Awarding Public Gratitude for Health Professionals During the Time of COVID-19

"She was concerned that I would expose her to the COVID virus and since she was considered a high-risk person, she just couldn't rent the room to me."
"I can absolutely understand her point of view and agree with her concerns. I'm just upset because she chose the day I was supposed to be moving into her home when I've already made all the arrangements and paid her all the money. And now I have nowhere to go."
"I do understand that they're concerned and I would be, too, but as a human being who serves my public and serves my community and puts a lot of life into it, I'm really kind of saddened and upset that I have no place to go and no one to help me."
Ottawa nurse Kathrine Slinski

“I called my friend. I didn’t know what to do. I told [the police officers], ‘I am a nurse. I just got home from work. It’s late'."
"They just said: ‘We don’t care. Your landlord wants you out, and you have to go now'."
"I feel totally humiliated by this experience, and I don’t want to draw attention to myself. I need to be able to go in to work to do my job, completely focused on my patients."
"I told her selfish people die first. If I get the coronavirus, I will share it with her. I know that was wrong and that I shouldn’t have said that. But I was so frustrated and stressed out by this woman."
Toronto nurse Gigi

Gigi, a Toronto nurse who was recently evicted, found support among local politicians after telling her story “so no one else can lose their home like I did.” - Steve Russell/Toronto Star

"DEEPLY ANGUISHED"
"All precautions are being taken by doctors & staff on #COVID2019 duty to ensure they're not carriers of infection in any way."
Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, India

"Going to and from work in my scrubs, I often watch people take two steps back away from me."
"I think the concern is that any health-care provider is contagious themselves."
Chicago nurse

"We see how in Italy a nurse leaves her home to go to work and people applaud."
"But here we see these sad situations."
Fernando Rios Quinones, spokesman, Guadalajara state health department, Mexico

A doctor examining a suspected coronavirus patient in the isolation ward at Patna Medical College and Hospital, on 14 March, without protective gear. As they prepare to confront a wave of COVID-19 cases within an already under-funded public health infrastructure, healthcare workers in various parts of India have raised concerns about the shortage of supplies such as masks, coveralls, gloves, among others, that will protect them from contracting the novel coronavirus.

Santosh Kumar/Hindustan Times/Getty Images

The heroes society salutes at a time of mass terror while a highly infectious, deadly new virus whose properties are still not fully understood but whose toll on people's health and mortality has cut a wide, destructive path through the global community while medical science feverishly works overtime in an effort to find some way to stop it, to control it, a vaccine that will protect populations, have also become the targets of some minority segments of the global population, fearful of being contaminated by health workers they view as carriers, given their proximity to COVID-19 victims.

"We are sure you have corona!" shrieked a woman toward a psychiatrist at a government hospital in western India, as Sanjibani Panigrahi finds the neighbourhood in which she lives viewing her as a threat. "We will not allow you in the building", she has been informed. Health-care workers in some cities are applauded for their self-sacrifice, their dedication to their profession, placing themselves in harm's way in exposure to a virulent threat, and in other places the long hours they pit in as they struggle to save people from the coronavirus effects, gains them suspicion and fear as a carrier.

Filipinos are attacking and eschewing frontline medical workers on misguided fears they carry the lethal coronavirus  Asia Times

Mexican state authorities are concerned enough about this trend so have arranged special buses for nurses. Hospitals urge nurses in parts of Australia, not to wear their uniforms in public, as a way to avoid attacks. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered police to protect health workers in the wake of assaults, one of which saw bleach thrown at a hospital employee's face.

Doctors and nurses worldwide have contracted COVID in the pursuit of their professional duties aiding those stricken with the virus, only to be themselves cut down by its deadly effects. Health workers worry about their patients' plights and do their utmost to help save them, while concerned at the same time of the universal shortage of personal protection equipment for medical personnel, leaving them even more vulnerable to disease transmission.

"I understand people are afraid, but abusing doctors is not OK. We are at risk more than them", stated Ms.Panigrahi. Local police and politicians intervened over the harassment she had suffered and ultimately her neighbours apologized, excusing their behaviour by professing fright over her proximity. In Delhi, a doctors' association wrote to the central government that health workers being evicted by landlords over their work had nowhere to turn to. "Many doctors are now stranded on the roads with all their luggage, nowhere to go, across the country."

