As scary as it sounds, the blueprint of our own failures has been visible for everyone to see for months, if not longer.

And it really is that simple it defies belief because millions refuse to heed its warning.

Every single person should be the frontline in the fight against the novel coronavirus. Our own frontline, before we are forced to leave our lives in the hands of physicians, nurses, and other medical experts. But, we, vox populi cannot always right, so we remain asinine and arrogant in our glory thinking we know better than anyone else.

Numb to the need of others.
Numb to death.
Numb to utter reality.
The reality that we keep being the cause why other people die.

In the process, our selfish behaviour is why healthcare workers, and their families experience psychological distress like anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or worse.

First, do no harm
Medical professionals take an oath and swear “first, do no harm, or “primum non nocere.” It is a doctrine as old as medicine itself, frequently but probably inaccurately attributed to Hippocrates, the wise old man of our profession It pledges. to uphold specific ethical standards when practicing medicine that includes non-maleficence and medical confidentiality.

Twelve months into the pandemic, they have seen too much; informed too many families members their loved ones passed away; seen colleagues in hospital beds, watching them die; sat in their car in their parents’ driveway and cry while talking with them through open windows; and feel they have nothing left to give because that is what COVID-19 does. Their mental health tells them ‘enough is enough’ and break their sacred oath by taking their own life. All of us without medical degrees nevertheless think we know better than the hundreds of thousands of living angels running medical services around the world.

It is time to take mental and emotional health more seriously. If not your own, then try to understand the impact medical professionals feel each day, experiencing repeated exposure to abhorrent events that turned hospital wards into medical warzones. Imagine long shifts with little or no breaks because you must manage critical medical situations; care for severely shell-shocked people and their families; seeing repeated deaths leaving your wards; operating in crowded settings because it requires five healthcare workers to care for one patient.

On an emotional level, knowing what life as a multiple sclerosis patient is like with many appointments and hospitalisations under my belt, and what life is like as a healthcare worker from having friends who are doctors or nurses, I would like to say, “People who refuse to live by scientifically proven coronavirus guidelines, deserve less care than those who do.”

Frontline healthcare workers deserve to have a life as well
That, however, is not who I am, or what I want to see happening. I do wish to share the level of dedication future physicians pay to their studies, upending personal events to eventually become healthcare workers and stars in their field of discipline.

The care I have personally received since my MS diagnosis has been nothing but outstanding, and beyond what I expected.
Whichever form a COVID-19 denier is brought into hospital, nurses and physicians will not refuse medical care, because that is who they are.

They care.
Even when you don’t.

Meanwhile, multinational pharmaceutical companies realised its urgency and have teamed up to create complicated scientific processes that can lead to new, effective COVID-19 vaccines for all countries.

In contrast, governments around the world promise their citizens a road to freedom, while in backroom deals their egocentric and nefarious behaviour has removed the urgency shown by big pharma. Instead, wealthy countries offer them large sums of money in exchange for exclusive rights on their as yet-non-existent vaccines, leaving other countries without the opportunity of acquiring doses as well.

Canada at one point reserved an arsenal of vaccines: five times the supply it needed to cover its population.
Elsewhere, UK/European solidarity?
Humanitarian shipments?
Trumpian “vaccine nationalism” at its best.

It is time to get off our high horse and think long, hard, and deep if this is who we are as a people, as a society and what can do as global citizens.

Is this the kind of world we are so willing to leave behind to the generations that have yet to be born?

If so, I fear we will not even make it as a footnote in historical records on the pedagogy of the pandemic, of what could have been the years when science, medicine, and morality won.

To my medical team, the backbone of my life, thank you.

If we lose love and self-respect for each other,
this is how we finally die
(Maya Angelou)

Resources

Dr Mike Ryan’s frightening warning to humanity goes viral on Twitter, Irish Independent
Early psychological interventions in preventing PTSD in health workers exposed to traumatic scenarios in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic? HSE Library
Break the Silence: Physician Suicide in the Time of COVID-19, NIH
COVID-19 related suicide among hospital nurses; case study evidence from worldwide media reports, NIH
PTSD symptoms in healthcare workers facing the three coronavirus outbreaks: What can we expect after the COVID-19 pandemic, NIH
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder during COVID-19, Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Michigan
COVAX: Working for global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. WHO