Jimmy Kimmel returned this week from his “summer vacation.” He left his show in late June and returned after Labor Day, with guest hosts filling in for him through July and August. Kimmel – like Howard Stern – spent his summer feeling pretty angry about the state of America. And like Stern, Kimmel pretty much said that if you’re an adult who chooses not to get the Covid vaccine, you shouldn’t get a hospital bed when you get Covid:
In his return to late-night television after what he described as “a weird summer,” Jimmy Kimmel stopped laughing when he reflected on Labor Day weekend in which coronavirus cases were up by about 300 percent compared with the same time last year, when there wasn’t a vaccine.
After noting how Anthony S. Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden, warned that some hospitals might be forced to make “tough choices” on who gets a bed in the intensive care unit, Kimmel quipped Tuesday that the situation was not difficult. The ABC late-night host then turned his attention to unvaccinated people who’ve clamored for ivermectin — a medicine long used to kill parasites in animals and humans that has soared in popularity despite being an unproven covid-19 treatment that health officials have warned against using to prevent or treat the virus.
“That choice doesn’t seem so tough to me,” Kimmel said. “Vaccinated person having a heart attack? Yes, come right in, we’ll take care of you. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo? Rest in peace, wheezy.”
He added, “We’ve still got a lot of pan-dimwits out there.”
Right-wingers and Republicans are big mad about Kimmel’s remarks. They’re so mad, they’re screeching on Twitter about… um, their right to die in a hospital bed after refusing to be vaccinated. Anyway, I agree with Kimmel, the same way I agreed with Howard Stern. It’s hard to find sympathy for people who want to die unvaccinated to own the libs.
His “pan-dimwits” rant starts at about the 2:20-minute mark:
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Hard agree. I’m tired of it all. The loud and unvaccinated don’t give a flying f*ck about anyone else but themselves so they should have to live with their choices.
If they are hospitalized, their insurance shouldn’t cover it. You want to assume the risk? ASSUME ALL THE RISK. You’ll bankrupt your family for a generation.
Delta announced an increased health insurance premium of $200/month for unvaccinated employees and a bunch of airlines won’ be paying for time off due to exposure/quarantine/COVID recovery as well as putting unvaccinated staff on unpaid leave
💯 This is where it’s at. Make it expensive to be anti-vax.
Anti-vaxxers are fine with gambling with other people’s lives, but put their own money on the line and the game will change.
I totally agree. I work in healthcare. Patients are allowed to enter the hospital and receive treatment even if they refuse to wear a mask. The executives say “they deserve the same treatment as everyone else”. The healthcare workers that are actually providing that treatment strongly disagree! I had a patient that kept pulling the mask down when I turned away and after repeatedly asking him to stop I finally put the supplies down and said “sir, I can no longer provide your care because you keep taking your mask off”. I turned and walked out as he yelled “sorry I’ll stop”. There are no consequences for their actions. Let the executives come and provide that care because I’ve had it. It’s a matter of mutual respect and I don’t have to be subjected that bs.
Rose, I’ll back your right not to treat these inconsiderate assholes 100,000%
“It’s simply a matter of mutual respect.” Period.
I’m giving you a round of applause in my kitchen because I am too much of a luddite to know how to make the clappy hands. It is about mutual respect!
Folks, I have you beat. I had a doctor appointment a month ago, weeks after the CDC advised mask wearing indoors. I went to the office and NO ONE was wearing a mask. I am talking about staff and patients. I was wearing a mask and asked the nurse practitioner and her med school trainee to mask up when they came into the room with me. Upon leaving I gave them a piece of my mind as politely as I could. These people have been my and my children’s providers for about 15 years. One week later I had to see an urgent care facility after hours for a UTI. Again, no masks. I asked the nurse to mask up in the room with me and she seemed put out and said “I will try to find one.” They had some at the front desk for patients, if desired. The Dr came to the room and I again asked him to mask up. He was also put out, but put one on, but not pulling it over his nose. I gave up at this point. I wrote the facility a review online me telling all this and they put a reply of “blah, blag, without going in to the debate about masks, we reviewed our policy, blah, blah.” I. AM. SERIOUS.
Thank you all for the support. Hugs emoji
confused…so they believe “My Body My Choice”—AND professional medical care regarding non-preventative issues?
HMMM……
My husband was telling me today that about a someone he knows that’s family members refused the Covid Vaccine, are now in the hospital… and started a go fund me to pay for it! I can’t believe the audacity of people!
Can I send them negative money? For God’s sake!
Love it!
That’s what the wife of the guy who led the anti-mask movement in TX did. She’s a stay at home mom with 3 kids and one on the way, and her anti-mask husband got COVID and will or has already died from it. She started a GoFundMe. I cry for those kids, but that woman has some kinda balls asking people to pay her bills when they refused to vax and mask.
And her dumbass husband probably spread it to many other people too.
