Another beef recall?

The largest beef recall in U.S. history! 143 million pounds of beef recalled!

Aren’t we getting tired of suspecting our food supply? Aren’t we getting tired of the irresponsible manner in which some employee or employees abuse the rules or completely ignore rules resulting in unsafe food for the rest of us?

Once again an employee (whether on his/her own or under the direction of a supervisor) bypassed regulations, and once again there is a severe penalty. This time to the company who employed the individual(s) responsible.

Work ethic, or lack thereof, is once again the root cause.

When are we going to learn? There is a reason for rules and regulations. It doesn’t matter if you understand them or if you think they are a waste of time.

People who put these rules in place are not doing so as a means of making your job more difficult. These rules are put into place to protect everyone, including you.

At the outset, this particular recall looks to be for punitive reasons. The USDA spokesman admitted there have been no cases of illness related to the recalled meat. So why the recall if not because the company simply did not follow regulations? Because not following regulations leaves the door open to the possibility that people could get sick or die from possibly tainted meat. This is why inspectors have to witness your job performance. Very simple, yes?

The undersecretary of agriculture said there was a ‘remote probability’ that the meat could cause illness in humans. Why did he make this determination? Because, since a decision was made by an employee or employees of the Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Company in Chino, California to bypass safety regulations then quality control was lost. This loss of quality control means people could get sick. He has a responsibility to the general public and cannot afford to just over-look this blatant disregard for safety policy. He is doing his job.

This is all very basic stuff people. Rules and regulations were bypassed because someone did not want to take the time or trouble to do their job properly.

The employee or employees who participated in this clear violation of safety policy could possibly bring down this meat packing business (the very people who signed their paychecks) and put a lot of people out of jobs! This is serious!

Was it worth it to Westland/Hallmark to have people on their payroll who have so little regard for the safety of the general public and themselves and were more concerned with saving a little time and trouble for themselves? I think not.

Poor job performance, lack of responsibility, and a general lack of work ethics costs this nations employers millions and possibility billions of dollars every year. And these loses are passed on to the buying public. Which includes the very people responsible for poor job performance and lack of work ethics. We are costing ourselves money for bad job performance and ignoring the very rules we are paying someone to enforce. It just doesn’t make sense to me to continue this madness.

Why is it that some people think they don’t have to follow these rules? It seems as soon as they are left on their own and are trusted to continue to do the quality work they performed while being closely monitored, they go for the shortcut and think it is okay as long as they don’t get caught? This attitude is killing our economy. OUR economy. It is everyone’s responsibility to make it work!

Doesn’t anyone see the big picture? Doesn’t anyone care that in this particular case hundreds of people could have been sicken due to these individuals carelessness and lack of work ethic? Apparently not, because it just keeps happening. Do companies need to spend more money for inspectors to make sure their employees do their job properly?

Does our government need to spend more of our tax dollars for inspectors to make sure that companies follow safety rules?

Do we have to teach ethics and morals in our schools to educate our children to the importance of looking out for one another?

Have we become so unethical that we have to be policed every minute we are on the job just to make sure we do what we signed up for, what we agreed to do in exchange for a paycheck?

Our responsibility goes beyond just bringing home our pay. Each one of us is responsible for the whole nation. If you don’t believe me then take a second look at what happened with this meat packing company and the many before them that went out of business, putting people out of work, and the people who were sickened because someone did not follow guidelines put in place by people who we pay to regulate the quality of our work.

Every working person knows the rules and expectations of their employer and yet we continue to hear about the results of some employee who takes it upon themselves to take short-cuts. Sometimes at a devastating cost to others.

The notion of ethics is being lost on us. We need to reverse this trend quickly.

Why can’t we police ourselves to ensure a good, safe product or service is produced? Why can’t we take it upon ourselves to perform to our best ability on the job without being watched over every minute? It would save us all so much money by not having to pay for the inspectors, the supervisors, the police.

This whole problem with lack of work ethic can be applied to the general lack of morals our society displays. We have ever increasing police forces in every large city and small town across America because of scum-bags and low-lifes who prey on others. If we all had higher moral standards we wouldn’t have such a large police force, we wouldn’t have a backlog in the court system, we wouldn’t have overcrowded jails, we wouldn’t have so many lawyers, we wouldn’t be paying such high tax rates to cover all of this.

This world would be a much more pleasant place to live if we all had higher morals and a greater work ethic. It is not out of our reach.

