Rant coming, and I'm aware that I'm preaching to the choir.
The NYT has a recent opinion piece titled What to Do with your Covid Rage. I'm too angry to even read it. My anger is all that's keeping me moving and from falling into despair.
I am a fully vaxed RN and also LMT. I saw a fully vaxed client last week , close contact obviously…
Rant coming, and I'm aware that I'm preaching to the choir.
The NYT has a recent opinion piece titled What to Do with your Covid Rage. I'm too angry to even read it. My anger is all that's keeping me moving and from falling into despair.
I am a fully vaxed RN and also LMT. I saw a fully vaxed client last week , close contact obviously, and both of us wearing masks, a practice I reinstated recently as I kept hearing about "breakthrough cases". That evening, she called to tell me her adult daughter who lives with her and is an RN at a hospital but refused vaccination, had tested positive. My client tested positive the following day. Now here I sit, ranting to you, instead of the activities with others I had planned for my week. I'll lose a good chunk of income from this quarantine but the worst is not being able to visit with my son, DIL and grandson as planned for the first time in two months (you see where some of the despair comes in).
This is not the fault of immigrants, nor the CDC, nor Biden's administration as Faux would have us believe. This is the fault of a spoiled. entitled, ignorant young woman who, despite having become a nurse, has shunned science, and accepted conspiracy theories as a personal practice. Not only did she refuse vaccination, but in the face of rising cases and a dangerous variant, did nothing preventively to protect her parents at home from sharing the virus with them. No mask, no distancing. I imagine she would defend herself by saying, "Well, if the vaccine is so great, why do I need to do any of that?"
I've been thinking a lot about my mother in law. Dot and I did not always see eye to eye. She may even have voted for Trump in 2016 as she had come to increasingly refer to Obama as a socialist. But she was rightly proud to be a Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing graduate and worked as an RN her whole life. She and her colleagues worked like slaves as students at the hospital with no gloves, cloth masks, no protection against needle sticks. She felt nursing as a calling and was devoted, not in a smarmy way but a smart way, to the best possible patient care. She thought critically about things and didn't often hesitate to tell a doctor what she really thought or was afraid was going on with a patient. She nursed before a polio vaccine. I remember talking about universal precautions when I became a nurse in the early years of the HIV epidemic and she said, "you can't tell from looking at who you think your patient is whether they carry a dangerous infectious disease in their blood or body fluids or respiratory tract; we don't know what might be there that hasn't even been discovered yet.". She was a thinking nurse who cared at least as much about her patient's well-being and the public good as her own health and that of her family. She understood that her family's health was tied to the health of the community. She died in 2017 and she would be so appalled that nurses are turning away from what evidence has shown us is a safe, effective vaccine against serious illness from Covid, because they believe, against all evidence, that it might be worse for them than the virus itself. That it's all about them, not the patients, not the 60+ parents, not the public's health, is what she wouldn't be able to comprehend. She suffered no illusions about humanity and she cared for the ridiculous as well as any other patient. But that RNs all across the country could behave this way, that would be shocking to her. I wonder what she would have done with her Covid rage.
Your "rant" is what so many of us are feeling lately. I am so sorry that you, having done the right thing, have to go through this. Let's turn your rant into action. I have scaled back my letters to the editor and to my senators/congressman because I live in Florida, and they don't give a damn about what I think. My congressman, Gus Bilirakis, just sent out his weekly newsletter saying that hordes of immigrants are coming across the border and infecting us. So, let's all change our message. Let's "rant" to the paper and to the congresscritters and governors about how these unvaccinated and uncaring individuals, including nurses, are now causing US to lose our liberty and prevent us from doing the things we want to do.
I've just sent off an email to my father in law to invite him to join me in writing a LTE (a registered republican his whole life, he took a deep breath and voted for Biden) along the lines of my rant, or at least giving me permission to invoke his wife's name if I'm correctly guessing about how she would feel. He is enraged that people aren't getting vaccinated. He got his first shot the same day I was able to as a first responder, January 30, just before his 82nd birthday. Can't wait to read his response.
I just got an email from the hospital I work for. They're hosting a voluntary (sigh) virtual town hall for STAFF, not the public, to discuss "Vaccine Facts and Fallacies". I have a premonition this is a precursor to making the vaccine mandatory, as our friendly competition, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, announced last week they would be doing. I think they're hedging their bets that the FDA is going to confer full authorization on Pfizer within the month, and Moderna close behind. After that it will be much easier for them to insist on a mandate. Hopefully it will still make a difference at that point. Sometimes I feel like we are perpetually too many steps behind.
Interestingly, I learned at an ADA seminar that the EEOC allows businesses to mandate vaccines verification or regular testing. But they cannot force an employee to take a vaccine given by the business. They can request copies of the vaccine card given in the community. Little bit of a distinction, but noteworthy.
Good for Darmouth-Hitchcock! Glad they balked NH’s motto “Live Free or Die”. I had a physical exam there in 1990, so different than the old one in Hanover, where I made several visits in the mid 60s.
The whole idea that immigrants in Texas (who are tested, and quarantined if positive) could be causing infection spikes in Florida is worse than insane, it's homicidal, because it works against unvaccinated people realizing in time that they made a mistake and getting vaccinated.
Meanwhile, as I sit here in MA finally able to socialize a bit more, my vaccinated grown daughter is on vacation on the beach in Miami of all places. She could reasonably point out that she has no more virus exposure there than at her restaurant job at home, where she works with and around folks who are unvaccinated and unmasked. So I'm going to be even less social from when she gets back to when she gets a negative test result...
It reminds me of a little card my Dad used to have in his home darkroom: If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs, maybe you don't understand the situation.
Joan, I appreciate your dad's saying, never heard that one before. An early rendition of "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention"???
My vaccinated daughter also works in a restaurant, tiny little indoor place with outdoor seating as well in good weather. They've forgone the masks the last couple months and I said to her last night (she lives here) that she should really go back to it, no matter what others are doing. There's substantial community spread and such is the guidance for crowded indoor public spaces. And a lot of tourists from all over, and no one checking vaccine status at the door. Some days lately I feel like it's just a matter of time.
My adult son with special needs was working at a restaurant before the Pandemic hit. He was set to go back this summer since he was vaccinated but being indoors with people unmasked, even if he wore as mask, was a no for me. Can't take the chance as he is still high risk and the milder cases are where they see long Covid cases.
Thanks for articulating this so beautifully. My mom was a science and math teacher. Her best friend, of more than 70 years, was the Dean of the Nursing school at the University of Minnesota. Both of those women are spinning in their graves at the hubris of all who put politics and ignorance over the health of the rest of us. I wish there was a way to summarily fire medical personnel who walk away from science-based public health requirements!
There is a way to fire them. Mandate all personnel who care for the sick to be vaccinated and fire them when they refuse. They can all join a hospital that doesn’t require vaccinations and we must all stay away from that hospital. The mayhem that ensues at that facility will be a testament to the refusal to accept the science. Delta will see to that. None of this is “right” or satisfying for us but we have to protect ourselves so we can get to the other side of this nightmare.
I am always astounded to hear of health care workers unvaccinated. Not only endangers those whose job it is to help heal but it gives fuel to the anti-vax as a reason to be wary of the vaccine. My neighbor's husband is head of infectious disease at our local hospita and her daughter an infectious disease ER doctor. She went to her doctor at that same hospital and was treated by a male Black nurse who was unvaccinated. She very politely explained why it was important for him to to be vaccinated and he could help others in his community to stop the spread of the virus and he was receptive to her talk and thanked her. He said he was totally unaware of a lot of what she said. Of course she was horrified with this being a hospital health care worker and went straight to her huband and they set about getting information and talks out to the workers. This was earlier this past winter and they are the only hospital I know of that has a pretty high vaccination percentage. This seems like such a basic given....