@lucy2 I read that he waited until the absolute last minute to go to the hospital because he didn’t want his hospitalization to prove that the anti-vax, anti-mask movement was wrong.
So, yeah, think of all that spread.
Some of the anti-maskers are real assholes about it. They take their masks off to speak and refuse to cover their noses. I’m glad you set your boundary in the example you gave and really sorry you’re in this position. The C-suite executives shouldn’t be deciding who does and doesn’t get care, but this is always the way. They don’t mind throwing all the healthcare workers into the line of deadly fire, because it’s not their skin on the line.
I’m a healthcare worker. I wish the unvaccinated would voluntarily choose to abstain from coming to the hospital when they decline from covid.
Yes. There’s always a Go Fund Me happening especially when one of them dies.
That’s some nerve, ppl have a lot of audacity 🙄🙄
You have to be careful about this logic because it can be turned on anyone, but…I do think it’s going to get to the point where doctors will have to make these decisions. They’ll have to triage based on likely outcomes and resources available. Some hospitals already are at that point, to be frank. People with curable conditions are dying due to COVID eating up beds.
The bigger question is how insurance companies aren’t taking the obvious path of suspending payments for non-vaccinated patient hospital stays. Or just raising premiums for them.
I am with you on the higher insurance premiums. You smoke? Higher premium. No Covid vax? Higher premium.
In Colorado we are not (hospitals) overwhelmed, which makes the anti vaxers even more anti vax unfortunately. I would agree that the doctors should make the call for the vaxed individual who is more likely to survive as protocol. I am exhausted having to be surrounded by these idiots.
YYes! Look at how organs are donated. If there’s a smoker and a non-smoker, the non-smoker gets the lung. Heavy drinker? No liver transplant for you.
Exactly. I was saying in the other thread that the hospitals will soon get to the point where they will HAVE to choose who gets a bed and I think the vaccinated will go to the front of the line because they have a better chance at recovery.
Exactly. This is the way. You can’t possibly put more pressure on doctors, nurses and hospital administrators right now and make them choose who gets care and who doesn’t. That’s not how doctors think and it goes against everything they believe in. Also, people will lie and say they were vaccinated.
But if they can’t show proof of vaccination to an insurance company, that could definitely change some minds.
“People with curable conditions are dying due to COVID eating up beds.”
This is the crux of the matter for me.
If we had plenty of care to go around, it wouldn’t even be a question. I’d advocate for equal treatment of vaxxed and unvaccinated. But that’s not where we are at. Our health care system is failing, and some people are intentionally causing that systemic failure.
Yup! 1M % agreement with this. Said the same on the Howard Stern thread.
They want to be unvaxxed and take their chances? Fine. They get sick? Stay home or see their local Vet’s office.
Vets have enough stress, they don’t need these idiots banging on their doors.
I agree. I have had enough of these people. THEY are responsible for the nightmare we are living at this moment.
ITA with him.
I’m surprised it’s taken this long to be said. These anti-vaxxers are prolonging the pandemic and putting other citizens at risk. I’m sick of these stupid, hostile “people” spouting what they heard on FauxNews as facts. I’m sorry, but I’ve had it. Biden needs to make it mandatory in order to get on a plane, use public transport, or go to a hospital – and help the front line workers who have to fight with these unhinged “free” Americans. Rant over.
Well, he’s right.
Again this is the big flaw with these statements. Some people are still unvaccinated because of circumstances and not by choice. Do they not deserves beds too?
I’m living in an area where the vaccines are not readily available. You search and there are 2 locations. You go to either and they do not have the first dose in and the second dose is being held. They will not receive the first dose again until all second doses are gone.
Everyone needs to remember unvaccinated does not mean you are anti vaccine
They aren’t going after those who cannot get vaxxed, they’re going after those who choose to not get vaxxed.
No one ever has said that those who can’t be vaccinated for legitimate medical reasons are the same as those who won’t be vaccinated because of the FreeDUMs.
That doesn’t make sense. The first and the second dose are identical. The only change is to your immune system.
1st dose is different from the 2nd dose and the pharmacy is doing them in order.
Where are you that this is happening?
A very rural area of Maine.
On the vaccine map there’s a pop up location at a vacant store front and a local grocery store pharmacy that are listed to get the vaccine.
At both locations they are waiting for the 1st dose to be sent and it’s leading to much frustration and concern for the elderly.
I’m unvaxed, but am not anti-vax. I love masks and social distancing. I have an autoimmune disease and my endocrinologist has some concerns about how my body might react to these vaccines. That being said if I go to a hospital and have to get in line behind vaxed people , that seems fair to me.
You can’t get vaccinated, that’s completely different from refusing to get vaccinated because you’d rather take medication used to treat an animal full of parasites, you think the government or Bill Gates finds you so fascinating that they’re micro chipping you or whatever other foolishness enters their heads. You should be treated if you get sick. I’m totally with giving people who are vaccinated and people who can’t get vaccinated ICU beds and treatment or dolts who are being willfully ignorant. Idaho and Hawaii are rationing treatment because of these fools. Someone who doesn’t need to die might die because of this. I’m over coddling them. Let the insurance companies give them high deductibles and don’t send me any gofund me links either.
