More than the games have gotten worse

One of the great blessings of my life is having been spared from any hospital stays since I was 16.

That was the summer of 1968.  I remember bits and pieces of the experience.  To nobody’s surprise, I can best sort through it if I put it in baseball terms. 

1968 went down in baseball annals as the Year of the Pitcher.  St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame righthander Bob Gibson, perhaps the best ever if you ask me, recorded an ERA of 1.12.  Detroit’s Denny McLain won 31 games, the first to break the 30-win barrier since Dizzy Dean in 1934.  MLB starters threw 339 shutouts. 

Mickey Lolich tossed three complete games in the World Series to lead the Tigers over Gibson and the Cards. 

I watched the 1968 All-Star Game from a bed in St. Raphael’s Hospital in New Haven.  If memory serves (give me a break; it was 55 years ago), the great Willie Mays singled off Luis Tiant of the Cleveland Indians the first inning and scored the game’s only run for a 1-0 National League victory.  Mays reached second on an errant pickoff attempt, took third on a wild pitch and scored on a double-play ball.  That was it.  The pitchers took over.

Aah, those were the days!  Tight, briskly played ballgames.  No weird geeky statistics.

Baseball wasn’t the only item that was better in those days.  Visiting the hospital in 1968 wasn’t exactly fun, particularly for a teenager who hardly knew why the hell he was even there.  Apprehension bracketed my body and mind as the nurses, student nurses, aides and interns did their best to brighten my spirits.

Since I was 16, I was placed in a pediatric unit.  The toys that filled the solarium and the pastel colors on the walls softened the apprehension.  Kind, elderly volunteers went from bed to bed like gentle grandparents making sure fear left the room.

Wouldn’t you think that the hospital system would be much better 55 years later? 

My wife’s mother is currently in New Britain General Hospital, which we were quick to discover is now part of Hartford HealthCare.

I can’t comment on the medical attention she’s getting because I’m not a physician, but the services in the hospital are nowhere near the 1968 level.  I certainly wouldn’t blame the hard-working souls who work there.  They’re just doing their jobs, and doing the best they can, but there simply are not nearly enough of them. 

My mother-in-law was on the third floor, where they had two nurses caring for 38 patients.  The incessant beeping of calls for help were like the soundtrack of a horror movie.  Hospital administrators would have had to go to the Cloning Department five times for the department to run efficiently.  If I was sick that may be the last place I’d want to be.

So what has happened since I went in for my childhood adjustment so long ago?  I wish I knew half of it.  On the other hand, maybe I don’t want to.  Those are not the type of statistics on which sports fans care to dwell.  Suffice it to say that drawing up a plan for renewed efficiency and high-quality care requires money and lots of it.  The massive majority needing hospitalization can’t come close to affording it.

Less populated countries like Canada have socialized medicine, but I’ve heard terrible tales about waiting lists.  It seems Canadian residents often prefer to be treated here because timing is critical.  Can the US government pay the bills?  Should the government be responsible? 

I’m not into political arguments, but even the person on the streets can see that something’s amiss as soon as they pass through the beautiful lobby.  I don’t wish to discuss which party was in power when the crisis took a turn for the worse.  What I do know is we’re sending billions overseas and don’t appear to have the resources to take care of our own.

When politics enter the fray, I start scanning the Comcast grid for a ballgame because I’m out of my league.  Unfortunately, Major League Baseball is just another indicator that something is dreadfully wrong.  We don’t have money to improve hospitals but the Los Angeles Dodgers have $700 million to hand to Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani over the next decade?

Sure, we’re talking about apples and oranges here but no one can deny that something is indeed dreadfully wrong.