Health Care

Jackson is still in the hospital being cared for and getting closer to going home every day. His vitals are good, and his breathing is great. We’ve been told multiple times by the doctors that almost every 2 month old kid (or anywhere close) that they’ve had come in with RSV has needed oxygen the entire time, and they’ve never seen a baby get all the breath they need on their own in spite of the virus. So we’ve got a fighter. Hopefully he’ll be home soon.

We’ve learned a lot of interesting things about hospitals and health care since this whole thing began, and it’s combination of ridiculous, annoying, and ironic. For one, it turns out that the nurses in the NICU had been trying to get our health insurance to cover a vaccine for Jackson against RSV when he was in there to prevent this exact situation from happening. Health insurance wouldn’t cover it because the vaccine is considered too expensive. So now they get to cover a 5 day hospital stay plus medication and testing instead. Nice. I’m guessing they didn’t come out on top in that one.

Also it turns out the hospital we are at (Sierra Vista) is the only hospital with a children’s ward within 100 miles. The next closest is Santa Barbara, and after that the next closest is in Fresno. And the hospital we are at has a grand total of 6 beds. The explanation for it? They don’t make enough money off of the children’s ward so all the area hospitals have either closed them down, or cut down the size.

We lucked out because there just happened to be ONE open bed when we admitted Jackson. Not so lucky.. the 4 families since then (that we know of) that have not been able to admit their children and have either had to drive to Fresno or wait.

Welcome to our health care system.