I find it hard to believe that there is any shortage of vaccines anywhere in the US at this point. Every major retail pharmacy has them, hospitals and county health departments have them, and at most places you don’t even need an appointment anymore.
Well, everyone DID have it and then the demand dropped off in a lot of places so they stopped carrying it because it expires pretty quickly. So lots of rural areas don’t have it on hand anymore.
I understand you probably don’t want to specify exactly where you live, but I thought the vaccine is available free at every hospital and every Walmart and Walgreens and CVS in the US. Maybe in the more remote areas it’s harder to access?
I know this is late and probably won’t be seen, but I agree with everyone calling nonsense on this one. You’ve clearly been given faulty information.
https://tinyurl.com/5mtvsh28
Sorry, accidental repost.
I call B.S. there is no difference in the two injections, they are the same contents.
As someone in the medical industry this mindset is sickening. This isn’t how medicine works. Should people suffering from a drug overdose be left to die because they “did it to themselves”? Should those who chose not to get a flu shot just suck it up and die if they get the flu? Heck if a murderer comes into an er suffering a gunshot wound, medical professionals will do every thing in their power to save them. All human beings should be treated and their bodies respected, regardless of the broad spectrum of their personal choices. The medical profession should not play judge and jury and it is dangerous for the mob to claim they should.
I agree with what you say about drug overdoses. But this is a global pandemic and people not getting vaccinated is what is stopping us from getting a handle on this. People are actively spreading this virus and refusing to protect themselves and OTHERS. So I do not care if they get turned away from getting treatment.
Yeah, I get the anger and frustration behind kimmel’s remarks, and emotionally I feel the same. But we can’t base medical care on the personal choices of the patient. We don’t advocate for refusal of medical care to drunk drivers, to someone who isn’t vaccinated against measles or chicken pox and then gets sick, to someone who didn’t get the flu vaccine, etc. Doctors and nurses cannot make those decisions and we don’t want them to, frankly.
Your logic is not logical, frankly. Covid is unlike anything else that you mentioned, it is a global threat.
Generally I agree that this is a problematic mentality. The problem now is that doctors do have to pick and choose because there is scarcity of care. People are being turned away because of a lack of resources and so we ARE in a position where filtering has to be done. Once you’re in that unfortunate position, then what do you do? How do you decide who to prioritize for care? How do you decide who to turn away? Once you’re at THAT point then it seems like a factor that should be taken into account. If you are forced to choose between two people, should you really have to choose the person who refused to get vaccinated? It’s devastating that we are at this point.
How is it not logical? I get that COVID is a global threat and that’s why I said I understand the feeling behind the Kimmel’s remarks, and I think most here feel the same, but that’s not how the system should work and that’s not how it does work.
It reminds me of the quote from West Wing with Abby Bartlett – “you treat the patient in front of you.”
@Kate, I know, its devastating, so that’s why I said I completely get the anger and frustration. If you aren’t willing to get vaccinated and do your part to get us out of this? Then no, you don’t get that hospital bed. I get that sentiment completely so I don’t need people telling me WHY they feel that way. I feel that way too emotionally. But practically? No.
As for prioritizing care – I’m not a doctor or nurse so I don’t know how they are handling it. I’m assuming though its based on how sick someone is, which does mean that the unvaccinated will be the ones in the hospitals.
@Becks1 I meant to respond to the original poster on this thread.
Becks1 and 2coolstrawberry, I agree with you on the principle of what you’re saying. I know it’s ugly to feel like the unvaccinated should be turned away, but given that states like Idaho are hitting crisis care standards I worry about NOT sending those who are able but refuse to get vaccinated to the back of the line.
I live in Washington and our hospitals are filling up with patients from Idaho because so many of them are unvaccinated. I’m diabetic and fat and I worry every day that something will happen to me and some medical professional might think that my chances of survival aren’t high enough to warrant a bed. Now I’m lucky in that most of the medical issues I have don’t require hospitalization, but I have relatives and friends for whom that is not the case.
When there is not enough care to go around and those decisions have to be made for one person or another, I think it’s completely fair to say that if you can safely be vaccinated and you choose not to, you get palliative care if the choice has to be made. I don’t think those who cannot safely take the vaccine due to medical reasons and those who are not old enough to be vaccinated should be treated the same as anti-vaxxers, though. Being chronically ill isn’t a choice; a healthy adult refusing a safe and effective vaccine is and the anti-vaxxers should be the ones dealing with the consequences of their own willful choices.
Hey, Becks 1. I can tell you how some hospitals are handling it. Close family member is a nurse in a large mid-western city. The facility was overrun by Covid last year. Zero beds and zero vents available. People in the halls needing care. No beds in a 2 state area. A man with Covid was sent home because he was not at a stage bad enough to warrant staying, according to protocols at the time. Next day the man’s wife drives him into the ER. There was absolutely not one medical personnel to get him from the vehicle or treat him in any way. The problem breathing had given him a heart attack. In the end they called TOD right there in the parking lot.