Oh. My. Gosh. After I read these comments and knowing that my husband is having a procedure at the local hospital tomorrow, I jumped up and phoned them for reassurance. Guess what? No vaccine mandate. WHAT? The girl told me that of course they mask and use appropriate protections and the majority are vaccinated. I said, "MAJORITY?!" I'm upset, for sure.
I'm glad you called them, Becky. They need to hear that their patients are thinking and concerned about this. Interestingly, in the beginning of the pandemic, I heard a lot of people saying they were afraid to seek care because they didn't want to get Covid - from other patients! It never occurred to them to be worried about getting it from their providers, who they trusted would be using lots of PPE and precautions. We were all in the same boat back then, no vaccine. Now that the vaccines are widely available, we assume providers have done as they should to protect themselves from patients and vice versa. But too large a chunk of them have not and it needs to change and fast. Best of luck to your husband tomorrow. All you and he can do now is be vigilant about how well they use PPE with him and take pictures of anything you see that is concerning. VT has one of the best vaccination rates in the country so there's that!
Some hospitals do. One in Houston took the lead. Now government agencies are following suit, such as Los Angeles County at least requiring routine testing in lieu of vaccination.
Thanx for the rant. I can feel the rage at the abject ignorance around us. I get angry every time the idiot, mass murderer governor of Floriduh, Ron DeathSantis is on TV spouting his unsubstantiated bullshit, then I get more upset that I am YELLING at my TV.
This is day 18 of my own quarantine after having been probably exposed to the Delta Variant while being tested for Covid by an ER nurse who was unvaccinated and whose mask did not cover her face. I was fully faxxed and this would have been a "break through." My "friend" was also fully vaxxed, but even though he too was probably exposed, he continued to barhop night after night in crowded venues. So, not only have I been in isolation for all these days to prevent the spread to others, I have ended a five year relationship. Your comment resonated with me so much. It's not so much that he was ignorant (his own mother was an RN and he knows better) but that he was "spoiled" and "entitled" and put other lives at risk. I could not condone that or tolerate it. I share your rage!
"This is not the fault of immigrants, nor the CDC, nor Biden's administration as Faux would have us believe. This is the fault of a spoiled. entitled, ignorant young woman who, despite having become a nurse, has shunned science, and accepted conspiracy theories as a personal practice. Not only did she refuse vaccination, but in the face of rising cases and a dangerous variant, did nothing preventively to protect her parents at home from sharing the virus with them. No mask, no distancing. I imagine she would defend herself by saying, "Well, if the vaccine is so great, why do I need to do any of that?"
Oh, Ellen, I'm so sorry. And I applaud your courage and convictions. One of the hardest things for me about all this is to watch how otherwise good people make terrible selfish choices that don't make any sense. And the unfairness of it all. You and I and millions of others are doing all the right things, likely even overdoing some of it, while millions are throwing all care for others, even those they purport to love, out the window in the name of personal freedom, as if that is the gold standard by which we ever aspired to live. I'm coming to believe more and more that unfettered personal freedom is incompatible with life, but as they say here in the Granite State, Live Free or Die. I guess they really mean it.
So sorry, Ellen. Layers of adding insult to injury. And layers of your losses... May our regard for your righteousness help heal your losses. And of course may your wise precautions keep you healthy--a relative term in today's world!
Thank you! My rage comes from my wife of 50 years and 15 days being murdered by the last administration. I am on day 6 of quarantine myself, from a rogue caregiver who -- after switching planes 3 times and 4 different airports -- violated company policy and came into my home the next morning, untested and unmasked.
Only a call from the company telling her to get out prevented her from spending the whole day. I may have killed myself by letting her into my house.
I am so sorry for your situation as well; at least I'm not losing wages as you are....
Gus - heavens to murgatroid! What a horrible situation. I'm so sorry about your wife. That is a heavy, heavy loss. That caregiver should be drawn and quartered, but only after being tarred and feathered! There aren't words for that sort of behavior. A deathly threat to you and a huge liability for the caregiver company. Shout it from the rooftops! At 6 days, have you been tested yet? I'm waiting til day 5-6 unless I develop symptoms. Holding you in steady healing light and please keep us posted on your status and well-being.
Thank you Beth. It was company policy to test all employees returning from vacation. The director called within 20 minutes after she tried to clock in by phone, asking if she had been tested. When she said no, the director told her to "get out of there." The caregiver told me she HAD been tested when I asked her the same question at the door. I asked her to wear a mask, so she went back to the car and got her excuse for a mask. It kept sliding down to her chin because the elastic was worn out. Her nostrils were like a double barrel shotgun pointing at me!
The company had the right policy, and did the right thing. I blame myself this time.
Gus, the caregiver lied to you. Do not blame yourself. If we can't trust our caregivers we can't have a relationship with them. It's on the company to provide plenty of appropriate PPE. In the beginning it was hard to come by but there is NO excuse for that now. I'm glad the director was on top of things, as much as she could be from afar. They should do surprise inspection visits too.
That is unbelievable, Gus!! I hope you'll be okay.
When a workman showed up at our house a few months ago unmasked, I asked him where his mask was. He said,"I'm not sick." I told him he could be a carrier and infect me and would he please get a mask or I'd give him one. After he inspected our roof, gave me the estimate, and left, I told my husband, "We're not going to give that company our business." And we didn't. Later the company emailed me asking our decision. I told him we weren't going with the company because of the masking incident. End of conversation. I wonder if the company even cared it didn't get our business.
I've noticed more and more that people are being willfully ignorant. They have just stopped following the news or thinking about safety or risk mitigation. If you mention the term "viral load" they look like deer caught in the headlights. They were good for a year but they are done worrying about it or they just don't understand the limitations of the vaccines. One of my friends sent me a comic that said, "Covid is the new IQ test."
I was trying to show some empathy by including bits of my story, and as usual, I received more than I gave, so Thank You to everyone for your empathy and encouragement. This truly is a great community, and this truly is a hot topic. I am becoming so aware of what all of us are going through, and your examples of humanity give me an shot of strength!
I am so sorry for what you are going through, and share that "YOU DARE TO CALL YOURSELF A NURSE" frustration and anger. Healthcare workers, though, should never have had a choice whether to get the vaccine or not. Public Health Codes must be Public Health LAW: enforceable across the board. She should have lost her job.
You know what else scares me, MaryPat? That someone so clueless, so incurious, so non-thinking, so selfish is taking care of patients. Covid aside, I would be terrified to be sick in the hospital, dependent on others to evaluate and respond properly to my condition, if there were nurses like her on my team.
Yes, terrifying. And deadly. The American Nurses Association reported in May that 83% of nurses surveyed had been vaccinated against COVID-19, and recommended that ALL healthcare facilities require vaccination as a condition of employmen:
Thank you for your rant, Beth. Your mother in law was spot on and so are you. I am sorry your client's daughter has decided jeopardizing those around her is more important than protecting them. You are in my thoughts.
My heart goes out to you Beth. Pinellas County FL, where I live, has a current positivity rate of 18.47% according to the CDC (Florida public health posts lower numbers, and hides most data). This is the highest positivity rate since Covid began. We are also experiencing the highest hospitalization rates ever. Masks mandates, vaccine requirements, and reduced capacity are now forbidden in our state. Madness.
If the R's were really only against *requiring* masks and vaccines, and they valued human life, they would mount campaigns to get people to wear masks and get vaccinated voluntarily. They do not. All the evidence says they are in favor of increased infections and deaths.
I was reading Tara Parker-Pope's piece in the NYT about updated guidance for the fully vaccinated. A commenter from Texas - of all places! - stated in sorrowful polite terms what she could only have heard on Faux : that it's Biden administration's fault for following CDC guidelines in June that vaxed folks could go without masks, along with those vaxed folks "mixing" with the unvaxed, causing the Delta which she said was discovered in India in March and quickly spread here (uh, more like December but you got the second half right) and then mutate! The only redeeming thing about her comment was she mentioned that the media scared her family so much about Delta that they did rush off to get vaccinated - they had been waiting for more data! So it's all the fault of the CDC, Biden, we vaccinated and the media. I ripped her a new one.
