“Very frustrating”: doctors and nurses fight virus skeptics

Kansas Mission-Treatment of the sick and dying is not the hardest part for nurse Amelia Montgomery. Coronavirus Soaring in her corner of red America.

It deals with patients and relatives who do not believe the virus is genuine, refuse to wear a mask and demand treatment such as hydroxychloroquine. Donald Trump Despite experts saying it has no effect on the tragedy that killed more than 210,000 people in the United States

Montgomery, like many other doctors and nurses, finds himself in a world where crisis politics complicates treatment efforts, and some are even resisting being tested.

It’s unclear how Trump’s fight against the virus will affect the situation, but some doctors aren’t optimistic. After being treated in a military hospital for a few days, the president tweeted on Monday. “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life …. I feel better than 20 years ago!”

After one tough shift at the Coronavirus Unit at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, Montgomery visited Facebook and patients who were not socially distant because they did not believe the virus was genuine. I have resolved my dissatisfaction with taking care of my virus. The hospital later shared her post on its website.

She complained that some people demanded the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine and thought that the only patient who really got sick was at the root. health problem.

“Most people don’t understand or imagine what we’re seeing. It was frustrating for all of us,” Montgomery said in an interview. “It’s worn. I’m doing it. “

The fight against virus skeptics is a battle across the country.

At the University of Augusta Medical Center in Georgia, visitors sought to circumvent the mask requirement by wearing a face cover made of a material with visible holes such as mesh. This is what hospitals call “malicious compliance.” People also have video cameras. In an attempt to collect evidence that the virus is a hoax, Dr. Philip Cool said. health The system’s chief medical officer who saw two staff members die after being infected with the virus in July.

“When you are caring for your staff who have died of this illness, when you are trying to keep yourself safe, when you are trying to keep your family safe, and when you are trying to deal with such an illness. Imagine. Nothing is known, so after dealing with it all day, let someone say it’s all hoax. Imagine the emotional pain it causes. “

He said most skeptics, including those who discussed him on Facebook, would convert to believers when he became ill. And he has begun to hear that fewer people have completely rejected the virus since the president was diagnosed.

“It’s a shame that the president got sick, but it’s hard for a group to support him to be there saying it doesn’t exist,” he said.

But he also said he was afraid that what happened to Trump might lead people to the wrong lessons about the seriousness of the disease: “When reality is a risk to 74-people. May presume that the risk of 74 years is low. 1 year is quite high. “

Dr. Beth Oller, a doctor’s husband and family medicine practitioner in rural Rooks County, Kansas, has an increasing number of cases, many resistance masks, and a community of hundreds of weddings. So I’m not optimistic when the president’s diagnosis changes significantly. The number of guests has been held in the last few weeks.

“None of what he did did a little help us because he had it, and would rather fly in the face of it,” she said, when he returned to White. House said the president immediately took off his mask: “All he did was keep showing people that what we were trying to do was exaggerated and overreacted. As a doctor. , That’s very frustrating. “

This issue has been a challenge in the Red States for months.

In Iowa, visiting nurse Lisa Dokkari was fired from her job of caring for a boy with severe disabilities after discussing with her parents that COVID-19 was a “hoax.” According to state unemployment records, parents refused to wear masks around Dokkari and the boy, but his son had respiratory problems and was dependent on tube feeding and could not walk. Said that his life was at stake.

The case ended with a judge ordering her former employer to pay her unemployment.

Dr. Gary Leroy, president of the American Academy of Family Physiology, points out that there have been many denials as the Spanish flu is sweeping the world, and it is not surprising that it is not so difficult to persuade the public. Said. Tens of millions died a century ago.

“Looking at human history, it happens in every situation,” he said. “In war, famine, and illness, there is a population of people with bombs falling around them, and they don’t think it exists.”

Dr. Brad Bermeister, an emergency physician at Bellin Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said he encountered several patients who refused to be tested for coronavirus despite their symptoms.

“They say they don’t want to be stats or some kind of rhetoric like that,” he said, adding that he thinks a shift might come given what happened to Trump. It was. 19 is how easy it can be to spread. Even if you take all these precautions, you can still get infected with the virus. “

Phoenix’s family doctor, Dr. Natasha Buyan, said politics often emerged in discussions with patients asking if the death toll was rising.

“It’s both an information demic and a pandemic,” she lamented.

Dr. Jay W. Lee, a family doctor in Orange County, California, recalled a patient who requested “the largest hydroxychloroquine prescription you can give me.”

“If I hadn’t put on a mask, he would have seen the agape in my mouth,” said Lee, director of the Share Hour Self clinic, and a few patients said, “This is a hoax. I said that. “

He turned to social media and found himself meeting with leaders elected to fight some of the misinformation.

“I think part of that is that I just feel I can’t sit down and take it because silence is an accomplice,” he said.