As a former nurse I say this.
It’s easy for anyone to think, but go into that position and you will find it difficult. I guarantee advocating for some to live and others to die because you’re frustrated with the vaccine situation will not be easy.
It’s easiest to provide care to those with the most life threatening of conditions.
This is a dangerous argument. What of the disabled? Do we take a bed from them for an able bodied person? Or the drunk driver does not get care because we dislike their actions.
We are promoting biases in caregivers. And that leads to a major can of worms and a betrayal of the oath.
Ugh. I need a break from here.
Biases in caregiving already exist. Triages exist.
This one might actually help not endanger healthcare workers, would help other immunocompromised people, make others not die in parking lots – as others have said, when drunk drivers and other examples like you mentioned become so burdensome that they are coming into hospitals multiple times refusing to improve to the point where the healthcare system is on the point of collapse, you may have a point.
I’m going to repeat this- the Hippocratic oath states prevention is better than treatment and emphasizes societal responsibility.
We are at a point where people with treatable illness are DYING because we can no longer provide basic standards of medical care. If we had the ability to treat everyone, this wouldn’t even be a question.
Can you really blame people for seeing the injustice of a purple heart recipient dying of gall bladder stones because no hospitals for hundreds of miles had any open beds? Do we not see the TRAGEDY of people dying from preventable illness because of the COVID cases?
I mean, to be brutally honest, we do that all the time. Doctors frequently have to make a decision about whether a patient is worth trying to save or whether you’re just prolonging pain and misery. People who have a history of drug or alcohol abuse are frequently banned from organ transplants unless they meet certain criteria. We have states passing laws barring women from abortions for any reason past six weeks. Then there’s the brutality of a capitalist based model where people who are lower income frequently have to choose between healthcare and cost.
I don’t know if it’s a policy anybody wants to implement, but I’m wondering if they’re going to HAVE to implement it at some point. It’s not just a matter of the likelihood that some facilities are already having to triage care to those they think are most likely to survive but just the fact that hospital workers are starting to burn out big time. It’s a credit to how many of them really are in it to help people that there haven’t been any major employee strikes. I’m betting one’s coming, though.
I understand your position and it is a dangerous line of thinking. That’s why I agree with @Becks1 that doctors and nurses shouldn’t make this decision – but insurance companies can. No vax, no coverage.
There needs to be a Federal Mandate requiring the vaccine, then no medical professional has to make any decisions.
Right now the decision is being made by the anti-vax’er. They are creating a situation where people with other serious illnesses can’t be hospitalized bc the hospitals are flooded with the unvaccinated who have needlessly contracted a life-threatening illness.
They are creating turmoil. They aren’t showing any respect or common decency towards the healthcare workers and their fellow Americans. So they are free – free to suffer the consequences of their inaction and dedication to their new-found beliefs (that they got from FauxNews).
IMO, If you’re anti-vax then you’re anti-ventilator as well.
Those issues are not contagious and transmissible through droplets/air/etc and nor are they easily massively reduced in danger by a couple of simple shots to the arm, so it’s not even the same.
The medical profession already plays judge and jury, plenty of nurses/doctors refuse to prescribe contraception/abortion which is life-saving to some, etc. I see no reason why the one situation has to continue but everyone who refuses a vaccine gets the benefit of the doubt.
And another issue that others seem to be forgetting is that these people *endanger* the health care workers too. Are the doctors and nurses who everyone wants to be magnanimous and saintly to everyone regardless of vaccination not allowed to speak up for their own rights??
And poor healthcare workers are burned out beyond belief after fighting this for a year and a half now. Just when things should be easing up and giving them a break, the opposite happens, unnecessarily. Many nurses are quitting outright and looking for another line of work.
I agree and got roasted in another thread for expressing this. It’s so complicated, but it boils down to healthcare being a human right, even if a person’s choices are abhorrent to me.
it is not a basic right here in the US.
I know it isn’t in the US. That’s a huge part of the point – it should be.
So the anti-vaxxers right to medical care trumps those who don’t have covid but need medical care??? because that’s what is currently happening and that to me is whats totally unethical…Cancer patients, car crash victims, heart attacks etc their “right to medical care” is being trampled on by the anti-vaxxers who have a medical solution (vaccines) but are refusing it.
That’s not what I said at all. Everyone deserves medical care in a timely fashion according to their needs. Everyone, even when their choices show a complete disregard for others. Everyone means everyone.
Ok, but you are assuming that we don’t also believe that. I am sure most of us do (although the Republicans who make up the bulk of these hospital cases usually don’t ironically enough). However, the issue is not a question of if everyone always deserves medical care because in a perfect world that we don’t live in, they would. It’s if they deserve medical care reflecting the situation at hand which is very limited resources, skyrocketing infections, unsustainable effects for international travel/economy/what have you, very real harm being done to those who have other illnesses and needs. And given the situation at hand, it makes sense to triage the patients which already occurs in hospitals anyway.
