker 2: of the I think Ronald Reagan was a much greater
Speaker 2: president than Dwight Eisenhower. I think Eisenhower was kind of
Speaker 2: sleep at the switch. If you're talking about leadership, we
Speaker 2: didn't have a great had We had a lazy nineteen fifties. Historically.
Speaker 2: I don't think we we kept up with the Russians,
Speaker 2: and it took President Kennedy to get us going back
Speaker 2: back on the stick on that point. And that was
Speaker 2: a big issue with the time. In my opinion. That's
Speaker 2: just simply my opinion. Larry, again, Willia, I really appreciate
Speaker 2: the conversation. I'm sorry about losing your wife.
Speaker 9: Who crossed the who crossed the line between Eisenhower and Kennedy,
Speaker 9: That tug who kept pushing to make sure we weren't
Speaker 9: sleeping at the switch. His name was Curtis LeMay.
Speaker 2: Well. He was George Wallace's vice presidential candidate in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight, and he was a bit of a joke
Speaker 2: because well, I don't know about that, Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: we could argue that another day, Larry, I gotta keep
Speaker 2: rolling here, my friend, I got other folks I got
Speaker 2: to get to. Thank you very much, appreciate it. Let
Speaker 2: me go to Dana in Gloucester. Dana, next on, Nice,
Speaker 2: I want to get you in at least one more.
Speaker 2: We're go and go ahead, Dana.
Speaker 4: Dan.
Speaker 5: My experiences with primary care.
Speaker 2: Physicians Okay, good or bad?
Speaker 5: I Dad, I had one before I got to see him,
Speaker 5: be left. They had. I had to pick another one
Speaker 5: before I got to see that one. They left. I
Speaker 5: went for a year and a half without seeing a physician.
Speaker 5: Finally I got one.
Speaker 2: They're not easy to get data, as I'm sure you
Speaker 2: know from your own experience right now, to get a
Speaker 2: primary care physician. And and this was this was aggravated
Speaker 2: by COVID. My primary care physician retired when COVID occurred
Speaker 2: because he was concerned I think, you know, for his
Speaker 2: own safety, which is understandable. And also he was overwhelmed
Speaker 2: by the amount of paperwork that he was required to do.
Speaker 2: He was doing more paperwork than providing medical care. I
Speaker 2: believe in his in his mind, he was doing much
Speaker 2: more paperwork than he should have.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, it doesn't look good for healthcare in Massachusetts
Speaker 5: with the Stewart Buckle, and now with what you're talking
Speaker 5: about with mass General Brigham, it does a rough good.
Speaker 2: It's been a rough few months here, Dana. That's why
Speaker 2: we're talking about it tonight. And I appreciate, appreciate you
Speaker 2: calling about the problem with PCPs. Very important, very important.
Speaker 5: All right, Dan, thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks, thank you, Dan, appreciate it. Let me go to
Speaker 2: Jim and Ashland. Jim, you were next on Nicee. Go
Speaker 2: right ahead, Jim.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I've been to the ring in the last four years.
Speaker 8: I've I've been really sick and they can't figure it out.
Speaker 8: So I've been almost every hospital in Boston. And on
Speaker 8: top of it, my wife worked for Stewarts and so yeah,
Speaker 8: it's so bad just trying to get a person. I mean,
Speaker 8: it's so ridiculous. These places. They can't afford lea anybody off.
Speaker 8: They're gonna hire more people. You can't talk to anybody.
Speaker 8: It's ridiculous. I get an appointment now. My next appointment
Speaker 8: is with one of the Holy Hospitals in Boston. I
Speaker 8: haven't been to Israel and they can't fit me until
Speaker 8: August twenty fifth. And I've been so sick the last
Speaker 8: four years, and like I said, my wife by insurance
Speaker 8: just changed because it's through with debacle and I'm trying
Speaker 8: to like navigate everything. But you can't talk to anybody.
Speaker 8: You can't talk to anybody. You just call and get
Speaker 8: you leave a voicemailing, and some of them even say, well,
Speaker 8: we'll get back to you within twenty four to forty
Speaker 8: eight hours. I'm like, that's unacceptable. Somebody should answer the phone.
Speaker 5: It's not forty eight hours.
Speaker 2: Well, the same I called it one of the major
Speaker 2: utilities today. I'm not going to mention which one it was,
Speaker 2: but they said leave your number and we'll call you
Speaker 2: back within ten minutes. Well, I left my number around
Speaker 2: two thirty. The day ended around five o'clock. I still
Speaker 2: haven't heard back from them, so they're all screwed up.
Speaker 8: Well, this is the same thing I just I just
Speaker 8: ran into that they're doing the gas lines over on
Speaker 8: my street and I'm one of the only houses in
Speaker 8: the in the uh In neighborhood don't have gas. So
Speaker 8: they said, oh, they'll probably run it for nothing because
Speaker 8: there and I tried to get a hold of person
Speaker 8: for three days, three days and all I got was recordings.
Speaker 2: We're falling apart. At the same simple as that. Hey, Jim,
Speaker 2: hanging there.
Speaker 8: You're not alone anywhere in the healthcare system.
Speaker 5: I'm telling you.
Speaker 2: Jim, thanks very much, keep your keep your wits about you. Okay,
Speaker 2: hopefully we'll get this squared away, I promise. Okay, thanks,
Speaker 2: thanks for calling, and thanks for listening to you.
Speaker 8: You've got you talk to you producer real quick too.
Speaker 2: Sure up, yeap, he'll talk to Roth. You hang on there.
Speaker 2: I got a break for the news. Uh, we're gonna
Speaker 2: switch topics, gonna talk about yesterday's Super Bowl. If you're
Speaker 2: on the line, I'd love to have you stay there
Speaker 2: and start that conversation. Coming back right after the break
Speaker 2: at eleven o'clock