A Canadian doctor is slamming fellow health care providers who say they won’t treat patients who aren’t fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
“I hate it, I think it’s wrong. I think it’s creating mistrust. I think it’s divisive. I think it’s creating more tribalism and it, to me, is the last thing we need,” Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng said in a video posted to his Twitter account Wednesday.
Dr. Kyeremanteng heads The Ottowa Hospital’s Critical Care Department that cares for the sickest of the sick, in their Intensive Care Unit. Kyeremanteng also hosts podcasts with interviews and discussions on the topic of improving healthcare delivery in Canada (“Solving Healthcare with Kwadwo Kyeremanteng” launched in September 2019).
He continued on Twitter that he wants all of his patients to get the vaccine, but noted that talk of limiting care for the unvaxxed is wrong because he believes it wrong to judge people based on their lifestyle decisions, such as choosing not to be vaccinated.
“I want you to be vaccinated, but I also don’t want you to smoke,” said Kyeremanteng. ” I also don’t want you to use IV drugs and despite that, when you come into my ICU, I treat you the same.”
Kyeremanteng said his Critical Care Department hustles and do what they can to serve and get patients through their illness. “And to think that we would do anything less because of your vaccine status is atrocious, it is absolutely atrociou,” Kyeremanteng said.
“And it would be extremely shameful to even think that’s a consideration within our society.”
Some American health care providers are also saying they won’t provide in-person treatment for unvaccinated patients because Florida is in a deadly wave of COVID-19 cases attributed to the highly contagious delta variant.
“I understand that people are free to choose, but to me, it’s a problem when it affects other people,” Dr. Linda Marraccini, a Florida Family Care physician since 1982 told a South Florida TV reporter. ““When it comes to the safety of others, when it comes to the fact that it’s a global health problem and community health problem, at this point, I really say that this is where it draws the line in the sand for me.”
Dr. Tim Lahey, an infectious disease expert at the University of Vermont Medical Center, told a Vermont TV station that not many other doctors will deny unvaccinated patients care.
Dr. Lahey says he understands the temptation to not treat patients who won’t get vaccinated but he called that a mistake.
“I definitely think it’s an expectation of physicians to provide outstanding care to patients, whoever they are,” Lahey said, noting doctors now know more about how to prevent COVID from spreading during appointments. So there’s no reason not to treat patients.
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