The horrible new pattern of bashing health-care professionals

Recently, I got upset when I read online about the protests at Ontario hospitals, in which people in the crowd were shouting slurs at the medical staff, and calling the doctors and nurses, “murderers.”

This was shocking to me because I know for a fact that the vast majority of doctors and nurses go into their professions out of a profound desire to help and to heal. I also, know first-hand, about all the sacrifices that are made every single day by people in the healing professions, whether from their grueling training, their long hours, or their extremely challenging jobs.

During the pandemic, healthcare professionals have been putting their own and their family’s safety at risk every day and many have died, caring for their patients. These individuals are selfless and heroic, working long hours with no rest to care for their patients. They should be applauded and supported.

To be called “murderers” in the face of these sacrifices is as much an outrage as it is deeply demoralizing. It’s no surprise that so many nurses are now quitting the profession and so many doctors are retiring early.

At the best of times, healthcare professionals have an enormous burden of responsibility, incredibly long work hours, ever-mounting stress, and ever-decreasing respect from the general population. During the pandemic, things have gone from bad to worse with the advent of online and in-person vitriol directed at these profoundly caring individuals. This horrendous situation was exemplified by a story I read the other day.

Dragging a doctor’s reputation through the mud

In a small Ontario town of 300, the only family doctor who also happens to serve the surrounding areas with a total caseload of 800 patients, was wrongly accused on Facebook by one of the town counselors. The charge? Refusing care for unvaccinated patients.

In fact, this physician has been treating all her patients throughout the pandemic, seeing unvaccinated patients, caring for patients who had tested positive for Covid-19, and even treating severely ill Covid-19 patients in their homes. She is one of those deeply devoted doctors who spends her weekends doing house-calls and who has consistently gone above and beyond the call of duty to care for her patients.

It is unclear why the councillor chose to make that post on Facebook but after he did it, the doctor—who has gone out of her way to accommodate the unvaccinated members of her community—received an overwhelming outpouring of hate messages online, culminating in two separate complaints to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario—the governing body for the province’s physicians.

After speaking with the doctor, the College chose not to pursue either of the complaints, but the entire experience has been so traumatic to the doctor that she has decided to retire in March and leave town. In less than three months, 800 people will no longer have a doctor, because one town councillor chose to post a false story online.

It took online hate to make this doctor quit

Instead of being celebrated for her years of sacrifice, dedication, and selfless efforts at healing, this doctor has been literally chased out of town. I’m sure it was the last thing she ever expected. This doctor had practiced medicine in Sudan and in New Guinea, but it took vicious online hatred in small-town Ontario to make her decide to pack it up and quit.

I was thinking about who is going to replace this doctor. There are terrible shortages of general practitioners in small-town Ontario and in many other parts of Canada. Even if it was possible to find a replacement for this one doctor, what physician would want to start working in a community that had treated their previous doctor so horrendously? Who would want to put up a shingle in a place where self-sacrifice, hard work and profound dedication are punished, rather than rewarded?

The city councillor probably had no idea, when he pressed “send” on his Facebook post, that the result of his unthinking actions would be to deprive 800 citizens of the only family doctor for miles around.

Come March 31st, 2022, the entire community is going to be without any local primary medical care, all because the councillor didn’t stop to get the correct information and instead, chose to spread false statements on social media – statements that were highly inflammatory and disparaging to the doctor.

Stop and think first about the consequences of your social media posts

Actions have consequences, especially when it comes to social media posts, so it’s always a good idea to stop and think about what might come of our actions, prior to posting anything online. In the case of the city councillor, his Facebook post had very dire unintended consequences, but sadly, that’s not the only social media post that has resulted in surprising and awful outcomes.

We have only to look at the news to see all the terrible results of online lies, bullying, and abuse. The tragedy is that no-one wins, from these abusive posts. The abusers don’t benefit in any real way from hurting their victims; the victims are injured, and there can be a ton of unexpected collateral damage.

The world is a difficult enough place these days and we need more love, not more aggression. I encourage everyone to spread love, not hate, online moving forward. I also strongly encourage you to always, always think about the consequences that might arise from the things you post.

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