I hear you Beth! I think one of the things that has to change, is adding basics of immunology, epidemiology, and fundamentals of Public Health in our Nursing Schools and Medical Schools. They need more training and pandemic preparedness. We need to pay them more when they have taken these courses. Health Care workers at every level need to be aligned with Public Health officials. Otherwise they are vulnerable to the demagoguery lead lies that are prostituting as leaders and policy.
Actually, we had such training in 1991, when I took my CNA course. We trained with LPN's stopping short of their particular skill practice, but all the beside care is the same. It actually depends on the individual and how much they absorb of the training.
In the hospital, I alerted Infection Control of 2 possible nosocomial problems, which they remedied. (IVAC electronic thermometer with a red & blue probe and inch apart when Clostridium dificile was rampant. And, sharing blood pressure cuffs on an oncology unit with immuno-suppressed patients - with Candida in their armpits)
This from a CNA, the lowest in the Medical Practice hierarchy.
Barbara, if you haven't already, would you consider contacting Concord Hospital and letting them know that as a retired RN (maybe from there???) and community member, you want them to make vaccination mandatory for CH employees? It sounds from your other comments like you're aligned with this idea ;-)
I even had some public health in my Army medic training, on the off-chance that as an infantry medic I might be the only medical personnel in a town or village. Water supplies, waste disposal, infection control. Air, direct contact, and 'fomites.' Primary inoculation portals: eyes, nose, mouth, wounds. I have never forgotten that training.....
We do teach these critical public health topics in all nursing schools, along with requiring observation in community health agencies for the ADN level, and community health experience for the BSN level. Nursing instructors also follow specific criteria for evaluation of students which include ethical standards and critical thinking skills. I fear in these times of nursing shortages and con man presidents, those standards may not be enough.
Hardly, and not enough, and I don't mean as a topic, I mean as a graduate level course in order to get that nursing or medical license. These schools have proven inadequate in teaching Public Health and have failed in pandemic response. There should be no debate with a HC worker about vaccines, mask mandates, and testing. Around me is a population of nurses and a few doctors that believe Fox News and their FB feed over their county Public Health Director, or they are scared to speak out locally for fear of offending their republican patients. I'm in a Red state and the population of nurses and some doctors ignorance is astounding. Speaking with several doctors from around the country on this issue of education and training, most admit they did not receive adequate Public Health fundamentals as a part of their med school nor residency.
This stuff is taught but some ppl have belief systems that are cultist and therefore unreachable. My wife was an RN the same time I became a CNA. (I helped her with her nursing studies, and was no stranger to working as a para-professional in free clinics in the '70s New Orleans & India.) Nurses must take CEU courses and even CNA's get in-service training.
However, there is discord on beliefs. During the AIDS pandemic, I was vocal in the local press and my wife & I often wrote Op-Ed letters in tandem. (I wrote them but the byline was always Brenda Boyte RN & Rob Boyte CNA) We wrote against the prevailing fear where politicians wanted mandatory testing (useless considering the window period for antibodies at the time and your next hi-risk behavior).
We briefly subscribed to a magazine in 1994, "Revolution - the Journal of Nurse Empowerment" but found the supported the stance that health care workers should all be tested for HIV, so that patients could decide if it was safe to have them providing care. Well, because of discrimination against HIV+ ppl, the laws made that diagnosis "superconfidential" and we as well as the ANA were against mandatory testing/disclosure for this disease. The mag got a lot of pushback from nurses including us and we dropped the subscription (as well as nursing schools) and got our money back. The "Nurses" like FL Gov. Ron DeathSantis, never changed their erroneous, useless & wrong stance and doubled down on it.
So, with some ppl, facts don't matter if the facts go against their cult belief system (or political posturing with the idiot voters).
True. I am sad to have to post so many 😣 faces. But I am also glad for all the activist work you and your wife have done. I, too worked at a free clinic in the early 70"s, when I was a nursing student. I told my favorite nursing professor, Dr. Henrietta Eppink, all about it, and she toured the clinic then set up a regular rotation of nursing students to help staff it! Dr. Eppink, in 1971, drove a VW Beatle, and always parked at the farthest corner of the parking lot, in rain, sun, snow or sleet. A model for environmentalism and health as well.
Its interesting that in 1918, there was a HC worker shortage because of WW1 mobilization. There was also slow communications and censorship, so no one knew there was a pandemic. Today, there is a shortage of HC workers because many are burnout or even refuse to work in high risk places anymore, mostly due to too patients have too much misinformation and wrong information that is moving too fast for people to make common sense of it, only making it worse.
There are actually courses, such as microbiology, that cover many of these topics. public health is a required course in BSN level education. What I don't understand is the people who have passed state boards refusing the vaccine. Wilful ignorance.
It's a cult of willful ignorance and they meet on FB. I too cannot comprehend how one could get through nursing school, tough anywhere, pass the state boards, also no picnic, and not get in line for a vaccine.
The nursing program here and many places are inadequate. (Im not bashing all nurses nor ALL nursing programs). Our nurses need more Public Health awareness, Pandemic History, immunology 101, Vaccine 101. We had nurses holding house party's with upward of 70 to 100 people in their houses for birthday party's etc during the shut downs and in defiance of Shelter in Place orders. We have far too many nurses listing to the TV and FB, that are anti vax, that are telling their friends its not that big of a deal. It is absurd.
Idaho. and our vaccination rates are as low as the southern states less than 40%. Our state Epidemiologist just released a report that doesn't paint pretty delta future. No one is listening to her. Only two school districts in the entire state have mask mandates. It is as if the Pandemic is over for 75% of the state. Idaho's coming disaster will be in the news soon.
8/6/21 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will require all of its roughly 2.2 million health care workers and long term care workers to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 30 as the nation's most populous state is losing ground in the battle against new infections of a more dangerous coronavirus variant.
Great news, MaryPat! I did write to our Chief Clinical Officer today to express my support in making the vaccine mandatory at our hospital system, and also to suggest making the viewing of the informational meeting Vaccine Facts and Fallacies mandatory as well. We have numerous annual mandatory compliance things we have to view and test on that have nothing or little to do with clinical care. I don't see why this shouldn't be one of them. If they have it be voluntary, the people that most need to hear it, those that are dead set against vaccination, aren't going to bother.
The only statement our completely clueless governor has made about all this is that "Mask mandates aren't a good idea." At least he hasn't gone as far as DeSantis and tried to basically outlaw them. He'd get a LOT of push-back from mayors in Atlanta and Savannah, who've defied him before.
You betcha! And a few others in overwhelmed rural places with tiny hospitals too. They figured Kemp wasn't going to bother with South Georgia, not enough votes down there. If I remember correctly they were right.
I'm very proud that my sister, a nurse, ran the COVID vaccination program in Fairfax County VA. I'm so sorry about your client's daughter, and that because of her you have to quarantine. You're definitely entitled to your rage. If I were running the show, I'd mandate vaccines for everyone who lacks a good medical reason for avoiding them.
That's awesome, David. She must feel so gratified to have the opportunity to do that. She really made a huge difference! I worked in our hospital's employee vaccination clinic once a week for the first three months and it was one of the best things I ever did. These were people who had already decided and gone through the process so I didn't have to convince anyone really, but in some you could sense the doubts, the hesitancy. The very first person I vaccinated was a late 40s PT who made it very clear right off that she was only there for her elderly mother's sake. I validated every reason everyone had for being there and did my best to soothe every frayed nerve. We laughed a lot and had a lot of fun. Mostly people were so relieved to be able to get the vaccine, they were overjoyed to be there.
Thank you Beth! Both about my sister and for your work in the vaccination clinic. I'm sure my sister is very gratified, although it was so much work that she was glad when it was over. She was working much longer days than in her regular nursing job.
