ban1dto

Are you sure of the whole screening process? Last month we watched on channel 3 a case of a child who got infected with HIV from a blood transfusion. The hospital denied first but after checking her parents and her twin sister who were negative the hospital director confirmed that they couldn't screen all the blood and that many patients have been infected with this and other virus. Since there is no law to protect the patients the only (moral) obligation of the hospital is to treat this young child for free until she passes away.

In the west, the hospital assumes legal responsibility if a blood unit screening test is available and they don't perform it, in fact they will not give a unit of blood until it has been screened for viruses. All the blood units in storage have been screened and are waiting for crossmatching as needed. Evidently in LOS they don't view the risk in the same way. With the high percentage of potentially infected blood here, there is NO excuse for putting the patient at risk.

You are right, the hospital should assume responsibility for their negligent actions, and revise their policies...but .

Blood given nowdays would be Packed RBC's, because the red blood cells are what is needed. The plasma is seperated from the RBC's. If not, after multiple units given, you would have fluid overload from the excess plasma, as well as multiplying the chances of incompatibility with the recipient.

O Neg cells have no antibodies so if there is a compatible crossmatch, it can be given to an A person...but not O Neg whole blood, just the cells.

Part of the reason for their charging for blood that is donated would be the collecting, processing, screening, and storage costs. But I admit that it can also be a bit of a cash cow, but giving blood will often directly save lives. The units are initially screened for Hepatitis C, HIV, and other potential problems, checked for any unsusual antibodies, and then sent to the hospital. Then before it is given, the ABO and Rh type and antibodies of both the patient and donor are checked again, and a cross-match between the donor cells and patients serum will test for compatibility.

Thinking of all that made me glad I am in Thailand working in my orchard instead of cooped up in a hospital.

Our immune systems protect us from the sea of germs/virus that we swim in daily. Healthy immune system-never catch colds, flu, etc. Run down immune system-catch everything flying by.

As previous posters pointed out, taking anti-virus drugs is mostly a placebo effect. On the other hand, vaccines to a specific virus stimulates an antibody response of the immune system, giving the person immunity.

At this point, to my knowledge, there is no vaccine for the swine flu, but keeping in good health, and washing hands and staying away from crowds should help.

In most countries there are rules (laws) by which a person is charged. Emotions are not to play a part in the arrest for breaking these rules; the laws of the land are the stability of the country.

But even in so called "stable western" counties, we can see that when emotions start getting out of control, a whole differnet scenario comes into play, it is a "us against you" situation, the police against the civilian. Emotions evidently ran high, the police saw that they were loosing control and determined to take control no matter what it took. They had NO thoughts about the effect on tourism this would have, it was a Me vs. You and they were going to take care of the problem. Rational thought had long since taken a hike for both parties.

This just seems to be the law of life that we live with, so it is good to keep that in the back of our minds when we let go and do crazy things.

We bought our passive roof vents (turbines) at a metal shop in Sansai on the right, just before the maejo intersection on Hi 1001. We put foil faced bubble wrap insulation from Home Pro down on the ceiling to isolate the attic from the living area, installed vents in the gable ends, and the passive turbines (2) on the roof. It keeps the house fairly cool and works well to remove the buildup of hot air.