Health systems underfunded

TO ALL THOSE who are understandably upset that they have not been able to get a vaccine yet and feel that the current situation is what “government-run health care” and “socialist-driven single payer health care” would be like, it is a sad fact that over the years in New Mexico and across the country, our public health systems have been grossly underfunded.

We don’t have the funding to all of a sudden mass vaccinate everyone, although over 600 nurses have volunteered to help out with the process and our state has done well so far with the resources we have.

Public health nurses came to New Mexico in 1919 as a result of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic and proceeded to deal with that pandemic, as well as work in the south of the state to significantly impact other infectious diseases and infant mortality, and were central in providing immunizations for the uninsured until the advent of “managed care” in the 1990s.

Fast forward to now, with a skeleton crew of underpaid public health nurses and other professionals, and no national plan or predictable vaccine supply, we have to build the system as we go — with a patchwork of public and private partners whose software systems can’t talk to each other. It will be a heavy lift to make it work without problems. We should expect some delays and other issues given the circumstances.

Kudos to the fine work of the N.M. Department of Health for the excellent system they have going at Expo NM. Seamless, socially distanced, efficient. I hope it goes as well at The Pit. Thank you Dr. Collins and all those involved in these plans.

And about that single-payer health care system issue, if we were all in such a system, you would likely already have had that vaccination, or even — imagine — if we had had a universal health care system and national public health response to COVID, this nightmare might even have ended months ago. LOUISE KAHN

Albuquerque