I was among the relieved and overjoyed when I got vaccinated. I can still feel the smile that was on my face the day I got my second vaccination (Pfizer). (April 13)
Beth, I read your "rant" with a tremendous amount of empathy AND shared rage. I had my own recently departed mom in my mind the whole time I read your comment. She graduated nursing school in 1944 and worked as an RN until she retired in 1986--having served the last 9 years as director of nursing at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center here. She was old school to the max, and was VERY highly regarded by doctors and staff here as a "damn good nurse". (One very old doctor (hitting 90) actually came to her funeral service and kept telling me how they always knew that when "Mac Sellers" was running things, they knew there was nothing to worry about.) In her book, "old school" meant that the care and comfort of the patient was HER primary responsibility. It was "hands on" in a way that isn't done now to much degree. Call it TLC, call it "bedside manner", but the last few times she was in the hospital she noticed and bemoaned what she saw as a lessening of quality, compassionate care from nurses. It was interesting when she would talk to the nurses charged with looking after her--and certainly after they learned exactly WHO she was--they would come in and want to talk with her because she was this "living history book" of nursing. Nurses who would come to the house a couple times per week for home care would end up just talking to her. They were fascinated by her. ("Your mom is AMAZING!!") She also did not mince words, nor suffer fools gladly. I KNOW in my heart of hearts she would be infuriated at the state of things if medical personnel did not take proper precautions to ensure patients' (and colleagues') safety. I remember she said so many times since Covid showed up how glad she was she did not have to deal with something like that, and I know her heart went out to the people on the front lines of this pandemic. I'm pretty sure she would have little patience for medical personnel not getting the vaccine, and I'm sure she'd have been the first to want to make them mandatory. I can just hear her! "Then find some other field!..." or words to that effect. She trusted science implicitly--she remembered in medicine then being among the first users of penicillin and how they thought then it was nothing short of a miracle. Same with other vaccines. I guess it's a generational thing, maybe, but I still cannot conceive of the mentality of putting yourself and your loved ones, AND YOUR PATIENTS in such danger. Were my mom here, she'd be solidly behind every word you said! These old nurses were a hardy lot!!
Thank you, Bruce, for sharing your mom's story. I loved it! To tell you the truth, those old time nurses scared the hell out of me as a new nurse, but I learned more about how to organize myself as a nurse on a busy maternity unit from a crusty old nurse (who raised 5 boys while nursing full time!) on the graveyard shift than from anyone else. And as a patient delivering there myself, I knew that while she didn't have the gentlest bedside manner, I wasn't going to bleed out from a postpartum hemorrhage on her watch! She didn't miss a trick.
I, too, felt nursing was a 'calling.' After 40 years, I no longer recognized the profession in the profit-taking enterprise of "healthcare.' Had to leave. Love your Mom!
Bruce, you must be close. My wife and I were/are frequent flyers at Northeast Georgia. In Gainesville, before all the additions and after, and Braselton. I have left a lot of tissue in both places....
My son in law is the acting director of security for the whole system, and when that gig ends this fall he’ll go back to supervising over at Braselton. He volunteered for the Graves Detail there, rather than endanger any of his officers, so I am very proud of him. If you ever need a name to drop, see me....
Cool! Almost no one is around from when my mom was there. A couple of the medical center top brass did show up at her service, which was very thoughtful, but almost all the doctors she worked with are long gone. She really was considered one of the last links to the old Hall County Hospital days...when she went there in 1956/57 it had all of 90 beds (they added 57 beds in '58) and maybe 20 doctors. Ambulances ran out of Little & Davenport Funeral Home. The whole system has really changed over the years. Fortunately *touch wood*, I've never been in the hospital here (that may change by the end of the year...), so I don't think I'll have any need to drop any names...at least I hope so! Thanks!
All kidding aside it's killing me that healthcare professionals are still vaccine hesitant at this late stage.
1. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines started on 3rd base with the initial testing. The mRNA part had a long history of testing. Adapting it for COVID-19 was like tweaking an existing formula. It was tested before going live.
2. We are now 160 million vaccines given. A few side effects have cropped up, but EVERY vaccine/medicine has some side effects.
3. Final approval is right around the corner.
It's reasonable to be hesitant when there's not a lot of data but there was a lot of data with the rollout and now there's 8 months of post rollout data proving no big problems.
A lot of the hesitancy is due to people not wanting to be told what to do by the person who won a free and fair election by 7M votes and who are exerting the only thing they have left: their precious white privilege. Just a variation on the mindset behind Jan 6 imho.
Exactamente. I participated in a local school board meeting before 50,000 students return to school tomorrow (brick and mortar, no remote learning option open) and thought I was in an alternate universe. Of course masks and mandates and adult tantrums were on full display.
Oh yes. This board has also initiated a “moment of silence” to start each school day in every school in the county. It begins tomorrow. Participation expected by all in spite of separation of church and state since it’s “silent”.
As Gus said, an excellent summary and pretty much what I've been saying to vaccine hesitant people for months. I've been vaccine hesitant myself in years past so I get it. But 8 months in now we are way beyond reasonable vaccine hesitancy. Now it is just stubborn obstinancy pure and simple.
Love your MIL. Mass Gen was THE nursing school back in the day.
I graduated in 74 with a BSN, got an MA at Teachers College, Columbia, and a doctorate from USF. I think the ignorant young nurse, and all the others like her who are refusing the vaccine, need to have their licenses challenged. Clearly, there is a deep knowledge deficit regarding infection control (IC). IC is one of the most difficult subjects to teach as it involves things one cannot see without a microscope. However, IC and prevention is core curriculum for nurses. Clearly, this person didn't get the message.
I share your outrage at these so-called 'health care workers' who deny protection to their families, people who are patients, and their community. Inexcusable ignorance. One of the first lessons we teach in nursing school is that the nurse must care for her/him self. Otherwise the nurse cannot care for others. Basic.
Rant coming, and I'm aware that I'm preaching to the choir.
The NYT has a recent opinion piece titled What to Do with your Covid Rage. I'm too angry to even read it. My anger is all that's keeping me moving and from falling into despair.
I am a fully vaxed RN and also LMT. I saw a fully vaxed client last week , close contact obviously, and both of us wearing masks, a practice I reinstated recently as I kept hearing about "breakthrough cases". That evening, she called to tell me her adult daughter who lives with her and is an RN at a hospital but refused vaccination, had tested positive. My client tested positive the following day. Now here I sit, ranting to you, instead of the activities with others I had planned for my week. I'll lose a good chunk of income from this quarantine but the worst is not being able to visit with my son, DIL and grandson as planned for the first time in two months (you see where some of the despair comes in).
This is not the fault of immigrants, nor the CDC, nor Biden's administration as Faux would have us believe. This is the fault of a spoiled. entitled, ignorant young woman who, despite having become a nurse, has shunned science, and accepted conspiracy theories as a personal practice. Not only did she refuse vaccination, but in the face of rising cases and a dangerous variant, did nothing preventively to protect her parents at home from sharing the virus with them. No mask, no distancing. I imagine she would defend herself by saying, "Well, if the vaccine is so great, why do I need to do any of that?"
I've been thinking a lot about my mother in law. Dot and I did not always see eye to eye. She may even have voted for Trump in 2016 as she had come to increasingly refer to Obama as a socialist. But she was rightly proud to be a Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing graduate and worked as an RN her whole life. She and her colleagues worked like slaves as students at the hospital with no gloves, cloth masks, no protection against needle sticks. She felt nursing as a calling and was devoted, not in a smarmy way but a smart way, to the best possible patient care. She thought critically about things and didn't often hesitate to tell a doctor what she really thought or was afraid was going on with a patient. She nursed before a polio vaccine. I remember talking about universal precautions when I became a nurse in the early years of the HIV epidemic and she said, "you can't tell from looking at who you think your patient is whether they carry a dangerous infectious disease in their blood or body fluids or respiratory tract; we don't know what might be there that hasn't even been discovered yet.". She was a thinking nurse who cared at least as much about her patient's well-being and the public good as her own health and that of her family. She understood that her family's health was tied to the health of the community. She died in 2017 and she would be so appalled that nurses are turning away from what evidence has shown us is a safe, effective vaccine against serious illness from Covid, because they believe, against all evidence, that it might be worse for them than the virus itself. That it's all about them, not the patients, not the 60+ parents, not the public's health, is what she wouldn't be able to comprehend. She suffered no illusions about humanity and she cared for the ridiculous as well as any other patient. But that RNs all across the country could behave this way, that would be shocking to her. I wonder what she would have done with her Covid rage.
