There is a lot of animosity out there for the so-called anti-vaxxers, those adults who refuse to accept the COVID-19 shots. Apparently, they are the ones who are now filling up emergency rooms and hospital beds in the Interior Health Region, which is now officially in the fourth wave. This to the detriment of scheduled surgical patients, who are having much needed surgery (Is surgery ever not much needed?) delayed because of a lack of hospital beds. I have even heard of cancer patients having surgical interventions delayed. The end result there is patently obvious, even to us lay people.

I have heard it said—by generally nice people—that if anti-vaxxers turn up at the hospital with COVID 19, they should be refused admission. It is their fault they have COVID. So let them deal with it. At home. Alone. Without the medical assistance that they decided not to accept, when they voluntarily and sometimes aggressively refused the vaccine. I tend to agree with this thinking.

Sure. It seems an easy thing to say that people who, with no medical reason, refuse to be vaccinated, have signed and sealed their own death warrants. So why provide them with our health care services?
And certainly worse than being stupid these people are threatening the health of the rest of us. They are the ones now spreading the Delta variant so broadly. (Don’t know about you, but I am back to wearing a mask in public places, even though it is no longer mandatory.)

Then, it occurs to me that a lot of people requiring hospital care have perhaps brought their condition on themselves. Or at the least contributed to their condition.

Do we refuse to treat the patient in liver failure because he has been a full-blown alcoholic for decades? Does our medical services say “No” to the diabetic who still eats sweets and now needs a lower leg amputation. And what about over-weight people? They have all sorts of medical problems which they might not have if they could simply eat ‘normally’. And smokers—what can I say? What about sports injuries, falling off mountains, hunting accidents? If everyone just stayed home, none of these would occur.

Sure. It seems an easy thing to say that people who, with no medical reason, refuse to be vaccinated, have signed and sealed their own death warrants. So why provide them with our health care services?
But what about the rest of us?
Are any of us totally without sin, in this regard?
To refuse an anti-vaxxer hospital care, although I am sure it at times flicks through the emergency room doctor’s mind, is not acceptable. That is not just the start of a slippery slope. It is the steepest glacier in the Himalayas.
So. Go ahead. Turn up at hospital emergency rooms with your COVID-19. And finally admit that: Yes, the virus is worse than the shot.

But do not stick your fat face or fatter abdomen in the way of citizens waiting, in socially distanced lines, in church parking lots, or Legion halls, or wherever, for the vaccine. Do not verbally harass those citizens. Do not scream racial slurs at the people assisting at those vaccination clinics.

And quit stealing “Clinic Today” signs.

You might be entitled to hospital care when you need it. But you are not entitled to commit crimes and abuse fellow citizens because of some misconstrued concept of your right to protest.

by Jessica Murphy