OPINION: Our exhausted doctors and nurses should not have to deal with protestors

Over the last year and a half I have been blown away time and time again by the efforts of friends and family working in hospitals and other medical environments.

Long before Covid-19 made its way to Ireland, our nurses, doctors and medical staff had a very difficult job. 

I remember many years ago attending for an x-ray at what was then known as Letterkenny General Hospital and seeing a notice on the walls advising patients that violence and abuse directed at staff would not be tolerated. It seemed like something that belonged in a gritty TV drama, not in a hospital waiting room in Donegal.

The flaws in our health system are well documented, and we all know that the wonderful, caring, hard-working people on the frontline are not to blame. They are not responsible for staff shortages, nor for there not being enough beds available, for long waiting lists, for the coffee machine not working, for hospital car parking fees. 

Yet they are subject to personal abuse for all of these things and more while they try to go about their job of caring for every single person who comes through the door. And while the abuse does not come from the majority of people, it only takes one or two people to cause a lot of upset to people who are already stretched physically, mentally and emotionally beyond any acceptable limits.

It is really sad that dealing with this type of behaviour is part of a normal working day for some people, on top of all the other physical and emotional challenges their job entails. 

I remember one person telling me that she sometimes stopped for a little cry on the way home from work. A nurse who works in a private setting told me that she would have left the profession a long time ago if she had stayed in public practice. 

Another nurse told me that almost everyone he had trained with had left, and several of them had suffered breakdowns.

And all of that was before the coronavirus crisis.

I have seen the constant strain on my friend's faces, the worry that hasn’t lifted except for a short respite last summer. And still they turn up, they soldier on, they continue to care for the Covid believers and the Covid sceptics equally, for the vaccinated and the anti-vaxxers, for those who make every effort to look after themselves and those who don’t. They provide medical care and they offer much, much more - comforting words when loved ones can’t visit, tears wiped away and hands held when it becomes too much for patients to bear. 

I have no doubt that there are many stories of kindness and support that we will never hear; perhaps the memories of some of these acts died along with isolated Covid patients, and there was no-one else who bore witness. 

It is therefore heart-breaking and deeply worrying to see this newest ‘movement’ of protestors encouraging Covid patients to leave hospital. The sad and widely reported case of the late Joe McCarron who died after being urged to leave hospital by anti-vaccination campaigners and Covid-deniers brought the consequence of such actions to light. 

In a widely viewed video, hospital staff are heard pleading with Mr McCarron to remain in the ICU. It really beggars belief that there are people walking among us here in Donegal who believe they know more about this awful virus than the doctors and nurses dealing with the most seriously ill Covid patients. And it is even more concerning that people believe them. 

How have we arrived at a situation whereby a doctor has to beg a very sick patient not to listen to a totally unqualified person telling them they are not safe in hospital?

My heart goes out to the people who have to deal with that dangerous and potentially deadly behaviour when they should be able to focus on caring for their patients. 

All I can say to our healthcare professionals - and particularly those on the frontline in our hospitals - is that most of us are very grateful for everything that you do.