Your "rant" is what so many of us are feeling lately. I am so sorry that you, having done the right thing, have to go through this. Let's turn your rant into action. I have scaled back my letters to the editor and to my senators/congressman because I live in Florida, and they don't give a damn about what I think. My congressman, Gus Bilirakis, just sent out his weekly newsletter saying that hordes of immigrants are coming across the border and infecting us. So, let's all change our message. Let's "rant" to the paper and to the congresscritters and governors about how these unvaccinated and uncaring individuals, including nurses, are now causing US to lose our liberty and prevent us from doing the things we want to do.
I've just sent off an email to my father in law to invite him to join me in writing a LTE (a registered republican his whole life, he took a deep breath and voted for Biden) along the lines of my rant, or at least giving me permission to invoke his wife's name if I'm correctly guessing about how she would feel. He is enraged that people aren't getting vaccinated. He got his first shot the same day I was able to as a first responder, January 30, just before his 82nd birthday. Can't wait to read his response.
I just got an email from the hospital I work for. They're hosting a voluntary (sigh) virtual town hall for STAFF, not the public, to discuss "Vaccine Facts and Fallacies". I have a premonition this is a precursor to making the vaccine mandatory, as our friendly competition, Dartmouth-Hitchcock, announced last week they would be doing. I think they're hedging their bets that the FDA is going to confer full authorization on Pfizer within the month, and Moderna close behind. After that it will be much easier for them to insist on a mandate. Hopefully it will still make a difference at that point. Sometimes I feel like we are perpetually too many steps behind.
YES to your letter to the editor! Your MIL would be so proud. And, sadly, yes - the powers-that-be have been perpetually too many steps behind.
My workplace is doing the same and I’m hoping for exactly that reason. I was shocked to hear we’re not all vaccinated. Great idea about your letter ❤️
Interestingly, I learned at an ADA seminar that the EEOC allows businesses to mandate vaccines verification or regular testing. But they cannot force an employee to take a vaccine given by the business. They can request copies of the vaccine card given in the community. Little bit of a distinction, but noteworthy.
Good for Darmouth-Hitchcock! Glad they balked NH’s motto “Live Free or Die”. I had a physical exam there in 1990, so different than the old one in Hanover, where I made several visits in the mid 60s.
The whole idea that immigrants in Texas (who are tested, and quarantined if positive) could be causing infection spikes in Florida is worse than insane, it's homicidal, because it works against unvaccinated people realizing in time that they made a mistake and getting vaccinated.
Meanwhile, as I sit here in MA finally able to socialize a bit more, my vaccinated grown daughter is on vacation on the beach in Miami of all places. She could reasonably point out that she has no more virus exposure there than at her restaurant job at home, where she works with and around folks who are unvaccinated and unmasked. So I'm going to be even less social from when she gets back to when she gets a negative test result...
It reminds me of a little card my Dad used to have in his home darkroom: If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs, maybe you don't understand the situation.
Joan, I appreciate your dad's saying, never heard that one before. An early rendition of "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention"???
My vaccinated daughter also works in a restaurant, tiny little indoor place with outdoor seating as well in good weather. They've forgone the masks the last couple months and I said to her last night (she lives here) that she should really go back to it, no matter what others are doing. There's substantial community spread and such is the guidance for crowded indoor public spaces. And a lot of tourists from all over, and no one checking vaccine status at the door. Some days lately I feel like it's just a matter of time.
My adult son with special needs was working at a restaurant before the Pandemic hit. He was set to go back this summer since he was vaccinated but being indoors with people unmasked, even if he wore as mask, was a no for me. Can't take the chance as he is still high risk and the milder cases are where they see long Covid cases.
Dr. Fauci is certainly freaked out about it, and I really listen to that guy.
Dr. Fauci is my hero, for so many reasons!
A modernized variation, to reflect current reality, of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If". https://poets.org/poem/if
Thanks for the link. Still working on that manhood thing....
Great idea, Annette! SInce I have plenty of free time suddenly this week, I'm on it.
I always appreciate a reminder to channel my rage. 🙏
Thanks for articulating this so beautifully. My mom was a science and math teacher. Her best friend, of more than 70 years, was the Dean of the Nursing school at the University of Minnesota. Both of those women are spinning in their graves at the hubris of all who put politics and ignorance over the health of the rest of us. I wish there was a way to summarily fire medical personnel who walk away from science-based public health requirements!
There is a way to fire them. Mandate all personnel who care for the sick to be vaccinated and fire them when they refuse. They can all join a hospital that doesn’t require vaccinations and we must all stay away from that hospital. The mayhem that ensues at that facility will be a testament to the refusal to accept the science. Delta will see to that. None of this is “right” or satisfying for us but we have to protect ourselves so we can get to the other side of this nightmare.
Good idea - and that hospital can specifically cater to unvaccinated people with covid.
I am always astounded to hear of health care workers unvaccinated. Not only endangers those whose job it is to help heal but it gives fuel to the anti-vax as a reason to be wary of the vaccine. My neighbor's husband is head of infectious disease at our local hospita and her daughter an infectious disease ER doctor. She went to her doctor at that same hospital and was treated by a male Black nurse who was unvaccinated. She very politely explained why it was important for him to to be vaccinated and he could help others in his community to stop the spread of the virus and he was receptive to her talk and thanked her. He said he was totally unaware of a lot of what she said. Of course she was horrified with this being a hospital health care worker and went straight to her huband and they set about getting information and talks out to the workers. This was earlier this past winter and they are the only hospital I know of that has a pretty high vaccination percentage. This seems like such a basic given....
Oh. My. Gosh. After I read these comments and knowing that my husband is having a procedure at the local hospital tomorrow, I jumped up and phoned them for reassurance. Guess what? No vaccine mandate. WHAT? The girl told me that of course they mask and use appropriate protections and the majority are vaccinated. I said, "MAJORITY?!" I'm upset, for sure.
Prayers are on their way, Becky.
I'm glad you called them, Becky. They need to hear that their patients are thinking and concerned about this. Interestingly, in the beginning of the pandemic, I heard a lot of people saying they were afraid to seek care because they didn't want to get Covid - from other patients! It never occurred to them to be worried about getting it from their providers, who they trusted would be using lots of PPE and precautions. We were all in the same boat back then, no vaccine. Now that the vaccines are widely available, we assume providers have done as they should to protect themselves from patients and vice versa. But too large a chunk of them have not and it needs to change and fast. Best of luck to your husband tomorrow. All you and he can do now is be vigilant about how well they use PPE with him and take pictures of anything you see that is concerning. VT has one of the best vaccination rates in the country so there's that!
Thank you, Beth.
Some hospitals do. One in Houston took the lead. Now government agencies are following suit, such as Los Angeles County at least requiring routine testing in lieu of vaccination.
Houston Methodist system.
And they beat the unvaccinated employee's lawsuit!
The new religion: instead of confession before one can partake of the eucharist.
Thanx for the rant. I can feel the rage at the abject ignorance around us. I get angry every time the idiot, mass murderer governor of Floriduh, Ron DeathSantis is on TV spouting his unsubstantiated bullshit, then I get more upset that I am YELLING at my TV.
Go ahead and yell and let off steam. I enjoy throwing my slipper or flip flop at the TV also.
