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Mass. General no longer telling patients they can't ask their doctors and nurses to wear masks
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Comments
Good!
It was absolutely horrifying to see that on their site. What's next on the chopping block, handwashing?
But "public health"
But "public health"
Yes, public health.
Wearing masks in a medical setting is an important public health measure during a deadly pandemic.
Do you have an actual point you'd like to make here?
But but religious freedom!
Shouldn't I be able to demand that doctors and nurses wear masks because for them not to exposes me to their germs! Exposure to their germs is a violation of my religious freedom.
How? I don't know; I don't care. That's for a lawyer to figure out.
Why would anyone in their right mind …
… object to being asked to please wear a mask?
Fine if you don’t comply with the request for whatever reasons, but patients absolutely have the right to ask.
Good that the policy has been modified but the activist is right, they need to do more to let people know.
I really don't see
why we're not masking at all times in medical facilities going forward. It's a minor imposition, it protects immunocompromised patients, and it reduces the amount of diseases the staff working there catch. It's really a win-win all around.
That's a damned good question, Lee!
It's dangerous and disgusting for doctors and other hospital staff to refuse a request to wear a mask while caring for them! The mandatory wearing of masks by both patients and staff alike should be put back in place right now, because we're still not out of the woods, regarding the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hold up
Was it established that anyone did, in fact, refuse such a request?
This is about a change in a hospital policy forbidding patients from making such a request. Not the same thing.
my hairdresser does better
The place I get my haircut makes clear, on their website and with signs at the salon, that if I want my stylist to wear a mask, I just need to ask.
When I checked in and said "please ask her to wear a mask" the answer was "of course," and I got my hair cut by a masked hairstylist.
It's not difficult, unless the doctor or hospital decides to make it difficult.
It's not 2020, there's no shortage of masks, if the hospital wanted to bother taking proper care.
Am I supposed to carry a letter from my specialist at all times, in case I need to convince a doctor or EMT that I have a "good enough" reason to tell them to wear a mask?
It's annoying that it may never be safe for me to eat dinner in a restaurant again. It's both scary and infuriating that it may not be safe for me to go to the hospital for treatment.
Welcome to the club, Vicki!
My hairdresser still wears a mask, and requires her clients to wear masks, also, and I'm more than glad of it. The fact that the indoor mask mandate was taken off by former Gov. Charlie Baker is absolutely atrocious.
It might be that
MGB cannot force an employee to wear a mask.
So you have disabled rights versus worker rights. A patient asks a doctor or nurse to wear a mask and they refuse.
I can confirm this is not the
I can confirm this is not the case. The hospital has legal prerogative to force staff to wear masks.
Boy, oh boy!
This:
is absolutely and totally disgusting--and a danger to both patients and staff alike, to boot.
Danger?!
If you’re so scared, maybe don’t go?
FYI - I think an ask mask policy is the right thing to do. Don’t force me to wear a mask, but for people that want one they should oblige.
Don't go to the doctor??? We
Don't go to the doctor??? We're talking about immunocompromised people. Sick folks don't really have the option of just not accessing medical care.
Really?
To the HOSPITAL???
What planet are you even from? This isn't like forgoing a trip to the Dunks.
Stick to huffing tailpipes
"Being scared to go to the doctor or hospital" is a massive health equity issue, dear.
Look it the fuck up.
Meanwhile, cancer patients undergoing treatment are vulnerable to even "common" colds, as well as influenza, pneumonia, TB and other airborne beasties not subject to vaccination. Persons with immunodeficiency require regular treatment, some are required to get bloodwork done in hospital to get their medications, and are similarly vulnerable.
Let's hope that none of us never get to find out about that.
This has got to be one of the
This has got to be one of the weirdest comments I've ever seen on this site and that includes the frequent Magoo posts.
Regardless of if you think people should wear masks in public or in hospitals etc simply stating someone with serious medical issues simply should not go to the doctor is really weird. As if we are talking about the local ice cream shop or an amusement park and not appointments that are medically needed.
Beyond the idiocy of your first sentence
The second paragraph is also pretty moronic. It's dumb to "force" people to wear masks, but if anyone asks you to put one on, you'll happily do it? This is kindergarten-age "I won't do it because you told me to" behavior.
I guess my question is
How was this handled in 2018?
Airborne diseases are not new. I would imagine those who are immunocompromised don’t react well to influenza as well.
Tricky question
The Cult of the Foamites wanted to believe that there was no such thing as airborne transmission - just dirty telephones and people picking their noses and touching their faces. The root of this was to push hand washing into everything.
The problem is that they were never able to actually prove the hypothesis - the WHO and others just repeated it enough over enough decades that it became canon - except there was evidence to the contrary and I worked in a lab in the late '90s that was demonstrating the potential for airborne transmission in office cubes using a then-new technology: PCR.
Then a lot of public health funding vanished after 9/11 to fund homeland security ...
My old boss never moved on from it. He was eventually awarded a research grant for a definitive study and was told it was mostly to finally prove that airborne transmission of viruses was not happening or feasible. Never mind that the whole "touching your eye or nose" business is horrendously improbable given that fluids flow OUT from noses, eyes, etc. but only breathing goes into the lungs. (Norovirus is transmitted by surfaces because swallowing goes in, but that impacts your GI tract ... the concept that a virus that can't swim will swim upstream and end up in the lung is not compelling!)
Enter COVID-19. The research was underfunded for decades because of the litany of dirty hands in everything. But once it became obvious and Dr. Don Milton could show that he was right all along? The WHO fought it tooth and nail because HANDWASHING IS EVERYTHING (REPEAT).
Even when WHO gave in under mounting evidence, it still worried more about being wrong than issuing clear messaging.
Its an ugly story in how even science can get bogged down in dogma, but not a new one.
The journal Nature details the saga (I'll see if I can find full text). Here is an interview with Don on the subject. (In 30 years I have only seen him without a beard when he was working the early 2000s anthrax investigation!)
TL/DR: There are vaccines that give at least partial help for influenza and pneumonia - but people just got sick and died and it was "just one of those things". That's what happened. Now that we know better, we can do better.
EDIT: cleaned up link formatting
Outrageous attitude!
Boston/MA should never have dropped masking requirements in healthcare settings. Some other places have held firm. From the GBH article:
Arggh.
"Doctors know best about COVID."