And I’d argue most of these unvaccinated people are already refusing medical care to themselves by not getting the vaccine. So the onus on the limited healthcare providers to do something they won’t do for themselves posits a bit of a problem in my eyes even if it’s more philosophical than otherwise. This is not a long arduous process like many situations of managing your health are (weight management, quitting substances, etc). This is a shot or two.
“Everyone deserves medical care in a timely fashion according to their needs’
***The US no longer has the ABILITY to provide medical care in a timely manner!!!!***
What part of “over capacity” are people not understanding!?!?!?!
People are DYING from TREATABLE illness because they can’t get BASIC CARE because COVID patients are overwhelming hospitals.
Sorry, if you are an American or live in the USA saying that this kind of choice would be unfair or unethical is just very hypocrite. You live in a system where someone who is not covered by a private insurance can be left to die at the hospital’s door (thousands and thousands of stories), and where someone can be bankrupt by needing basic cancer treatment. That is inhumane and merciless!! That’s what a medical professional mostly does in the USA without any moral problem. So, actually doing some necessary triaging based on the unwillingness of someone to take care of themselves and their surrounding by taking a vaccine (obviously for those who can), would be the less of their ethical problems.
As someone who is a human being in America, your mindset is sickening. You think willfully unvaccinated people who are consciously spreading disease and death around our communities deserve care that is very unlikely to cure them, and a vaccinated person who just happens to have had a serious car crash or other serious medical situation that they chose not to have doesn’t? Your argument is completely theoretical and divorced from the very present situation where these brainwashed willfully unvaccinated morons are devastating our healthcare system, dragging down our economy, and via themselves and their families abusing frontline healthcare staff daily. I call BS on your comment!
Kimmel’s turn towards the political came after the birth of his child with a heart defect, correct? That’s when he started taking aim at the cruelty of the US healthcare system. If I had children, I would currently be terrified about their contracting COVID, and would be unimaginably more so if my kid had a pre-existing condition that made him either more susceptible to COVID or likely to need treatment when all the hospital beds are taken.
It’s so depressing but not surprising to me that even the lives of children have so little value in this country. Earlier today I read a story out of Florida about an unvaccinated father who had “some regret” and that he “might” get the shot now that his also unvaccinated 15 year-old daughter had died.
As a medical professional you cannot choose to treat or not treat people based on their choices. Do we stop treating drivers who were drunk that were in car accidents, diabetics who choose poor nutrition, people who overdose? As a medical professional you are there to treat those who need it. You cannot simply refuse to treat someone because they make poor choices.
When drunk drivers, diabetics, smokers, drug addicts, etc. start clogging our ICUs so much so that someone in a car accident or someone who had a heart attack can’t get treated because there are no beds, then we can talk. But if that day ever comes, I’m cool with triaging in those cases.
Exactly. And all those people aren’t responsible for borders closing, entire economies being on the verge of collapse, etc.
Yes! And if there are two equal medical emergencies — one an anti-VAXer with a life-threatening case of Covid and the other someone who got vaccinated but has a life-threatening illness — The medical professional has to choose who to care for and it can’t be both in this scenario. As I mentioned up thread, If an alcoholic and nonalcoholic both need liver transplants, the non-alcoholic will get it. There’s only the one liver just like there’s only the one ICU bed.
In medicine, you triage all the time in emergencies. You have to make very tough decisions about whose care to prioritize based on their condition and chances of survival and recovery. Also, I don’t think it’s unethical to have a policy refusing care to unvaccinated patients if it causes an undue burden on other patients or the providers (such as taking all available ICU beds or putting other patients at higher risk). It’s triage, and it’s necessary.
That already happens! Organ transplants, triage of care, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
I don’t believe it’s I agree or I disagree. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve already gone through losing a family member who raved about no masks, no vaccines. He died in the hospital crying to his sons and his grandson how wrong he was, how embarrassed he was, how sorry he was, and made sure they knew they needed vaccines. It’s incredibly hard for me to have sympathy for idiots denying truth, facts, science and simple common sense. I’ve personally been screaming since this whole thing began, and for me to swallow, “I told you so,” is a very big ask.
I want to have compassion. I used to be extremely compassionate. But the past few years have changed all that, and it makes me sad to carry around this hate and unforgiving nature, but at the same time, I’m no longer quiet and complicit with stupidity, ignorance, and all the despicable ideals being shoved down our ears, our lives, our futures. So on one hand, for those finding themselves dying of a ‘hoax’ and crying tears of regret, I hear you. I’m sorry it took your death. But on the other hand, I say set up multi levels of parking lots for deniers and unvaccinated and keep them separate from the portion of society with brains.