This is day 18 of my own quarantine after having been probably exposed to the Delta Variant while being tested for Covid by an ER nurse who was unvaccinated and whose mask did not cover her face. I was fully faxxed and this would have been a "break through." My "friend" was also fully vaxxed, but even though he too was probably exposed, he continued to barhop night after night in crowded venues. So, not only have I been in isolation for all these days to prevent the spread to others, I have ended a five year relationship. Your comment resonated with me so much. It's not so much that he was ignorant (his own mother was an RN and he knows better) but that he was "spoiled" and "entitled" and put other lives at risk. I could not condone that or tolerate it. I share your rage!
"This is not the fault of immigrants, nor the CDC, nor Biden's administration as Faux would have us believe. This is the fault of a spoiled. entitled, ignorant young woman who, despite having become a nurse, has shunned science, and accepted conspiracy theories as a personal practice. Not only did she refuse vaccination, but in the face of rising cases and a dangerous variant, did nothing preventively to protect her parents at home from sharing the virus with them. No mask, no distancing. I imagine she would defend herself by saying, "Well, if the vaccine is so great, why do I need to do any of that?"
Oh, Ellen, I'm so sorry. And I applaud your courage and convictions. One of the hardest things for me about all this is to watch how otherwise good people make terrible selfish choices that don't make any sense. And the unfairness of it all. You and I and millions of others are doing all the right things, likely even overdoing some of it, while millions are throwing all care for others, even those they purport to love, out the window in the name of personal freedom, as if that is the gold standard by which we ever aspired to live. I'm coming to believe more and more that unfettered personal freedom is incompatible with life, but as they say here in the Granite State, Live Free or Die. I guess they really mean it.
Certainly Sunono does, given that he signed the Medical "freedom" bill (I'm a NH resident too.)
Barbara, I know you're part of the KSC, right? I'll be looking forward to hearing what they have planned to prevent him taking Senator Hassan's seat!
So sorry, Ellen. Layers of adding insult to injury. And layers of your losses... May our regard for your righteousness help heal your losses. And of course may your wise precautions keep you healthy--a relative term in today's world!
Clearly, you are a person of ethics. Honor and blessings!
😔
Thank you! My rage comes from my wife of 50 years and 15 days being murdered by the last administration. I am on day 6 of quarantine myself, from a rogue caregiver who -- after switching planes 3 times and 4 different airports -- violated company policy and came into my home the next morning, untested and unmasked.
Only a call from the company telling her to get out prevented her from spending the whole day. I may have killed myself by letting her into my house.
I am so sorry for your situation as well; at least I'm not losing wages as you are....
Gus - heavens to murgatroid! What a horrible situation. I'm so sorry about your wife. That is a heavy, heavy loss. That caregiver should be drawn and quartered, but only after being tarred and feathered! There aren't words for that sort of behavior. A deathly threat to you and a huge liability for the caregiver company. Shout it from the rooftops! At 6 days, have you been tested yet? I'm waiting til day 5-6 unless I develop symptoms. Holding you in steady healing light and please keep us posted on your status and well-being.
Thank you Beth. It was company policy to test all employees returning from vacation. The director called within 20 minutes after she tried to clock in by phone, asking if she had been tested. When she said no, the director told her to "get out of there." The caregiver told me she HAD been tested when I asked her the same question at the door. I asked her to wear a mask, so she went back to the car and got her excuse for a mask. It kept sliding down to her chin because the elastic was worn out. Her nostrils were like a double barrel shotgun pointing at me!
The company had the right policy, and did the right thing. I blame myself this time.
Gus, the caregiver lied to you. Do not blame yourself. If we can't trust our caregivers we can't have a relationship with them. It's on the company to provide plenty of appropriate PPE. In the beginning it was hard to come by but there is NO excuse for that now. I'm glad the director was on top of things, as much as she could be from afar. They should do surprise inspection visits too.
I second everything Beth says, including the condolences about your wife. Must be hell to lose a spouse unnecessarily, after 50 years of marriage.
That is unbelievable, Gus!! I hope you'll be okay.
When a workman showed up at our house a few months ago unmasked, I asked him where his mask was. He said,"I'm not sick." I told him he could be a carrier and infect me and would he please get a mask or I'd give him one. After he inspected our roof, gave me the estimate, and left, I told my husband, "We're not going to give that company our business." And we didn't. Later the company emailed me asking our decision. I told him we weren't going with the company because of the masking incident. End of conversation. I wonder if the company even cared it didn't get our business.
I've noticed more and more that people are being willfully ignorant. They have just stopped following the news or thinking about safety or risk mitigation. If you mention the term "viral load" they look like deer caught in the headlights. They were good for a year but they are done worrying about it or they just don't understand the limitations of the vaccines. One of my friends sent me a comic that said, "Covid is the new IQ test."
I am sorry about your loss. I would rage too.
Best of luck to you, Gus. It’s feeling like the wild, wild, west these days
Oh, I am so sorry! That is absolutly horrific.
I was trying to show some empathy by including bits of my story, and as usual, I received more than I gave, so Thank You to everyone for your empathy and encouragement. This truly is a great community, and this truly is a hot topic. I am becoming so aware of what all of us are going through, and your examples of humanity give me an shot of strength!
Oh, Gus, that's awful!
I am so sorry for what you are going through, and share that "YOU DARE TO CALL YOURSELF A NURSE" frustration and anger. Healthcare workers, though, should never have had a choice whether to get the vaccine or not. Public Health Codes must be Public Health LAW: enforceable across the board. She should have lost her job.
You know what else scares me, MaryPat? That someone so clueless, so incurious, so non-thinking, so selfish is taking care of patients. Covid aside, I would be terrified to be sick in the hospital, dependent on others to evaluate and respond properly to my condition, if there were nurses like her on my team.
Yes, terrifying. And deadly. The American Nurses Association reported in May that 83% of nurses surveyed had been vaccinated against COVID-19, and recommended that ALL healthcare facilities require vaccination as a condition of employmen:
https://www.nursingworld.org/news/news-releases/2021/ana-supports-mandated-covid-19-vaccinations-for-nurses-and-all-health-care-professionals/
Thank you, MaryPat.
Thank you for your rant, Beth. Your mother in law was spot on and so are you. I am sorry your client's daughter has decided jeopardizing those around her is more important than protecting them. You are in my thoughts.
Thanks, Daria, much appreciated. Be safe yourself.
My heart goes out to you Beth. Pinellas County FL, where I live, has a current positivity rate of 18.47% according to the CDC (Florida public health posts lower numbers, and hides most data). This is the highest positivity rate since Covid began. We are also experiencing the highest hospitalization rates ever. Masks mandates, vaccine requirements, and reduced capacity are now forbidden in our state. Madness.
If the R's were really only against *requiring* masks and vaccines, and they valued human life, they would mount campaigns to get people to wear masks and get vaccinated voluntarily. They do not. All the evidence says they are in favor of increased infections and deaths.
I believe some good investigative journalist could put together some data that proves this. Hope someone gets on it quickly
I wonder what percentage of the population are retired and wealthy. Hitler euthanized the elderly and stole their inheritances.
Oh.
😡😨😣
And now we find out GOP states are intentionally increasing morbidity and mortality due to Covid as a political game to try to make Joe Biden appear like the Pandemic failure of TFG. People dying. Political theatre. 😳😳💔 https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/ballad-ceo-rising-covid-19-inpatient-numbers-and-pediatric-icu-patients-may-cause-er-delays/
I was reading Tara Parker-Pope's piece in the NYT about updated guidance for the fully vaccinated. A commenter from Texas - of all places! - stated in sorrowful polite terms what she could only have heard on Faux : that it's Biden administration's fault for following CDC guidelines in June that vaxed folks could go without masks, along with those vaxed folks "mixing" with the unvaxed, causing the Delta which she said was discovered in India in March and quickly spread here (uh, more like December but you got the second half right) and then mutate! The only redeeming thing about her comment was she mentioned that the media scared her family so much about Delta that they did rush off to get vaccinated - they had been waiting for more data! So it's all the fault of the CDC, Biden, we vaccinated and the media. I ripped her a new one.
Excellent. A little of the old "Verbal' unanimity."
