Outage plus an “r” is outrage

I’m doing this post on Thursday and dating it Wednesday, because Wednesday, our cable was out and we couldn’t get a tech here until today.

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Since the cable is down, I’m spending the day writing and listening to music. Fortunately, I can still use my phone, although when I write, I’m constantly googling information, and that’s far more laborious on the phone than on the laptop I use for writing. Lynne even volunteered to do some research for me to confirm what I believed to be accurate but couldn’t check for myself. It’s funny how I’ll do hours of reading and research so one statement made by a character will be factual and not some shit I made up, even though I’m writing fiction.

Which reminds me…

Because the phone still connects me to the world, I enjoyed messaging with Lisa (the Night Nurse!) today. We talked about fun things like dogs and vacation trips, but we also talked about COVID, and not specific to COVID, but in general, people’s belief on many medical topics that they know more than healthcare professionals on things related to health.

Not all healthcare professionals agree on everything, and if you want to find a physician, nurse, or whatever, who agrees with your relatives on Facebook and all their conspiracy theories about virology and vaccinations, of course you can find them. You can find anything on the Internet or hear anything from opinionated talk shows and biased commentators; that doesn’t mean it’s true.

It matters to me in writing and in living what sources I use for information. For example, when it comes to gardening or things botanical, I talk to Lynne and James. That doesn’t mean I think they know everything about every plant in all places of the world, but they almost always know what I need to know.

With cars, I talk to Jim and Denece for the same reason. Both of them know their stuff when it comes to the things I want to know about cars.

When it comes to medicine, I listen to people in my life whose expertise comes from their education and experience, but who are also reasonable in other areas of life. They are not alarmists. Not prone to go off on tangents with no basis in facts or science. Nurses like Debby, Lisa, and David P, among others. Doctors like the ones I trust enough to pay to take care of me, and they’ve been cautious, proactive, informative, and calm about my healthcare for many years.

I’ve known healthcare workers and scientists in several fields, including immunology, virology, and contagious disease, and I trust them. Additionally, some of the people I know who use and practice non-traditional medicine are the first to say medical crises require traditional medical care. I always think back to this paraphrase from one of my teachers who practiced alternative medicine: If you think you broke your leg, don’t reach for essential oils or try to chant the pain away. Go to the emergency room for an X-ray, diagnosis, and cast.

I can’t imagine being a healthcare worker today, risking my own health, even my life, and the health and lives of my family, exhausted because of too many hours, too many staff reductions, and too many critically ill patients, only to need an escort from my hospital to my car so that I’m not assaulted for doing my job; or to hear propaganda and disinformation from sick people and their families as I’m trying to provide lifesaving or palliative care; or to be screamed at on social media because I’m doing what I was trained and educated to do. It blows my mind the bullshit and disrespect they’re dealing with.

The letter below says so much. I stand with the kinds of providers I met when I was an AIDS caregiver. They are professionals and deserve to be treated as such.

Dear American Healthcare Workers,

On behalf of our nation, I am sorry.

I am sorry that we are where we are today with a raging pandemic when free, incredibly effective vaccines are readily available. I am sorry the ICUs and Emergency Rooms are full with people who did not need to get this sick. I am sorry that selfishness, ignorance, and arrogance has exacerbated this crisis and that you have had to bear the burden of life-and-death battles, hospital bed by hospital bed. I am sorry that elected officials have tried to score political points by stoking anti-science narratives based on lies around this virus, the vaccine, and bogus treatments, while attacking your credibility and service. It is beyond shameful. I am sorry that you have been subjected to verbal and even physical abuse while you have risked your lives and the lives of your families.

I remember in the early days of the pandemic when we would gather nightly in New York to applaud your sacrifice. In those days, there was no vaccine. There was no expectation that there would be any protection anytime soon. And yet, day after day, you went into the fight, trying to save lives. How long ago those days seem now. How much has transpired, some of it hopeful, much of it deeply discouraging.

I would like to believe that the vast majority of Americans value your service, even if they will never know the full horrors you have had to endure. Like soldiers constantly on the frontlines, tour after tour, you have had little time for rest. I understand why you are drained, frustrated, and angry. I understand why many of you may choose to leave a profession that has been your life’s work. In times of war, many glibly thank members of the armed forces for their service, never understanding the full measure of their sacrifice. So is it with you today. We owe you much more than our gratitude. We owe you our lives. And we owe you the freedom that allows us to dream of a healthier future.

It is a cruel irony that those who denigrate basic measures of public health under the misguided banner of “freedom,” have confined you to continued imprisonment in a nightmarish world of endless waves of new cases. And now the enemy has regrouped with a deadlier variant, and once again you are asked to man the battlements and repel the invaders. People who blithely castigated your knowledge and the vaccines now selfishly demand that they get every possible treatment. Their presence in crowded hospitals also means there is less time and fewer beds – if any at all – for you to treat patients with other medical needs, like strokes, trauma, and heart disease. The stress on the system builds.

My hope is that your allies across the country, the tens of millions who have been vaccinated, who are trying to protect others and themselves from the virus, have also had enough. Mask mandates are growing, and politicians who try to ban them are receiving serious pushback. Vaccine mandates are also on the rise. This is all progress. But when the pandemic eventually fades we will need more than just acknowledging these measures of necessity. We will need to have a deep introspection, an after-action report, to understand how we pushed our healthcare system to the brink and how we make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

Your heroic service deserves to be long remembered and celebrated. But I suspect, more than anything, you would yearn for the appreciation that comes from the humbling knowledge that our public health demands that we look out for each other, that we do all we can to protect our communities and the broader world. I pledge, and I ask others to do so as well, that we will not let this issue fade as the case numbers hopefully decrease. We must demand of our leaders that they fortify our nation for the public-health battles ahead. We need the press to be engaged and we need every platform that disseminates information to make sure that they ferret out the lies, and promote the truth.

That is the least you deserve.

With deep gratitude,

Dan Rather, Elliot Kirschner, and Steady