A letter to the hospital.

(Content note: Medical.)

I just left the following feedback for a hospital:

Hello. On [date redacted], I was a patient in the radiology department. Hospital staff left an elderly woman on a gurney in the hall for a while. She could hardly breathe due to RSV, and was getting oxygen through a nasal cannula. I stopped to talk with her, to lift her spirits. She seemed to enjoy it. I was glad of my P100 mask: Nobody else was masking around her, and her loose paper mask was off after she had soaked it. Somehow, although I'm used to it, it still amazes me that hospital staff don't care what they're infecting her with, and what she's infecting them with.

It amazes me even more that hospital administration feels that sick and dying staff members and patients are an acceptable price to pay for not having to enforce the wearing of high quality masks. Is [hospital name redacted] suffering from having too many staff, who are available too much of the time?

It seems to me that, even aside from saving their lives, many staff members could benefit socially and psychologically from masking rules. It is clear that many people would like to protect themselves and others by masking, but refrain because they don't want to get dirty looks from fascists for choosing to mask. If they can shrug and say, "It's the rules: I have to wear it," then they can protect themselves and others without having to incur the social cost of choosing to do the right thing.

And, of course, they then wouldn't be killing the nice old lady who can hardly breathe. If that matters.