Health workers once saluted as heroes now get threats
Last edited Wed Sep 29, 2021, 09:00 PM - Edit history (1)
More than a year after U.S. health care workers on the front lines against COVID-19 were saluted as heroes with nightly clapping from windows and balconies, some are being issued panic buttons in case of assault and ditching their scrubs before going out in public for fear of harassment. Across the country, doctors and nurses are dealing with hostility, threats and violence from patients angry over safety rules designed to keep the scourge from spreading.
Cox Medical Center Branson in Missouri started giving panic buttons to up to 400 nurses and other employees after assaults per year tripled between 2019 and 2020 to 123, a spokeswoman said. Some hospitals have limited the number of public entrances. In Idaho, nurses said they are scared to go to the grocery store unless they have changed out of their scrubs so they aren’t accosted by angry residents. Doctors and nurses at a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, hospital have been accused of killing patients by grieving family members who don’t believe COVID-19 is real.
Over Labor Day weekend in Colorado, a passerby threw an unidentified liquid at a nurse working at a mobile vaccine clinic in suburban Denver. Another person in a pickup truck ran over and destroyed signs put up around the clinic’s tent. Several people have been shot to death in disputes over masks in stores and other public places. Shouting matches and scuffles have broken out at school board meetings. A brawl erupted earlier this month at a New York City restaurant over its requirement that customers show proof of vaccination.
Dr. Ashley Coggins of St. Peter’s Health Regional Medical Center in Helena, Montana, said she recently asked a patient whether he wanted to be vaccinated. “He said, ‘F, no,’ and I didn’t ask further ...” Coggins said the patient told her that he “wanted to strangle President Biden” for pushing for vaccinations ...” Many places are suffering severe staffing shortages, in part because nurses have become burned out and quit. “I think one thing that we have seen and heard from many of our people is that it is just really hard to come to work every day when people treat each other poorly,” said Dr. Kencee Graves, a physician at the University of Utah hospital in Salt Lake City.
https://wbng.com/2021/09/29/health-workers-once-saluted-as-heroes-now-get-threats/
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