In Quezon province in the Philippines, a man shot at an ambulance driver to stop it from entering a subdivision where he was concerned the virus would be spread. The ambulance driver from the Peter Paul Medical Center of Candelaria was transporting hospital personnel, not patients. "Moreover, proper cleaning and disinfection of the vehicle is done on a regular basis", explained the hospital.

People protest the construction of a coronavirus testing center in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on Monday.    Legnan Koula, Shutterstock

A nurse in Chicago informed a local television channel she had been punched in the eye while on a public bus by a man who accused her of spreading the virus. Protesters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast attempted to destroy a coronavirus testing centre under construction. Social media aired videos showed people ripping wood planks off the structure while police fired tear gas canisters. "They want to kill  us" -- one of the rioters told Reuters -- with a treatment facility close to their homes.

Authorities are concerned that such attacks and insults might serve to demoralize health workers. "If we continue to harass them, more of them will quit their jobs, and our health-care system would be in danger", stated Reigner Antiquera, president, Alliance of Young Nurse Leaders and Advocates, in the Philippines.
   

They've Got Entrepreneurial Talent

"Most parents don't allow kids to speak like that. It's shock value [for attention and notoriety]."
"[Internet stars often turn to] gimmicks."
"Gets right to the edge there [boasting of being part of the illicit drug scene]."
Christopher Schneider, professor of sociology, Brandon University, Manitoba

"[I'm the] youngest flexer [show off/fake] of the century."
"[A] 9-year-old millionaire and I be smoking dope, bitch."
"[I got rich by] moving bricks [drugs]."
"[My] toilet costs more than your rent."
"Gucci from head to toe [ ] broke-ass haters."
Lil Tay, YouTube rapper

Images from Lil Tay's social media posts where she takes on the persona of someone living the high life in the Hollywood Hills.    instagram.com/liltay

With 1.7-million followers on Instagram, one can only conclude that the cheap and shallow values held so dear by so many represents a vivid picture of a lost society. This 9-year-old kid's mother's values indicate that the degenerate mindset that exemplifies the rude and nasty language shrilled by an undisciplined and wilful child is shared by generations. The little girl's mother, Vancouver-based, former real estate salesperson, Angela Tian, is proud of her daughter's show business savvy.

No less so with that of the girl's older brother, where the two collaborate; he as the creative mind orchestrating the videos featuring his little sister with their runaway success and groupie followers, she as the enfant terrible making their mother proud that her children are such astute performers attracting the attention of Hollywood. Their facility in "comedy" and "acting" has garnered a large following, exempting the usual suspects: "Some people don't get the joke", says proud mom.

Their Instagram and YouTube videos flaunt wealth and pride where the little girl takes to flashing wads of American bills while spewing shrilly vulgar language at her critics who are, in her parlance "broke-ass haters". They're the public who are appalled at the exhibition of prepubescent vulgarity approved by a doting mother and spurred on by a clued-in brother.

Those who, instead of giving this accomplished talent its just due, feel the exhibition of nauseating child-parody of low-lifing illicit wealth justifies charges of child neglect and child abuse, that all indications are that child welfare authorities are remiss in turning a blind eye to the situation. Purporting to be flaunting her wealth and possessions from sunny California in the Hollywood Hills, some investigative reporting has indicated otherwise.

The $3.6 million highrise condo she traipses through is located in False Creek harbour, downtown Vancouver, where her mother gave unauthorized access to her extraordinarily gifted children. As for the red Mercedes convertible Lil Tay poses in, it is the vehicle owned by her mother's real estate boss who rather took umbrage over the unprincipled use of these sets.

Which, in the end, cost Angela Tian her real estate job. But she is unconcerned, awaiting overtures from the entertainment industry, anxious to sign her daughter to lucrative contracts.

