Stop disrespecting Healthcare workers
This pandemic is not all about you — so please stop acting as if it is
Remember when the sounds of horns honking and pots and pans banging filled our cities at 7:30pm sharp every day without fail?
Remember when we would cheer and hoot and thank our first responders, our nurses, our healthcare workers?
Remember #TogetherWeCanDoIt and #Cheer4HealthWorkers?
For three months, most of us quarantined at home, terrified of getting the virus or passing it on to our loves ones. We watched the news. We looked at the stats.
We worked from home. We accepted our government cheques. We focused on self-growth, mental health, and family.
Meanwhile, healthcare workers worked un-godly hours with inadequate supplies. Doctors and nurses were stuck wearing the same masks for weeks on end for 12+ hours at a time. Nursing students were given increased hours at their hospital placements, while also juggling with online schooling for the first time.
Our essential workers worked their asses off to help us. And we helped them in return by staying home. By showing appreciation.
They deserved every thank-you video, every pot bang, every cheer that we gave them.
Fast forward four months, and even though the Covid-19 numbers in North America are not much better, we are acting like the crisis is over.
Yes, Public Health authorities said social circles can now be widened. But they didn’t say to widen the circle to the size of the entire teen and young adult population. Yet teens are rushing to the beaches. Florida is swarming with college students looking for a getaway with their friends.
People are hosting Covid-19 parties in Alabama. When I say Covid-19 parties, I don’t mean socially distant parties. I’m talking gatherings where Covid-positive patients are invited to mingle with uninfected individuals to encourage spread of the disease. The kicker? The first attendee to test positive is deemed the winner of the cash pot.
Kind of irresponsible don’t you think? But not particularly shocking. Especially since teams are only as strong as their leaders.
And the leader of the United States is Donald Trump.
This US president believes Covid-19 is a hoax. He never wears a mask; he held presidential rallies for thousands of his supporters in tight spaces, despite having six of his employees test positive for Covid. Trump thinks America should slow down their testing to reduce Covid-19 cases.
Smart logic. In fact, if we want to reduce our record house fires, we should also get rid of fire alarms right?
This is an unprecedented health crisis, yet one of the most powerful nations in the world is acting like it’s a joke. I’m just praying that the joke isn’t on us.
In mid-march, the United States reached 20 000 new cases in a day, and the country shut down.
Today, there are over 50 000 new cases.
Yes, more testing is being done. In fact, almost 40 million tests have been done, which is amazing. And yes, less people are dying.
But less people are dying because we are more prepared. But we won’t be prepared when hundreds of thousands of carefree teenagers contract the virus. The odds may be that they won’t die. But that won’t stop them from flooding into ICU beds, from passing it on to a more vulnerable population?
You think Covid-19 is over? Look at Brazil. Look at India. Think it can’t happen to you? Look at New York. As a Canadian, I realize this isn’t that far from home either.
We risked the global economy to flatten the curve. We put ourselves in a war-like mentality. We worked so hard to put healthcare workers in a position where not every hospital is struggling.
Let’s not make this all for nothing.
I get why people are frustrated. I’m frustrated too. I like doing. I don’t like routine. I need human interaction. I want this to be over.
But this can’t be over if we keep undoing the hard work that was done by our nurses, our doctors, our first responders.
This doesn’t have to mean quitting social interaction cold turkey and never leaving the house. We can add a bit of normal back in our lives, take a bike ride, have a socially distant BBQ. But we need to be responsible.
We need to stop disrespecting the healthcare workers who kept us safe during this unprecedented health crisis.
2020 is the year we learned how important healthcare workers are. But 2020 also appears to be the year we forgot.
And that’s absolutely unacceptable.