Political theater with a fatal curtain call.
GQP madness is killing our country, our children.
And this may just be the saddest thing of all 😢
Political murder.
I hear you Beth! I think one of the things that has to change, is adding basics of immunology, epidemiology, and fundamentals of Public Health in our Nursing Schools and Medical Schools. They need more training and pandemic preparedness. We need to pay them more when they have taken these courses. Health Care workers at every level need to be aligned with Public Health officials. Otherwise they are vulnerable to the demagoguery lead lies that are prostituting as leaders and policy.
Actually, we had such training in 1991, when I took my CNA course. We trained with LPN's stopping short of their particular skill practice, but all the beside care is the same. It actually depends on the individual and how much they absorb of the training.
In the hospital, I alerted Infection Control of 2 possible nosocomial problems, which they remedied. (IVAC electronic thermometer with a red & blue probe and inch apart when Clostridium dificile was rampant. And, sharing blood pressure cuffs on an oncology unit with immuno-suppressed patients - with Candida in their armpits)
This from a CNA, the lowest in the Medical Practice hierarchy.
Thank you for your service AND for keeping the IC folks informed!
(I'm a retired RN of 47 years experience.)
Barbara, if you haven't already, would you consider contacting Concord Hospital and letting them know that as a retired RN (maybe from there???) and community member, you want them to make vaccination mandatory for CH employees? It sounds from your other comments like you're aligned with this idea ;-)
I even had some public health in my Army medic training, on the off-chance that as an infantry medic I might be the only medical personnel in a town or village. Water supplies, waste disposal, infection control. Air, direct contact, and 'fomites.' Primary inoculation portals: eyes, nose, mouth, wounds. I have never forgotten that training.....
The CNA, closest to the person as patient, most knowledgeable of the person in the bed. Most important team member!
We do teach these critical public health topics in all nursing schools, along with requiring observation in community health agencies for the ADN level, and community health experience for the BSN level. Nursing instructors also follow specific criteria for evaluation of students which include ethical standards and critical thinking skills. I fear in these times of nursing shortages and con man presidents, those standards may not be enough.
Hardly, and not enough, and I don't mean as a topic, I mean as a graduate level course in order to get that nursing or medical license. These schools have proven inadequate in teaching Public Health and have failed in pandemic response. There should be no debate with a HC worker about vaccines, mask mandates, and testing. Around me is a population of nurses and a few doctors that believe Fox News and their FB feed over their county Public Health Director, or they are scared to speak out locally for fear of offending their republican patients. I'm in a Red state and the population of nurses and some doctors ignorance is astounding. Speaking with several doctors from around the country on this issue of education and training, most admit they did not receive adequate Public Health fundamentals as a part of their med school nor residency.
This stuff is taught but some ppl have belief systems that are cultist and therefore unreachable. My wife was an RN the same time I became a CNA. (I helped her with her nursing studies, and was no stranger to working as a para-professional in free clinics in the '70s New Orleans & India.) Nurses must take CEU courses and even CNA's get in-service training.
However, there is discord on beliefs. During the AIDS pandemic, I was vocal in the local press and my wife & I often wrote Op-Ed letters in tandem. (I wrote them but the byline was always Brenda Boyte RN & Rob Boyte CNA) We wrote against the prevailing fear where politicians wanted mandatory testing (useless considering the window period for antibodies at the time and your next hi-risk behavior).
We briefly subscribed to a magazine in 1994, "Revolution - the Journal of Nurse Empowerment" but found the supported the stance that health care workers should all be tested for HIV, so that patients could decide if it was safe to have them providing care. Well, because of discrimination against HIV+ ppl, the laws made that diagnosis "superconfidential" and we as well as the ANA were against mandatory testing/disclosure for this disease. The mag got a lot of pushback from nurses including us and we dropped the subscription (as well as nursing schools) and got our money back. The "Nurses" like FL Gov. Ron DeathSantis, never changed their erroneous, useless & wrong stance and doubled down on it.
So, with some ppl, facts don't matter if the facts go against their cult belief system (or political posturing with the idiot voters).
True. I am sad to have to post so many 😣 faces. But I am also glad for all the activist work you and your wife have done. I, too worked at a free clinic in the early 70"s, when I was a nursing student. I told my favorite nursing professor, Dr. Henrietta Eppink, all about it, and she toured the clinic then set up a regular rotation of nursing students to help staff it! Dr. Eppink, in 1971, drove a VW Beatle, and always parked at the farthest corner of the parking lot, in rain, sun, snow or sleet. A model for environmentalism and health as well.
😣
Its interesting that in 1918, there was a HC worker shortage because of WW1 mobilization. There was also slow communications and censorship, so no one knew there was a pandemic. Today, there is a shortage of HC workers because many are burnout or even refuse to work in high risk places anymore, mostly due to too patients have too much misinformation and wrong information that is moving too fast for people to make common sense of it, only making it worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrNIFZ-TlJw&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2OjgDRbnmkujH0EfrDnYxOJld5OrTO2T7AIRBvy1xqNLG-wYBR62tvuhg
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=630714347721666
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/children-are-dying-of-covid-at-an-alarming-rate-in-indonesia/articleshow/84747251.cms?fbclid=IwAR1qL89kZBRNb47Rdoi0V4wvbdmhCDkPhMEwn2sxkCxE20oxe0EVsLXfGk0&from=mdr
There are actually courses, such as microbiology, that cover many of these topics. public health is a required course in BSN level education. What I don't understand is the people who have passed state boards refusing the vaccine. Wilful ignorance.
It's a cult of willful ignorance and they meet on FB. I too cannot comprehend how one could get through nursing school, tough anywhere, pass the state boards, also no picnic, and not get in line for a vaccine.
I don't know how anyone who looked through a microscope in microbiology can refuse a vaccine. Infuriating.
The nursing program here and many places are inadequate. (Im not bashing all nurses nor ALL nursing programs). Our nurses need more Public Health awareness, Pandemic History, immunology 101, Vaccine 101. We had nurses holding house party's with upward of 70 to 100 people in their houses for birthday party's etc during the shut downs and in defiance of Shelter in Place orders. We have far too many nurses listing to the TV and FB, that are anti vax, that are telling their friends its not that big of a deal. It is absurd.
Sounds like Bedlam. Idiocy unlimited. Idaho?? gonna be hell to pay off that karma...
Yeuup. It’s gonna get bad here.
Where the hell are you that your nurses are so off the rails?
Idaho. and our vaccination rates are as low as the southern states less than 40%. Our state Epidemiologist just released a report that doesn't paint pretty delta future. No one is listening to her. Only two school districts in the entire state have mask mandates. It is as if the Pandemic is over for 75% of the state. Idaho's coming disaster will be in the news soon.
"Well, its eight o'clock in..." but its a lot of Republican's doctors and dentist too.
And we have several doctors and dentist spouting off Scott Altas's bs.
What Rob said.
8/6/21 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will require all of its roughly 2.2 million health care workers and long term care workers to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 30 as the nation's most populous state is losing ground in the battle against new infections of a more dangerous coronavirus variant.
Great news, MaryPat! I did write to our Chief Clinical Officer today to express my support in making the vaccine mandatory at our hospital system, and also to suggest making the viewing of the informational meeting Vaccine Facts and Fallacies mandatory as well. We have numerous annual mandatory compliance things we have to view and test on that have nothing or little to do with clinical care. I don't see why this shouldn't be one of them. If they have it be voluntary, the people that most need to hear it, those that are dead set against vaccination, aren't going to bother.
Excellent Work Beth!!! Yes to both!!
The only statement our completely clueless governor has made about all this is that "Mask mandates aren't a good idea." At least he hasn't gone as far as DeSantis and tried to basically outlaw them. He'd get a LOT of push-back from mayors in Atlanta and Savannah, who've defied him before.
You betcha! And a few others in overwhelmed rural places with tiny hospitals too. They figured Kemp wasn't going to bother with South Georgia, not enough votes down there. If I remember correctly they were right.
