Great piece in al.com today about a doctor in Birmingham, Alabama, the state with the lowest vaccination rate in the nation, treating unvaccinated patients who are dying of COVID and how the situation is different now than the previous, pre-vaccine, surges.
Dr. Brytney Cobia’s telling is sad, tragic and frustrating as hell for her and other medical professionals dealing with the results of disinformation, misinformation and ignorance.
A worthwhile read.
“One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”
Alabama ranks near the bottom in nearly every important category that matters, from education to health care to quality of life. No surprise that conspiracy theories and lies about COVID spread rapidly.
“A few days later when I call time of death,” continued Cobia on Facebook, “I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.”
“They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.”
Doctors are trained to save lives. And even knowing that ignorance is causing people to needlessly die of COVID, Dr. Cobia’s humanity won’t allow her to lose empathy for the dying.
“You kind of go into it thinking, ‘Okay, I’m not going to feel bad for this person, because they make their own choice,’” Cobia said. “But then you actually see them, you see them face to face, and it really changes your whole perspective, because they’re still just a person that thinks that they made the best decision that they could with the information that they have, and all the misinformation that’s out there.
“And now all you really see is their fear and their regret. And even though I may walk into the room thinking, ‘Okay, this is your fault, you did this to yourself,’ when I leave the room, I just see a person that’s really suffering, and that is so regretful for the choice that they made.”
Read the piece. Not surprising, of course, but one can only imagine the frustration and sadness of these medical professionals who thought they had weathered the worst of the storm only to find themselves once again trapped in the cycle of death by lies and ignorance.