Dr. Jack Lyons remembers the early days of the pandemic, when grateful communities clapped their hands and pans to honor frontline healthcare professionals.
But now, faced with hostility just for trying to save his patients’ lives, he says, sadly, those days are gone.
Lyons is one of many doctors and nursing professionals who are dealing with the increase in Covid-19 cases flooding hospitals as the Omicron variant rapidly spreads.
Now, healthcare professionals struggling on the frontlines of the pandemic are also face to face with patients who despise and even threaten them about how they are being treated for the virus.
“People act as if they can walk into the hospital and request whatever therapy they want or, conversely, refuse any needed therapy, with the idea that somehow they can choose and direct their treatment. And it doesn’t work,” Lyons said of the CentraCare hospital where he works in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
As the highly transmissible Ômicron variant, which became the dominant strain in the United States in a matter of weeks, increases in the case count, a new wave of misinformation about the pandemic and vaccines designed to eliminate it continues.
From unfounded conspiracy theories that vaccines contain microchips or alter people’s DNA, to deliberate lies about vaccine deaths and mask side effects, the pandemic disinformation industry is thriving.
This dangerous misinformation has also led to a series of lawsuits against US hospitals demanding unproven medical treatments such as ivermectin.
Health care providers are reporting growing hostility between doctors and patients and their families. It’s a constant dose of harassment.
“They insult your intelligence, they insult your ability and, most painfully, they say that by not using these treatments, you are intentionally trying to harm the people we gave everything to save,” Lyons said.
About 70% of patients in the Lyons ICU are sick with Covid-19, and almost all of them have not been vaccinated.
Ivermectin is used to treat parasites such as worms and lice in humans and is also used by veterinarians to deworm large animals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned poison centers of a sharp rise in reports of serious illnesses caused by the drug.
“The most difficult experience we had was the family of a patient who, under a pseudonym, made threats against the hospital,” Lyons said. “They made a referral to make sure the hospital was surrounded and there would be people coming to get me.”
“I’m not sure how one person would interpret ‘Let’s get to this point, let’s march against the hospital. We’re going after you like anything other than a death threat,” he added.
Lyons knows he finds people at their worst. As an intensive care physician, he and other health professionals have long been assaulted by patients and their loved ones in the most desperate circumstances.
But Covid has made those conversations even more difficult, especially now when so many of its patients are unvaccinated, distrustful of its expertise, and demand alternative treatments fueled by inaccurate information.
“These are people who defend their loved ones who need life support devices. And I have tremendous compassion,” he said.
But he feels these people have been manipulated by misinformation and other doctors pushing treatments not rooted in evidence-based science, the most popular being ivermectin.
“And these are the people I have no respect for – the charlatans and snake oil sellers who are selling this,” continued Lyons.
“They are feeding on people’s hope and trying to take advantage of desperate families who would do anything to take their loved one home. It’s painful, we’re tired, we’re exhausted.”
Exhausted professionals
Health professionals are so exhausted that they sometimes need encouragement to simply walk from their cars to the workplace, according to Barbara Chapman, a nurse working at the University of Texas at Tyler.
“It’s like when a veteran comes back from the war, he might be out of the war, but he didn’t come out of it,” Chapman told Lavandera. “It’s a battleground.”
Last summer, Chapman helped start a hotline offering mental health support to teachers and health professionals.
A staggering number of healthcare professionals – more than one in five – experienced anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder during the pandemic, revealed a survey published in March.
Doctors and nurses across the country were hopeful that the availability of vaccines, the most effective tool for preventing serious illness, would mean a gradual end to the horror.
Instead, misinformation has caused many to refuse to be vaccinated, which has reduced hope that the country will achieve mass immunity, to the point where enough people would be protected from a disease that it cannot spread. by the population.
“We want to help people. And now that people aren’t getting vaccinated, they aren’t believing us,” Chapman said. “They are questioning our education and training. It is painful, we are tired, we are exhausted and therefore we were morally injured in this outbreak.”
An emergency room doctor who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation spoke of the immense frustration and exhaustion doctors feel when dealing with patients who require unproven treatments but continue to resist the vaccine.
“I mean, can you imagine if a dentist had as many arguments about brushing their teeth as we do about the Covid vaccine?” says the doctor.
More than 69,700 patients with Covid-19 were admitted to US hospitals on Wednesday — a number that has grown since it last dropped to about 45,000 on Nov. 8, according to data from the Department of Health and Services Humans.
The US had an average of 1,324 Covid-19 deaths a day last week, 11% more than the week before, according to Johns Hopkins.
Wave of resignations
In the beginning, healthcare professionals were willing to make transformative sacrifices to help save lives in the midst of a pandemic that changed the world.
Many rented apartments and lived apart from their families to care for their patients. Residents held parades to thank them for their work. They reused PPE, canceled vacations, and worked long shifts for employers who don’t always value their employees’ safety.
But now, with the availability of vaccines that may be the only way to end the cycle of tragedy, many are concerned that healthcare professionals, undervalued and constantly facing threats, will finally have enough.
A study led by the American Medical Association examined the relationship between “Covid-related stress and job intentions of US healthcare professionals” and highlighted serious concern that the country may be on the brink of a “wave of turnover” in the healthcare industry. health.
The study found that one in five physicians and two in five nurses plan to leave their current practice within two years.
Even Lyons, who has worked at the same hospital since the pandemic began, says it’s getting harder and harder to remain optimistic.
“It’s often heartbreaking. It’s demoralizing sometimes. We do our best to remain hopeful,” he said. “But as the months passed, we found ourselves more and more tired and more and more colleagues leaving the profession. It gets harder every day.”
Reference: CNN Brasil
