Giving Healthcare Workers the Respect They Are Due

Doctors, nurses and other hospital and ambulatory staff are tired—and risking their lives. 3,600 healthcare providers died last year due to COVID-19. According to Kaiser Health News, over half of these professional were younger than 60 years old. And, nurses died in far higher numbers than physicians.

Around California — and the nation — nurses are trading in high-pressure jobs for a career change, early retirement or less demanding assignments, leading to staffing shortages in many hospitals because of emotional turmoil wrought by COVID-19. Who can blame them for leaving their profession? They are sick-and-tired that this pandemic is still ongoing when it could be over—if more people got vaccinated.

They are also frustrated—and rightly so—that patients and their families are rude when they are voluntarily choosing to seek medical treatment.

It’s not uncommon for un-vaccinated patients, who get sick and end up in the ER, to scream at nurses, demanding ‘magic medicine’ and arguing that COVID-19 is not real…It is not uncommon for patients to yell at nurses and doctors for ‘making up’ a diagnosis of COVID-19, while they are actively dying right there.

At what point in our society did patients become rude and disrespectful to medical staff? Why do so many people feel that it is ok to yell at hospital staff?

And who thinks this is acceptable?

And yet, it happens all the time. Yelling, screaming, demanding is a form of societal breakdown of fundamental decency. And sadly, this phenomenon of absolute disregard for social niceties is not isolated to hospitals but, rather, found everywhere from grocery clerks getting yelled at for requiring customers to wear masks, to customers at gas stations getting yelled at for wearing a mask.

So, All Sick Patients/People, Listen Up:

1.      If you are sick and decide to come to the hospital, be patient: The hospital is full of sick patients and staff are busy.

2.      If you are sick and choose to get treated at the hospital, be respectful: The doctors and nurses are there to help you, so listen to what they say and respond with kindness and respect.

3.      If you are sick with chronic condition like diabetes or COPD, come to the hospital. If you experience a traumatic injury, like a fall off a ladder or bike, please come to the hospital: The doctors, nurses and staff are vaccinated against COVID-19 and it is a safe space.

4.      If you are sick and decide to come to the hospital and are not going to be respectful, stay home: The healthcare professionals do not need your bad attitude and disregard for their safety. They are already tired and stressed.

5.      If you are un-vaccinated and now sick with COVID-19, but decide to come to the hospital, you have two options:

a.       Consider staying home: The hospital is much too busy with other un-vaccinated people to take care of more un-vaccinated people.

b.      Apologize to the medical staff for being a burden on the system: Since now you decide to use science and medicine to save yourself, the least you and your family can do is to apologize to the staff for utilizing hospital resources that are in short supply. And, the least you and your family can do is to be kind, say ‘thank you’ a lot, and when (if!) you get discharged from the hospital, convince all your unvaccinated friends and family to get vaccinated.

How can nurses and doctors be ‘our heroes’ when patients yell at them? Or when patients demand un-proven treatments? Or when patients threaten them for speaking the truth about COVID-19? If we really see them as our heroes, then wear a mask, get vaccinated, deploy basic manners like saying ‘thank you.’

Imagine how lovely it would be if citizens showed common courtesies like saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to nurses, doctors, teachers, supermarket attendants, gas station workers, and, everyone else encountered on a day-to-day basis. It would be a breath of fresh air.

To the healthcare providers, who really/actually do put their own wellbeing aside very shift: I salute you and say, ‘you deserve so much better.’

Let’s all give our healthcare professionals the respect that is due.