Sick people, however, are sick people. Politics stays outside. And there’s no application for admission requiring a certain amount of brain cells.
I totally feel you MabsA’Mabbin. I don’t like most of the thoughts I’ve been having since 2016. And I do think triage needs to happen when there is limited resources. My 83 year old mom would be the first to take a bullet so a younger person can live….but it angers me that if she needs some minor treatment she may lose out to a 30 year old Covid denier. And I tend to be a ruthlessly practical person.
Totally with you! Buried cult45 family member, their moron “adult” child who work with the public still won’t get vaccinated. I’m all out of compassion and sympathy for these selfish morons. They and their bootlicking cheerleaders and apologists think we should somehow be sympathetic to them as they tear down our entire country and society with their death cult nonsense? NO NO AND NO!
Triage is one thing, but denying medical care, a human right, based on past personal choices is something else. What do we do about that vaccinated person walking in with a heart attack brought on by obesity and type 2 diabetes? The vaccinated car accident patient who had one too many beers? Aids patients?? Nah Im not comfortable with that level of dangerous, politically driven elitism.
The anti-vax don’t believe in medical research anyway, so why would they believe a hospital can help them? And “politically driven elitism” smells like conspiracy talk.
But in the US, we don’t believe that health care is a human right. That’s why Republicans are against universal health care. So once again, it’s “I don’t care what happens until it affects me.” By Republican logic, the people taking horse goo and vitamins should stay out of hospitals. They think Covid is a hoax, so why should they go to the hospital for a hoax? But they go rushing to the hospital when their essential oils and horse paste don’t work, and they harass and abuse the doctors and nurses, and expect to be given expensive treatments when they aren’t insured. So what is it? Is health care a right? If so, then we need to create compassionate and available universal care for all in the US. If not, then you get the treatment you can pay for, and you’re screwed if you can’t pay or won’t follow medical protocols. If you choose your own protocols, then own your choices and stay out of hospitals.
But they want it both ways. They want other people to be denied care, so long as they get the care they believe they deserve.
Ianne – 100% this.
THIS!
Exactly.
THIS
Medical care is going to be rationed based on bed availability, that’s a fact and happening now in Idaho (and perhaps other places as well). I can see the arguments for not withholding medical care but which is it, magats? Is it a hoax? If it’s a hoax, why are you running to the hospital for oxygen that you can’t possibly need from the hoax you didn’t catch because it doesn’t exist? I know of several magats who boast of being good Christians, “I’m ready to die if it’s my time.” Bull-snuggling-trish. They’ll run their butts to the hospital, too. Taking any and all treatments suggested no matter how experimental.
And so I don’t put the onus on the doctors but on the edge lords who think it’s NBD. If it’s NBD and it’s a hoax, ignore your labored breathing and have the good grace to deal with the consequences alone at home.
@Lanne Either we – and by we I mean progressives to the center left – believe healthcare is a human right or we dont. I understand the frustration, even the anger, but I stand by my ethics not the other guy’s. And although I chose to vax, I understand some are concerned about unknown longterm affects. Rejecting one vax isn’t necessarily a rejection of the entire medical system.
@Betsy In my liberal home state the majority of unvaccinated are poc. Given the history here, you could possibly sympathize with their hesitation?
Well said!
You can believe healthcare is a right all you want but keep the noise consistent because it’s not a right here and it is refused to people all the time. I’m not sure why this particular conversation about people making crappy choices is supposed to make everyone else the altruists when we are being endangered.
And again POC are not the ones overwhelming the healthcare system or the. majority of these hospitalizations and I would also venture that if you thought healthcare was a human right you’d have observed they get subpar medical care usually anyway which is part of the hesitancy. And yet as I said in another comment plenty of people in those communities still mobilize to encourage vaccination. This is not happening in the demographics of those who are burdening hospitals. Stop using POC hesitancy/lack of access as a shield for these other people.
Sadly, we have to deny medical care to someone. That’s where we are now. We SHOULD treat everyone, but we do not have the ability! This is truly a crisis folks.
Imagine if your father had a heart attack and couldn’t get care, or your brother has a gall bladder stone, or your mother gets into a car accident, or your child has an allergic reaction. Are you OK with your loved ones dying because an anti-vaxxer got COVID and is taking the last remaining ICU bed in your state?
Well, spoken from nurses/doctors, they will be spit on, coughed on, insulted by these patients who reject science and medicine but then also demand that they get top treatment, all the while sh***ing on the providers cos they don’t “believe” in them– even on their deathbeds.
…..Why let them in…?
The Herman Cain Awards on Twitter have been doing a great job of screengrabbing these idiots and one of them (who later died) had the audacity to call some of his health care providers fat in a derogatory way. I can’t even.
Well, that was a journey.
Some of them have walked out of the hospital totally pissed off (One of them still attached to an IV ) because they were told they had Covid but STILL didn’t believe covid was real. Consider that they were already feeling sick enough to go to the hospital. Healthcare workers pleaded unsuccessfully with them to stay knowing that the next time they saw them they would be arriving by ambulance.
