Public Discrimination Against Health-Care Workers in the Era of COVID-19

"I tried to explain that I've had contact but not exposure."

"They were not following the latest guidelines. They were discriminating against me because I'm a health-care worker."

"When people find out I'm a paramedic, they often step back, like, 'Oh, I can't come near you."

Sarah Nuhn, paramedic, Rockland resident

Emily Fullarton, Ottawa Paramedics. Photo: Tony Caldwell/Postmedia

"Why are they not asking the same questions of people who work in grocery stores or restaurants?"

"Our paramedics are so diligent and very highly trained in infection control measures. They've been facing this pandemic since Day 1 and have had full PPE [personal protection equipment] since Day 1. They're probably safer to be around than the person  you run into at the grocery store."

"They've [paramedics] been told things like, 'You're carrying COVID and it's going to get caught in the walls' [of rental properties]."

"It's definitely taking a toll. Our peer-support group has been working full-tilt through all the different challenges that come with COVID."

Emily Fullerton, public information officer, Ottawa Paramedic Service

"Early on, health care workers were at an increased risk of getting infected, and then they started wearing personal protective equipment -- gloves, masks, visors -- and then it dropped down to almost zero."

"But in most cases it's really safe to be around a health care worker,  unless there's some egregious disregard for personal protective equipment."

"If things continue and we're back into another round of lockdowns, if there are more deaths and the outbreaks continue, I expect this fear would persist, and maybe even intensify unless there were corrective measures such as education campaigns ..."

Steven Taylor, clinical psychologist, professor, University of British Columbia

 North Americans discriminate against health-care workers (Rafferty Baker/CBC)

"They're acting out of discrimination, ignorance and hypocrisy. Their fear is completely unfounded and unfair", pointed out Doris Grinspun, chief executive of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario. The RNAO was led to recommend that its 45,000 members not wear scrub or other professional identifying uniforms in public as a result of public behaviour. During the SARS outbreak, she pointed out, when nurses wearing scrubs were refused services at some gas stations, a similar situation prevailed. 

 

Ian Da Silva, director of the Ontario Personal Support Workers Association remarked that roughly ten percent of the association's 43,000 members have also experienced abuse related to public fears over COVID-19 transmission. A stranger accosted one of his members at a gas station, he related, accusing him of bringing COVID to the town, while "Another is a PSW who was working in a COVID-positive home, and every day for three weeks, one of her neighbours would come out of her apartment and yell at her and say, 'I'm lodging a complaint because I do not believe you should be here, because you're dirty and you're spreading your dirt all over us'."

 

"The strong, good feeling that was there in the community at the beginning of the outbreak deteriorated by the time we got to June. The stigma is hurtful and demoralizing. They're trying to take care of people, and this adds a dimension of alienation they really don't need", pointed out Michael Hurley, president of CUPE's Ontario Council of Hospital Unions -- of the dissipation of the goodwill directed toward health care workers at the initial stages of the epidemic.

 

Health care workers have been refused appointments with other medical practitioners such as osteopaths, fertility clinics, chiropractors. They're informed that testing and examinations and consultations for personal reasons could be scheduled only if and when the applicants first take two weeks off work to self-isolate at home. The level of misinformation within the general public community is surprisingly echoed by parts of the medical community itself, it would appear.  Renting  housing accommodation can be another area of contention -- and refusals.

This despite that N95 masks, shields, gloves, goggles and gowns that exceed the recommendations by both the World Health Organization and the province, are meticulously used by health care workers to make certain that even should they come in contact with COVID-19 patients, they are not exposed to the virus, which still does not protect them from being viewed with suspicion. Leading to health-care workers requiring medical appointments or other services for themselves being asked questions such as whether they've come into contact with someone who may have tested COVID-positive, bypassing affirming they had been protected against transmission.

Children of paramedics living in some neighbourhoods are shunned by other children on instruction of their parents. Examples such as real-estate agents insisting that house sellers inform potential buyers that they are paramedics or other health-care personnel. Moving agencies asking paramedic clients to be absent from their home when they arrive to pack up their belongings. 

 

A health-care worker at Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

A recent University of British Columbia study indicated an alarming number of Canadians fear, avoid and tend to stigmatize health care workers based on their belief that they are contagious. Published in the October issue of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, the study indicated one-third of Canadians and Americans think health care workers working in hospitals likely have contracted COVID, while one in four believe health care workers should not appear in public and further, should live with restrictions on their freedom of movement.  Half of those studied claimed they would not wish to be in close proximity with health care workers who professionally treat COVID-19 patients.