I'm very proud that my sister, a nurse, ran the COVID vaccination program in Fairfax County VA. I'm so sorry about your client's daughter, and that because of her you have to quarantine. You're definitely entitled to your rage. If I were running the show, I'd mandate vaccines for everyone who lacks a good medical reason for avoiding them.
That's awesome, David. She must feel so gratified to have the opportunity to do that. She really made a huge difference! I worked in our hospital's employee vaccination clinic once a week for the first three months and it was one of the best things I ever did. These were people who had already decided and gone through the process so I didn't have to convince anyone really, but in some you could sense the doubts, the hesitancy. The very first person I vaccinated was a late 40s PT who made it very clear right off that she was only there for her elderly mother's sake. I validated every reason everyone had for being there and did my best to soothe every frayed nerve. We laughed a lot and had a lot of fun. Mostly people were so relieved to be able to get the vaccine, they were overjoyed to be there.
Thank you Beth! Both about my sister and for your work in the vaccination clinic. I'm sure my sister is very gratified, although it was so much work that she was glad when it was over. She was working much longer days than in her regular nursing job.
I was among the relieved and overjoyed when I got vaccinated. I can still feel the smile that was on my face the day I got my second vaccination (Pfizer). (April 13)
Beth, I read your "rant" with a tremendous amount of empathy AND shared rage. I had my own recently departed mom in my mind the whole time I read your comment. She graduated nursing school in 1944 and worked as an RN until she retired in 1986--having served the last 9 years as director of nursing at the Northeast Georgia Medical Center here. She was old school to the max, and was VERY highly regarded by doctors and staff here as a "damn good nurse". (One very old doctor (hitting 90) actually came to her funeral service and kept telling me how they always knew that when "Mac Sellers" was running things, they knew there was nothing to worry about.) In her book, "old school" meant that the care and comfort of the patient was HER primary responsibility. It was "hands on" in a way that isn't done now to much degree. Call it TLC, call it "bedside manner", but the last few times she was in the hospital she noticed and bemoaned what she saw as a lessening of quality, compassionate care from nurses. It was interesting when she would talk to the nurses charged with looking after her--and certainly after they learned exactly WHO she was--they would come in and want to talk with her because she was this "living history book" of nursing. Nurses who would come to the house a couple times per week for home care would end up just talking to her. They were fascinated by her. ("Your mom is AMAZING!!") She also did not mince words, nor suffer fools gladly. I KNOW in my heart of hearts she would be infuriated at the state of things if medical personnel did not take proper precautions to ensure patients' (and colleagues') safety. I remember she said so many times since Covid showed up how glad she was she did not have to deal with something like that, and I know her heart went out to the people on the front lines of this pandemic. I'm pretty sure she would have little patience for medical personnel not getting the vaccine, and I'm sure she'd have been the first to want to make them mandatory. I can just hear her! "Then find some other field!..." or words to that effect. She trusted science implicitly--she remembered in medicine then being among the first users of penicillin and how they thought then it was nothing short of a miracle. Same with other vaccines. I guess it's a generational thing, maybe, but I still cannot conceive of the mentality of putting yourself and your loved ones, AND YOUR PATIENTS in such danger. Were my mom here, she'd be solidly behind every word you said! These old nurses were a hardy lot!!
Thank you, Bruce, for sharing your mom's story. I loved it! To tell you the truth, those old time nurses scared the hell out of me as a new nurse, but I learned more about how to organize myself as a nurse on a busy maternity unit from a crusty old nurse (who raised 5 boys while nursing full time!) on the graveyard shift than from anyone else. And as a patient delivering there myself, I knew that while she didn't have the gentlest bedside manner, I wasn't going to bleed out from a postpartum hemorrhage on her watch! She didn't miss a trick.
Those old nurses were dragons full of knowledge! And, typically, a sly humor.
Great description, Kim!
Sly humor! Yes!
I, too, felt nursing was a 'calling.' After 40 years, I no longer recognized the profession in the profit-taking enterprise of "healthcare.' Had to leave. Love your Mom!
Agree, it's very hard to be even at a not for profit hospital and see the decisions that get made from on high. Lots of admin, not enough providers.
Truth!
"Profit-taking enterprise of 'healthcare'." I am borrowing that.
Feel free, my sister.
Bruce, you must be close. My wife and I were/are frequent flyers at Northeast Georgia. In Gainesville, before all the additions and after, and Braselton. I have left a lot of tissue in both places....
My son in law is the acting director of security for the whole system, and when that gig ends this fall he’ll go back to supervising over at Braselton. He volunteered for the Graves Detail there, rather than endanger any of his officers, so I am very proud of him. If you ever need a name to drop, see me....
Cool! Almost no one is around from when my mom was there. A couple of the medical center top brass did show up at her service, which was very thoughtful, but almost all the doctors she worked with are long gone. She really was considered one of the last links to the old Hall County Hospital days...when she went there in 1956/57 it had all of 90 beds (they added 57 beds in '58) and maybe 20 doctors. Ambulances ran out of Little & Davenport Funeral Home. The whole system has really changed over the years. Fortunately *touch wood*, I've never been in the hospital here (that may change by the end of the year...), so I don't think I'll have any need to drop any names...at least I hope so! Thanks!
You betcha.
So tell us how you really feel!
All kidding aside it's killing me that healthcare professionals are still vaccine hesitant at this late stage.
1. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines started on 3rd base with the initial testing. The mRNA part had a long history of testing. Adapting it for COVID-19 was like tweaking an existing formula. It was tested before going live.
2. We are now 160 million vaccines given. A few side effects have cropped up, but EVERY vaccine/medicine has some side effects.
3. Final approval is right around the corner.
It's reasonable to be hesitant when there's not a lot of data but there was a lot of data with the rollout and now there's 8 months of post rollout data proving no big problems.
A lot of the hesitancy is due to people not wanting to be told what to do by the person who won a free and fair election by 7M votes and who are exerting the only thing they have left: their precious white privilege. Just a variation on the mindset behind Jan 6 imho.
Exactamente. I participated in a local school board meeting before 50,000 students return to school tomorrow (brick and mortar, no remote learning option open) and thought I was in an alternate universe. Of course masks and mandates and adult tantrums were on full display.
Oh yes. This board has also initiated a “moment of silence” to start each school day in every school in the county. It begins tomorrow. Participation expected by all in spite of separation of church and state since it’s “silent”.
God help us.
Oh mon dieu! Heaven help ya'll! The new swamp fever in FL is going to crash that state to the ground.
As Gus said, an excellent summary and pretty much what I've been saying to vaccine hesitant people for months. I've been vaccine hesitant myself in years past so I get it. But 8 months in now we are way beyond reasonable vaccine hesitancy. Now it is just stubborn obstinancy pure and simple.
A great summary that I am stealing from you!
I give it to you, stealing is bad Gus. ;-).
Love your rant, Beth. "You can't tell from looking..." is spot on. Women named Dot are extra gifts to those of us who get to have one in their life.
You’re so right, Lynell! My mother was Dorothy. I used to love when her siblings visited, and I got to hear her called Dot.
Love your MIL. Mass Gen was THE nursing school back in the day.
I graduated in 74 with a BSN, got an MA at Teachers College, Columbia, and a doctorate from USF. I think the ignorant young nurse, and all the others like her who are refusing the vaccine, need to have their licenses challenged. Clearly, there is a deep knowledge deficit regarding infection control (IC). IC is one of the most difficult subjects to teach as it involves things one cannot see without a microscope. However, IC and prevention is core curriculum for nurses. Clearly, this person didn't get the message.
I share your outrage at these so-called 'health care workers' who deny protection to their families, people who are patients, and their community. Inexcusable ignorance. One of the first lessons we teach in nursing school is that the nurse must care for her/him self. Otherwise the nurse cannot care for others. Basic.
Deep empathy for you and your family, Beth.
Yes, kimceann, this, exactly.
Michigan State University, '74.