Half-assed job performance can costs lives

50-year-old Air Force veteran Bob Shank was admitted to am Illinois Veterans Administration hospital in August of this year for gallstone-removal surgery. He bled to death the day after the surgery.

The surgeon, Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez, a Bolivian-trained physician with a thick accent, performed the surgery. Nine other surgical patients have died under Veizaga-Mendez's care in a six-month period ending in March 2007, during which time the hospital would have expected only two deaths.

Even before Veizaga-Mendez was hired at the Illinois Veterans Administration hospital, in January 2006, he had made payouts in two malpractice suits in Massachusetts and was under investigation there on suspicion of botching seven cases, two of which ended in deaths.

Even after the nine deaths he was still allowed to operate on another patient. How many deaths is acceptably attributable to one doctor? Why wasn’t nine deaths in six months enough reason to prevent this ‘doctor’ from practicing again?

Was he hired by the Illinois Veterans Administration hospital because someone did not follow through on the verification process with Massachusettes concerning past performance and job history?

Was his past performance in Massachusettes and the fact that he was under investigation for malpractice kept from personnel at the Illinois facility?

Veizaga-Mendez, 69, resigned three days after Shank's death, and the VA hospital suspended all surgery shortly after. The deaths involving Veizaga-Mendez are still under investigation, and details have not been released.

Someone at the Illinois facility finally decided that ten deaths, connected with this surgical doctor, was enough. Did his resignation have more to do with the fact that the media finally got wind of the deadly trend? Was hospital administration, through advise from their lawyers no doubt, perfectly willing to keep it all quiet until the story was leaked and they were now forced to do something? Instead of firing him they ‘allowed’ him to resign so he could keep his benefits package?

He had become a lousy, careless doctor responsible for the deaths and/or undue suffering of nineteen patients before being forced to resign. For him to be rewarded for his carelessness because he refuses to accept his responsibility to the families of those patients is beyond criminal. The hospital administration of both hospitals should share blame for him having access to those patients and should be punished for allowing him to continue his serial malpractice.

This is an extremely grave example of people, either singularly or collectively, not following guidelines that are in place to prevent this type of tragedy.

If guidelines are not in place to take action against a doctor whose death count is higher than statistically acceptable then the administration should be held accountable as well

If the Massachusettes hospital where Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez practiced was aware of his failures and failed to report that fact to the medical board, to insurance companies, to the next hospital who showed interest in hiring him, then they too should be held criminally liable.

Dr. Veizaga-Mendez had a valid, unrestricted medical license in Massachusetts and Illinois when he was hired in January 2006 and that background checks did not reveal any prior or pending disciplinary action. This background check should have revealed that he was under investigation for malpractice. Current law says that this information cannot be revealed and I think that policy is absolutely wrong for a person in this position. There should be a freeze on this man’s ability to practice until all investigations and lawsuits are completed or at the very least his license should be flagged due to pending investigation in order that everyone be put on alert. This responsibility lies with hospital administration and the state’s medical board. There should be no protection from the total scrutiny of a potential employer for a person in this field.

It turns out that at the time he was hired in Illinois, the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine was investigating allegations of substandard care made against Veizaga-Mendez in 2004 and 2005, said board spokesman Russell Aims. The allegations involved seven patients, two of whom died.

There are a lot of people who have relatives receiving care at VA hospitals across this country and they all deserve the best care available in return for putting their lives on the line to protect us and those very same doctors and hospital staff.

Our veterans are placed under the care of doctors that we are forced to assume are qualified. They have no choice but to accept that every person who is responsible for that doctor being in charge of their care did everything humanly possible to ensure that the doctor is qualified and competent.

We have no choice but to have faith that if anyone has knowledge of a doctors shortcomings that the person will have the moral integrity to report that doctor to the proper authority and that the authority will not allow the doctor to practice.

Our veterans deserve to know that the hospital staff and administration are actually looking after the patients welfare above the liability of the hospital.

Bob Shank and his family should have every expectation that he would recover from this very common surgery.

Somehow we have decided that it is acceptable to hold back detrimental information concerning a job applicants past performance so we don’t have to appear to be the ‘bad guy’ by telling the truth. This misguided act of ‘helping’ the job applicant gain employment elsewhere is malicious and mean-spirited towards the new employer. And, as witnessed in this case, can lead to jeopardizing the health and well-being of a great many people and can even lead to death.