Dear editor,
As a physician, I worry I may soon be forced to decide between sending a nursing home patient or a younger person who has come down with COVID-19 to the hospital because of limited space.
I worry that I’ll have to make a decision on which patient needing to be put on a respirator will be transferred to the city when city hospitals have limited space and can only accept one person, not two. Will I make that decision based on whether that person is married with children or whether they are single?
I worry about how I decide which nurse gets an N95 mask and which gets the plain surgical mask to see the sick COVID patient. Is it the young nurse with children and a family or the new graduate who has no family?
My coworkers are working 12-hour days trying to see all the patients that are sick with COVID-19. Do I send them home and see those patients myself even though my employer does not want me to see sick people because I’m 67 and at high risk for getting very ill if I get the virus?
I understand the other side of the argument to be by those who maintain a face mask mandate infringes their personal freedoms.
Even for public safety, they also believe they should not have to abide by requests that ask them to refrain from engaging with others or change how they do their businesses. They believe the COVID-19 virus is not in their community and likely will not come this way.
It takes three weeks for each day’s behaviors to fully manifest themselves. In many states that have recently relaxed their rules, including Kansas, new cases of COVID-19 are at all-time highs and their metropolitan hospitals are full.
If we don’t do our best to guard against the virus, we will most likely have an outbreak here.
The decision for each of us is whether we have signed on to be our brother’s keeper. If the answer is no, ditch the mask.
My hope is that we regard every life as precious and deserving of our compassion.
Sincerely,
Dr. Brian Wolfe,
Iola, Kan.