The Imbecility of Paramedic Abuse by Patients

"I find that the worst cases of abuse don't leave a wound. It is the sexual assaults that are the most frustrating because it is often not brought on by people in an altered mental state, such as dementia, but by people who are disgusting."
"Most often drunks, who don't believe women should be in uniform and don't respect them in the field."
"I don't get too bothered by stuff [exposure to insults, violence while on the job]. And if that person was in an altered state when something happened -- then I honestly don't think twice about it afterwards, because they have absolutely no idea what they are doing."
"I see people on their worst day. Even if it isn't something we'd consider an emergency -- it is that person's emergency -- and if we can make that day even a little better, that's the high of doing this [job as a frontline first-responder as a paramedic]."
Jennie Cubitt, paramedic, rural Ontario

BBC News   Paramedic Jerry Patton had a brick thrown at him while he was treating a patient

Canadian society is hugely dependent in times of urgent medical situations, on the knowledge that they can dial a simple set of three numerals -- 911 -- to alert professionals skilled in the medical sciences and the art of patient care, to their emergency. They do so out of desperation, finding themselves in a situation they cannot themselves either solve or help themselves out of. If it isn't the individual themselves who calls, then it is an onlooker, someone else who recognizes the gravity of the situation.

Once that call is made, another trained professional at the other end of the telephone line asks critical questions and guides the caller, based on the response to those queries, how to act until the brief moments pass when an ambulance will respond to their emergency and the paramedics in charge of that ambulance will efficiently and expertly take over all the necessary reactions in response to the critical health/medical situation; the results of an accident, of the onset of a health crisis, a violent assault; whatever has occurred.

The paramedics come to the situation prepared in every conceivable way. They are experienced, having faced many and varied situations to which they have previously responded. They are exquisitely trained in medical procedures. Their vehicle is equipped with high-tech medical and diagnostic machinery, as well as drugs and medications which most medical emergency situations may call for in the perhaps desperate, interim treatment of a patient, until arrival at a hospital emergency department.

Paramedics have witnessed and been engaged in aiding the most vulnerable people caught in medical emergencies, and this continual exposure cannot help but have a traumatizing effect on their sensibilities. But these highly trained, socially and emotionally motivated professionals take as much as they can in stride and forge on, knowing that their response can be critical to whether or not a child or an adult, victims of accidents or health breakdowns, survive an episode in their lives requiring aid.

So it comes as something of a shock to be informed that these selfless, dedicated professionals are on occasion subjected to verbal and/or physical abuse; contempt for them as human beings, and belittling as health professionals, even while they are in the process of aiding the individual determined to inflict abuse on them. In an interview with a writer for the National Post newspaper, Joe O'Connor, Jennie Cubitt speaks of being kicked, punched and bitten.

She has been physically beaten, resulting in black eyes, split lips, as well as having been humiliated and assaulted sexually, even by those she has been administering life-saving protocols to. She ventilates on occasion by posting some of her miserably adverse experiences on a social media platform, popular with health-care workers such as doctors, nurses and paramedics, worldwide.

The Sun.Co.UK

Heidi, 29, was sexually assaulted by a 75-year-old patient in the back of her ambulance

A 2010 survey of over 1,300 paramedics from Ontario and Nova Scotia  reported that 26.1 percent of respondents had been subjected to physical assaults in the year previous to the survey, with over 40 percent speaking of having been physically intimidated, while close to 70 percent were verbally abused and 2.7 percent were victims of sexual assault. Drexel University in Philadelphia conducted a study in 2015, finding paramedics more than a dozen times likelier to be injured by a patient than a firefighter would be on the job.

Paramedics do have a right to defend themselves, but they will be charged with assault should they fight back. It's difficult to imagine how one might defend oneself without fighting back, actually. Yet, according to Jennie Cubitt, the prevalence of assaults against paramedics is vastly under-reported. Mot considering it, with a mental shrug, as 'part of the job', a situation she feels " . . . needs to be addressed".

In Australia, the situation of attacks against paramedics has become such a problem that the idea of body cameras was considered. The 12-hour shift is hugely stressful, and for obvious reasons, apart from the prospect of being assaulted while on the job. Yet these are the people that society depends hugely upon to respond in a timely and efficient manner, using their skills and their experience to bring people in desperate situations out of their most immediate danger.

"Nobody wants to go to work worried about being attacked," says Leeds paramedic Richard Bentley (Photo: John Gladwin/Sunday Mirror)