They’re stressed, suffering, sucked dry, dying.
Hundreds of health-care workers lost their lives battling the coronavirus
….On March 22, Carter’s patients included a woman she suspected of having covid-19. Before going home that morning, she told the nurse who’d relieve her to be careful and wear protective equipment. A few days later, both Carter and Celia would test positive for the coronavirus. Carter, 36, recovered. The patient and Celia did not.
Now Carter is with her colleagues on this dimly lit sidewalk, and soon this vigil starts taking on the feeling of a protest. Caldwell looks into a camera and vows that Celia’s death will not be in vain. Carter challenges other nurses to fight for what they need.
Another nurse, Leo Fuller, steps forward and solemnly reads from a list of fallen health-care workers from around the United States:
Jeff Baumbach, 57, from California;
Aleyamma John, 65, from New York;
Araceli Ilagan, 63, from Miami. No one can say how many of those people died because of insufficient PPE, inadequate testing or other issues. What is undeniable is that all of them put their lives at risk to care for others because that’s what they do. Some also lived and worked in communities with widespread transmission. Still, a series of “what ifs” haunt some of their friends, relatives and colleagues.
Fuller flips the page. She left Research last October, begging Celia to come with her so they could travel the world. But Celia kept working, undeterred by age or even a deadly virus, and now she had one more thing in common with the names Fuller is reading: Daisy Doronila, 60, from New Jersey; Kious Kelly, 48, from New York City; Freda Ocran, 50, from the Bronx.
Fuller again turns the page and keeps reading. With 54 names to announce, she turns it again…..
Separated from their families. Sacrificing themselves for those too willfully ignorant ass selfish to do the right thing — wear a mask, wash their hands, social distance, shut down — in order to save lives, in order to keep our health care system from imploding.
Honoring U.S. Healthcare Workers Who Died From Coronavirus
— MedPage Today lists those who have lost their lives to COVID-19
They’re our health care workers. Our nurses, doctors, techs. Our first responders, EMT’s.
They are our front line against this virus. They are our fallen and we are failing them.
The Trump Administration and Republican Governors are condemning them to suffering and death.
Blood is on this country’s hands.
Who are we to expect anything from those we have abandoned?
Families of Health Workers Killed by COVID Fight for Denied Workers’ Comp Benefits
…...As the COVID toll climbs, sick workers and families of the dead face another daunting burden: fighting for benefits from workers’ compensation systems that, in some states, are stacked against them.
In interviews with lawyers and families across the nation, KHN found that health care workers ― including nurses’ aides, physician assistants and maintenance workers ― have faced denials or long-shot odds of getting benefits paid. In some cases, those benefits amount to an ambulance bill. In others, they would provide lifetime salary replacement for a spouse.
Legal experts say that in some states COVID-19 falls into a long-standing category of diseases like a cold or the flu — conditions not covered by workers’ compensation — with no plans to change that. Other states force workers to prove they caught the virus at work, rather than from a family member or in the community…..
My son is an ICU RN. We have barely seen him for months. He stops by when he can. Always outside. All of us wearing masks. He mows the lawn. Asks how we’re doing, the worry real in his voice. I reassure him. He reassures me. This family does the hard and difficult well. We’ve had lots of practice putting on the brave face.
And I want to cry.
He’s the one most at risk. He’s the one born with forever health issues. He’s the one who has lived on the cutting edge of medical science all his life. He’s the one who recently fought back against an aggressive cancer.
His bravery shatters me.
This country doesn’t deserve him. This country doesn’t deserve so many like him. It doesn’t deserve those of my family and friends who are on the front line.
What this country is doing to our health care workers, our first responders, our front line workers, their families, shatters me.
Its selfish cruel indifference — the root cause of so much suffering and loss.
I am not willing to sacrifice my child’s life for Trump’s and the GOP’s re-election chances.
And that is what they are demanding all of us do.
That is what they are demanding our health care workers do.
That is what they are demanding our Troops do
That is what they are demanding our teachers do.
That is what they are demanding our children do.
That is what they are demanding our grand babies do.
That is what they are demanding we all do.
Like all abusers and predators, they try to make us complicit in our own demise.
I’ve seen it before. Grew up with it.
My deepest fear, my oldest button, has always been fear for those I love. That they will be harmed, yet again.
That they will not survive.
That fear has returned with a vengeance during these days of pandemic and betrayal.
It now bookends my life and I struggle to keep that old, deeply placed button from exploding my fear, grief, and fury. I fight against it like an animal caught in a leg trap, desperate to escape.
And I know who set the trap.
There are murderers who wear flag pins on their lapels, swore oaths to our Constitution, and dare to quote scripture while they knowingly send our people to their deaths.
[Adding this by 1864 House in the comments because she said it so damn well. ]
They ask us to sacrifice…
Our elders… who hold our collective memory and wisdom.
Our caregivers… who nurture our bodies and souls.
Our neighbors… who go to work to keep us fed.
Our teachers… who build a bridge to a better world.
And now our children…. our hearts, our hope, and our future.
They are traitors of the first order, betrayers of everything we hold dear, dealers of death to those we love. They are evil. The suffering and death counts climb on their watch and will not stop until we remove them from power.
We will not allow this to continue.
We must not.
Stand up.
Rise up.
GOTV