Prognosis Negative DISCLAIMER: This article is NOT REAL. Well, it is real in that it does exist, but it doesn’t contain factual information. It is made up for the purposes of entertainment. And isn’t that the real truth? Probably not. Fax Machine Workers Go On Strike, Entirely Shutting Down All Healthcare Communication By Artie Plush, MD, STP, NSFW, YOLO, BVD, JFK, INXS, UOGB SHEBOYGAN, WI: A state of emergency has been called in the healthcare world today as fax machine workers the nation over have gone on strike. While labor tensions have been building for months now, healthcare operations have ground to a halt in many places. “I had to cancel all of my patients today,” said one private practice physician. “I feel completely hopeless. I wasn’t trained to practice medicine in these conditions.” One local hospitalist put it in more dire terms. “This is worse than all of those data breaches that sometimes happen. It’s Defcon 5 here right now!” It’s assumed that he meant Defcon 1, the highest military alert there is. “No, I meant Defcon 5. A higher number would definitely be worse.” As one of the strongest unions in the country, the fax machine union wields significant power. So what are they hoping to gain from this? “We’re tired of constantly fixing these fax machines in hospitals and clinics, and yet we don’t even get insurance,” said union leader Buck Chagrin. “We gotta get our own protection with us going into these places with all of these sick people. Hospitals are actually pretty gross.” Another union representative put the strike in starker terms. “We’re simply not appreciated. I mean, yeah, I guess people might die while we’re on strike. We know how reliant the whole operation is on us. But why are they so reliant on fax machines? What, don’t they have EMRs or something to communicate? Email? Carrier pigeon? Jeez, what about just using the phone? But I guess this just shows how important our jobs are and how they need to appreciate and support us. We need more money and insurance, and they should always have snacks for us when we come in for repairs or upkeep.” So why is this relatively minor inconvenience treated as such a big deal for doctors and patients as it is made out to be? Dr. Darla Drake, appearing on the verge of a nervous breakdown, said, “It’s terrible! We can’t send any information to anybody or receive anything! I mean, where has my patient been? Where are they going? Who has DME needs? And home health, what about that?! How else can the pharmacy get ahold of me for refills? What do I do?! If our pagers go down, then we’ll just have to board up the clinic. There’s nothing to be done at that point. I’ll just have to leave medicine.” Pharmacist Dr. Joe Plummer expressed his own concerns about fax machines being down. “Won’t someone please think of the pharmacies?!” he said as his pharmacy burned from a fax machine combustion. Union leader Chagrin was asked how the strike would affect all the fax machines in non-healthcare industries. “What fax machines in non-healthcare settings?” 30
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