HOSPITALS
Forbidding places until you need one.
I needed one recently in a critical, emergency way.
I had all the symptoms of Covid, even though I have been vaccinated. ER doctors and personnel determined I had a major infection. They suspected the infection was in my heart—a lethal condition. I was rushed by ambulance to a major heart hospital (Methodist Tex-San) in San Antonio. An immediate round of tests and blood work determined I had bacterial pneumonia instead. It was nonetheless, serious.
A week of surgical procedures, tests and exams took me out of harm’s way. I now face a six-month pneumonia recovery—not a welcoming adventure.
During my stay in the hospital I was treated by a host of doctors, nurses, technicians, support personnel, and a gracious religious chaplain. They were all extremely professional as well as compassionate and caring.
Hospital protocol required mask wearing by everyone. I had no problem with that. In fact, I both welcomed and appreciated this patient safety protocol.
But some nurses and medical personnel in Houston and Indiana have recently stolen an unfair share of public attention with their petulant refusal to undergo Covid vaccination as mandated by their hospital employer. These professional yokels believe that their “right” not to be required to undergo vaccination supersedes medical safety protocols. In other words, selfish “me, me, me” over everything else.
I did not ask any nurse if they had been vaccinated. I assumed a responsible health care delivery system would make sure that my “right” to safe medical care is a priority over that of any health care provider assumed rights.
If health care personnel do not want to wear a mask in the interest of individual patient safety and general public safety, then, please, by all means go take up truck driving. There is a growing demand for truck drivers and there is a critical need in the health care delivery system to replace irresponsible medical personnel.
Three days before the bacterial pneumonia hit me like a Covid train I sat for three hours in a surgical center waiting room while my wife underwent an outpatient procedure. I’m convinced I picked up the pneumonia bacteria in that waiting room—a bacteria left by a patient, a relative, or some medical personnel.
My point is this: hospitals can be life-saving places as I recently experienced or they can be potentially life-threatening places as I also recently experienced (as I am convinced).
The first, and most essential responsibility of a hospital is to protect the safety of the patient, and at any point that medical personnel feel that this employer responsibility conflicts with their self-created “rights,” then by all means these employees should be swiftly and irrevocably shown to the door with directions to the nearest truck driving academy.