King County temporary hospital misusing public funds?
My interest in these "temporary field hospitals" the King County health district funded and put in place around the county has been on high alert. The facilities took a long time to erect missing the critical point in the coronavirus response in my opinion. This aroused my interest since it seemed like an enormous waste of taxpayer money. Then to find out public officials are possibly bribing homeless people to stay at the facility with free beer, cigarettes and "as a last resort" products containing thc.
Self isolation for those that have nowhere to go
There are four such hospitals that have been erected in King County. Their purpose was/is to house those exposed to the virus or those that have it and do not need to be hospitalized yet have no where to self isolate. Basically these are for the homeless population. Most if not all of my focus has been on one located in Shoreline, WA(links to video's below). I had my friend and fellow concerned citizen(Extortion Everywhere) out at the location on several occasions to document what was happening there. While my ever questioning mind rand wild nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be happening. Of course other than at the lack of patients. To be fair current reports have about 25 patients at the Shoreline facility at any given time.
Videos at Shoreline, WA temporary field hospital
Initial video of site
2nd video - still setting up
Extortion Everywhere visit after hearing of boos/cigarettes/weed to patients
What's really going on with the homeless population and coronavirus
I've questioned the numbers of homeless people affected by this "pandemic". It seems reasonable the homeless population would be hit a little harder than the general population because of lack of social distancing etc. I expected to see higher numbers at these facilities, but so far like the rest of our healthcare system this virus has far from overwhelmed it. No worries, we'll just keep the economy shut down and continue the snuffing out of the middle class anyway. I even had Extortion Everywhere visit an outdoor walk up testing clinic that seemed to be very underutilized. Workers were more worried about him than social distancing, changing gloves appropriately, and changing their useless masks regularly. But hey at least we all feel better about it. I guess that is a little proof of the placebo affect. You can watch Extortion Everywhere's video of the walk up testing clinic here
Early on when construction of the shoreline hospital was just being finished I found this article on MyNorthwest.com covering the hospital. In the article officials discussed what would happen to those not wanting to voluntarily stay at one of these field hospitals. Here is what was reported as a quote from an unnamed official,
“To identify when somebody is leaving the facility against public health guidance and then follow them so we can maintain contact, attempt to re-engage them in isolation, [and] re-engage them in recovery and treatment,” he said. “That might also be an opportunity, if the person doesn’t voluntarily comply after we attempt to do that, to escalate the enforcement.”
After a little more time passed and some digging by other independent journalists it seems maybe the county health district found a better way to convince patients to stay. MyNorthwest.com has uncovered patients at the Shoreline facility are receiving beer, cigarettes and edibles containing THC. Here is a the article and here is the quote from a nurse at the Shoreline facility,
..."The ‘patients’ are suspected or confirmed COVID positive homeless people awaiting test results or waiting out their quarantine periods. There is room for 140 patients with approximately 25 in house/tent now… they are GIVING (i.e. AT TAX PAYER EXPENSE) 2 beers per patient every 4 hours or 12 beers per day (you know, DTs etc) and free cigarettes as much as needed to the patients. I’ve heard this is the only way to keep the ‘patients’ within the facility. I was hoping this could be a chance for some homeless people to detox under medical supervision and get back on their feet but apparently not… I found it hard to believe…"
In response to questions from MyNorthwest.com the county stated the beer was to help those patients experiencing withdrawal.
"...providing alcohol to guests with alcohol use disorder reduces the risk of death for the patient."
Regarding cigarettes given to patients. Pretty much the same response.
"Similarly, guests with nicotine addiction are offered nicotine replacement (patches or gum) during isolation. For some patients, nicotine replacement is not sufficient to reduce their cravings and cigarettes may be offered when necessary to help to reduce the chance of complications from nicotine withdrawal and prevent guests from leaving. These guests are always counseled on the importance of reducing or quitting smoking, particularly when experiencing respiratory symptoms common with COVID-19."
Lastly, let us not forget the THC products.
“A very small number of guests who were otherwise unwilling to remain at the sites were provided with THC products as a last resort. However, this practice has since been revisited and discontinued,”
Now of course the county did state no taxpayer funds were used to purchase any of these products. Any of them purchased were done so with private funding. I'll be doing a couple public records requests to try to uncover what really happened here, but we all know its not that simple. Those funds private or public could have been used to actually help someone detox or get counseling from the counselors on hand for this crisis. This is a perfect example of how those who use money stolen from free people are so reckless with it. I say it all the time and I'll say it again, the only remedy to this behavior from the ruling class is voluntary interactions.
This is just one tiny example of government stupidity and waste. Anyone else want to start exploring what else is laying hidden beyond the public view?
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