They hate the doctors and nurses because they’re know it all elitists but also go to hospital when they come down with covid. They’re just truly despicable, dimwitted trash and I have no sympathy for any of these selfish assholes.
I understand the impulse but it’s not that simple. Of course as others have said that is not how medicine works and it is a dangerous game to play. But also here in Southeast Michigan many of the areas with the lowest vaccination rates are (often impoverished) African American communities. Their lack of trust in the vaccine has been fueled by generations of bad dealings with doctors and government. I have a lot of sympathy for that.
Texas is already denying women basic health care with their extreme abortion law. That is a women’s personal choice. So what is the difference in a hospital refusing care to an unvaccinated person who caught Covid?
THIS. Women have less body autonomy than corpses in Texas.
Dingdingding!
I’m a doctor in the frontlines of covid. To the people that have said you should not deny care to the obese patient with heart disease or the person who overdosed on drugs, that is true. You shouldn’t. Those people made poor choices and we have to help them. The difference with the lunatics who don’t want the vaccine because they don’t trust science is 1. If you don’t trust science for the vaccine, you shouldn’t trust science to save you when you get covid; and 2. Those people aren’t just making bad choices for themselves, they are putting OTHER people at risk (the ones who can’t take the vaccine, like the immunocompromised or children under 12). And by the way, while I wouldn’t deny them care, I must certainly judge patients who don’t want to follow doctors orders but still expect us to heal them. I have no sympathy for them. And I certainly have no sympathy for the antivaxxers who are prolonging this pandemic and causing actual deaths.
Also healthcare is not a right in the US, it’s a for profit business so spare me that talk.
Thank you for doing what you do. I cannot imagine the extent of your frustration.
Hi Val, I appreciate what you are doing and I know this can’t be an easy time to be medical professional. But I do want to flag that your language about “poor choices” is why a lot of vulnerable people choose not to seek treatment. I have chronic health issues (including diabetes and obesity) for a number of reasons, including PCOS, an overwhelming family history of insulin resistance, and an eating disorder. I try to take my meds as best I can, but I also have ADHD and so they get missed sometimes. Which one of those is my poor choice?
You say that you have no sympathy for them and as a patient I can usually tell when a medical provider thinks that. It makes me want to avoid you because I’m scared that you won’t be able to look beyond my “poor choices” and treat me with compassion.
I think Val is pretty obviously talking about the current circumstances which are extraordinary, not general medical care. Obviously doctors who have been overworked, not well protected, and emotionally and psychologically broken down by two years of ongoing crises at work are not going to feel much sympathy for the “poor choices” of 50% of people not getting a vaccine during a worldwide pandemic, talking crap about doctors conspiring against them, then overloading emergency rooms. Doctors are humans. I think that people forget this. We are not robots and we are not angels. We are trained, skilled professionals doing a job. There is such a thing as compassion burnout and that doesn’t somehow make us evil. Our job is not to make everyone feel super warm and fuzzy and appreciated all the time, our job is to treat you to the best of our ability and give you factual medical advice. Whether patients follow that is up to them.
@Another Anna Yes! I have PCOS, too, and… I’m fat. I spent YEARS engaging in very disordered eating and exercise practices and even then could only hit a so-called “healthy” weight if I was very restrictive and exercised a TON. PCOS is an endocrine disorder, not a choice, and it’s so frustrating to deal with constant questioning from medical providers and dietitians regarding my eating and exercise habits. Could I do better? Sure, and I’m always working to get stronger and fitter and eat even more nutritiously – but so could most people I know. The difference is that they’re not considered overweight, so no one’s judging them.
Emma J, it won’t let me reply to your comment, which is why I’m replying to my own comment. Val said “To the people that have said you should not deny care to the obese patient with heart disease or the person who overdosed on drugs, that is true. You shouldn’t. Those people made poor choices and we have to help them.” The phrase ‘those people’ sure seems like it’s referring to non-Covid patients.
I agree, doctors are skilled professional human not angels. Part of being a human is that you are not immune from bias. That bias can affect the quality of care a patient receives. That’s where my problem with Val’s comment is; it’s perpetuating the type of language that is used to reinforce bias against fat people and the chronically ill.
Another Anna: I said “those people” to specifically refer to those with health conditions not associated to the vaccine. It was in no way a slight to them. And I have no problem with someone who’s overweight or made any other unfortunate Health choice. The patients I have a problem with are the ones who constantly put down health professionals and refuse to let us help them, but still show up expecting to be healed. For example, a patient that refuses to take the medication you order for them at the hospital but complains that their blood pressure is still high and we’re not doing enough about it. Or who refuses surgery for no valid reason, but expects their health problem to magically go away. Basically unreasonable people with unreasonable demands. I wouldn’t count any of your health issues in that pool at all. It’s not your fault that you have PCOS or have an eating disorder. Anyone can occasionally fail to do what’s right for their health or have valid reasons to. Those are not the people I’m referring to in any way.
