siin, to philosophy
@siin@pagan.plus avatar

I think that it's absolutely horrifying that the average person can't purchase and stock antivenom, antibiotics, steroids, epinephrine, insulin, or IV saline fluids.

The very act of saying this is radical. gasp! But we can't be trusted with such things! The lay person would give out antibiotics with abandon, fail to properly place an IV, give epinephrine when it isn't indicated! People would die!

This is what we've been taught, and it's bullshit. It doesn't take twelve years of medical school to identify anaphylaxis, especially in someone you know. Most people are concerned enough about the side effects of antibiotics to reserve them for when they're really necessary (and the average household is NOT the cause of widespread antibiotic resistant organisms: industrial livestock and our own medical establishment are). It doesn't take more than a week to learn how to properly place an IV. It doesn't take a genius to administer antivenom if someone is bit by a snake.

But you know what this access would do? Save people. From death, from severe disability, from tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills that make them wish they'd just died in the first place.

These skills could be taught to 8th graders in school. It isn't complicated. First aid, wilderness medicine, and basic life support training needs to go beyond "call for help when you identify x, y, and z". Medical care, especially emergency medical care, should be a basic human right, and by this I mean we should have the right to administer it to ourselves and our community without barriers.

Reserve the hospital for true surgical emergencies. I don't want to take out my child's appendix, for example, without an OR and anesthetics. But there is an extremely wide range of mild to moderate ailments and even real emergencies that could be treated better and more immediately IN PLACE if the average person had access to the right equipment and the most basic accessible training that could easily be passed on to other community members.

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