Friday, July 29, 2011

beware of the dangerous eight year olds and the anorexic teenagers

Earlier this summer, the pediatric inpatient psych unit of North Shore Medical Center moved from its former home in rented space in the old Hunt Hospital in Danvers to its new digs at Union Hospital. Union Hospital, if you are not aware, is in Lynn, but only marginally. It's in the part of Lynn that borders Lynnfield, has a lot of expensive single family homes, a marked absence of gang violence, and very few residents who don't speak English. Much like my neighbors, the neighbors of Union Hospital have managed to convince themselves that they live in the 'burbs, all evidence to the contrary withstanding.

Well. Apparently they are unhappy with having crazy children taken care of in their environs. The lead headline on the front page of today's paper concerns a tentative meeting being set up for August 20th by hospital officials in order to address the concerns of the abutters. As well they should! I myself would be terrified to have preschoolers with PTSD and sad little 14 year old girls who cut themselves locked up next door to me. When they take out the guards and disable the security system and escape, I am SURE they would head right to the nearest neighbor's house and commit mayhem. Or maybe it's just that having the mentally ill anywhere in a four block radius makes property values plummet.

Yeah, I know. I shouldn't get so rage-y. Like the ignorance and stupidity of the American taxpayer is a big fucking surprise.

On a (probably) unrelated note, my boss just told me that Apple now has more money than the US government. So why the hell isn't Steve Jobs bailing us out? "That's because people like to go to that stupid store," I said.

"It's not a stupid store. It's a wonderful store."

God. Someone else who has drunk the kool aid.

That's all I've got to say today. Well, except that I overslept this morning, waking up half an hour before I had to be out the door, then when D went to register for his bloodwork, the new kid in patient registration almost gave him a new medical record number, even after D spelled his last name for him twice, and my first (autistic 6 year old) patient today hit me and told me I was "a bad doctor."

It's been one of those days, boys and girls. Hope yours is going much, much better.

xoxo

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, at least it's Apple that has more money than the US government, not Steve Jobs alone.

Not until this coming Wednesday, anyway.

I wonder if Apple could just buy the US government? It would probably work *and* look much better than the current version.

This plan certainly explains why Apple's holding on to $76 billion in cash (and likely none of it's in US T-bills).

Though speaking of "stupid stores", did you see where they were cloning "Apple Stoer" knockoffs in one city in China, complete with the right color T-shirts and the same fonts on the desk signs?

And even though the stores were counterfeit, what they were selling were, in fact, actual Apple products (and most of the employees thought they were actual Apple employees too). Now would a "stupid" store inspire that kind of effort?

If you just bought an iPad you'd feel soooo different.

Uncle said...

Just imagine how the punditocracy would rip Jobs if he bought the country.

I think he should buy Greece. The climate is better and he'd have some leftover ready money for R&D.