Two family members got covid, one in the hospital for the past week. They are so embarrassed and accustomed to being right about everything that they will not / cannot admit they might have prevented illness with masking and vaccination. They even suggested the hospital gave one of them covid during the testing, which is biologically impossible as the PCR test was positive within a few hours. They are so committed to their narrative and are doubling down on it, Even though the hospitalized one is really suffering and might die.
Such a waste and a shame. Dumb and Dumber.
My 83 year old VACCINATED neighbor who got a terrible case of pneumonia was sent home due to lack of space at our hospital. She absolutely should have been prioritized over those who chose to not be vaccinated. Luckily, she seems to be in the clear now and her two daughters are nurses and came to stay with her during this time.
HE IS 💯 % RIGHT
It’s evolution. People who’d rather take medicines for horses than a vaccine probably shouldn’t spread their genes. But to be serious – in Poland, my home country, people loooove suplements. There is one for everything, they are advertised like crazy in tv and people are so easily convinced the ad is saying truth that they are coming out of drugstores with bags full of „losenges for smokers’ cough” (one of the stupidest). But a vaccine that had to have full documentation for registration, underwent EMA assessment, its production and distrubution is regulator by pharmaceutical laws? Suddenly they are afraid to „put sth unchecked into their bodies”. There is no logic, it’s just bunch of people who love to fight and argue.
The medical ethics of this are dicey. I agree with Kimmel, Stern, et al, but I think this will remain wishful thinking and a collective revenge fantasy. It would be nice if doctors could turn patients away, but legally, I don’t think that’ll ever be possible.
You’d also have to determine whether you were dealing with someone who was unable to get vaccinated due to an allergy or other health issue, or an oppositionally defiant asshole who WILL lie to you. If they can try to falsify vaxx certificates, as they already have, you can bet they’ll also try to fake the required exemption notice from a doctor/immunologist. That would require a bit of time and effort, and they’re in a time-sensitive situation.
Doctors can legally turn away women who need abortions. It’s called a conscience clause. Why is this different?
Hadn’t thought about that, but I think there is a difference. Fauci seemed to think so when Anderson asked him about it.
When a doctor turns a woman who is seeking an abortion away, she may be able to go somewhere else, even at her own expense. There’s something of a safety net in Planned Parenthood. No such safety net exists with COVID. They could walk out of there and infect even more people before they die (if they do). That’s part of why the idea of being able to turn these dickheads away is so appealing, because it seems like an easy way to handle a situation, but it isn’t really, even if a lot of doctors are like, “F-ck these guys.”
Just googled, and the Hastings Center website has this to say about vaccines: “Allowing parents to opt out of vaccinating their children is ethically troubling because it can leave entire communities vulnerable to preventable diseases.”
So… I think this issue is less clear-cut. I really don’t know. I wish doctors could just tell them to bugger off and deal with it.
It’s entirely possible for a woman to be refused an abortion and have no other alternative because of the lack of availability of clinics that have transfer agreements to satisfy in many places. There is a secrecy of information as to where other clinics even are because life is made incredibly unsafe for anyone working in or around then or going to them. There is no such morality lens when looking at covid. There are no such barriers with that. And abortion isn’t even contagious. And yet it can still be refused at will.
Dang the poor poor victim anti-vaxxers is strong here today. Anti-vaxxers get their information from fake internet prophets, and then need to spread their fake info like it’s a virus. They are dangerous and selfish. Why should we suddenly feel sorry for them and give them access to the hospital before someone who has been vaccinated? The victim culture is extremely out of control.
AS A HEALTHCARE WORKER ALL I CAN SAY IS UNVAXXED IDIOTS ARE PUTTING THE REST OF US AT RISK. I HAD TO GO OFF WORK FOR A TIME BC OF THE UNBELIEVABLE STRESS IT IS BEING IN HEALTHCARE DURING THIS PANDEMIC AND UNVAXXED PEOPLE ARE SELFISH (if u choose to go UNVAXXED simply bc u believe stupid ideas) it’s insulting to healthcare workers quite frankly. Go read more conspiracy theories SMH
I’m disgusted by the number of healthcare workers who believe in such conspiracies. They need to find new jobs. They’re putting their fellow workers, who have a conscience, and everyone else around them at risk. So, so dangerous. Hope you are doing as well as can be expected in these circumstances.
Hospitals in my city are so overrun with anti-science unvaccinated covid patients that in ER triage, hospital staff are making the call that ICU beds don’t go to them unless there’s excess availability. They go to everyone else based on the fact that unvaccinated patients have a lower likelihood of survival, so resources should go to the vaccinated and those with a valid reason to be unvaccinated. Same goes for other resources as those become constrained. Severe unvaxxed Covid with complications from ODing on ivermectin won’t get you prioritized over someone who might be having a heart attack anymore.
This is fair and just, and I’m glad to hear it.