Letters to the Editor: Why do anti-vaxxers even show up at hospitals when they get COVID?
To the editor: How about a very simple answer to the anti-vaxxers when they inevitably contract COVID-19? Just don’t come to the hospital if you are in denial that you have the disease. (“Anti-vaccine patients vent anger on healthcare workers like me. It takes a toll on care,” Opinion, Jan. 20)
If you don’t trust the people trying to save your life, stay home and tough it out. If you insist you don’t have COVID-19, quit being selfish by taking the bed of a person suffering a heart attack or, in this insane country, injuries from a gunshot wound.
Enough of your nonsense. You’re keeping us stuck in this pandemic.
And as for Dr. Venktesh Ramnath, who has been accosted by anti-vaccine COVID-19 patients and their families, I’m sorry that you and your colleagues have to put up with these belligerent people desperately ill from this scourge.
Mike Aguilar, Costa Mesa
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To the editor: Long before COVID-19 appeared, I was admitted to a local hospital because I couldn’t breathe. Being told that you need open-heart surgery to replace you aortic valve is not pleasant. But it soon became evident that my survival would depend on my willingness to accept help and do what was required.
I soon learned that I needed to form a partnership with my doctors, none of whom I had met before. These skilled medical personnel scheduled tests, offered detailed explanations and described the parameters of my treatment. I asked many questions.
By the time of surgery, I was acutely aware of the partnership that forms between a patient, a family and their healthcare workers. Our trust resulted in a successful, life-changing procedure for me.
My late brother was a pulmonologist. I watched him and his fellow medical school graduates stand and take the oath to “first, do no harm.” Patients and their families would do well to trust that promise made by all doctors, including the ones struggling to save those infected by the coronavirus.
Karen Scott Browdy, Fillmore
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To the editor: Regarding the critical care physician who was verbally attacked for 45 minutes by the family of an unvaccinated 42-year-old firefighter with respiratory failure, why didn’t the physician just end the conversation after being treated with such disrespect when he was just trying to explain the situation?
Nothing in the Hippocratic Oath states that a physician has to withstand such verbal abuse.
Ann C. Hayman, Westwood
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To the editor: Immediately after reading Dr. Ramnath’s op-ed article on the inexcusable behavior of anti-vaccine patients, a quote often attributed to Albert Einstein came to mind: “Only two things are infinite — the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
Rosemary Chiaverini, Sherman Oaks
