Matthew Trunsky is used a lot to people getting mad at him.
Trunsky is a pulmonologist at Beaumont Health in southeastern Michigan and the director of the palliative unit. He sees the most sick patients and often delivers the bad news.
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He understands it. Nobody is ready to hear that their loved one is in the end.
Trunsky was devastated to hear that a respected nurse in an intensive care unit told him that the wife of a covid patient who had not been vaccinated had beaten her during her recent shift.
He made a sandwich for himself and then opened Facebook when he returned home.
He continued to wear his black scrubs and began to vent. He wrote about a patient in critical condition who challenged his covid-19 diagnosis. One patient threatened to call his lawyer if the doctor didn't give him ivermectin. This anti-parasite drug is not approved for covid treatment. Trunsky reported that Trunsky had also written that Trunsky told Trunsky that he would prefer to die than receive one of the vaccines.
One demanded a new doctor. He said, "I don’t believe you", to the physician.
The doctor added, "Officially the answer was to have been vaccined - but they weren't and now they are angry at the medical community because of their failure."
Trunsky's blog post about his interactions with eight covid patient and their families highlights the resistance and mistreatment that some U.S. health care workers face when caring for patients who are unable or unwilling to get vaccinated. Trunsky estimates that 9 out of 10 covid patients he sees are not vaccinated.
The post, which is a plea to people to get vaccinated, also shows the emotional and physical toll that the pandemic has taken on health care workers who have been working on the frontlines for more than a year. According to a Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll about 33% of 10 people have considered quitting the profession and 69% say that stress from the pandemics has caused mental health problems.
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Some doctors refuse to treat patients who are not vaccinated. A doctor from Alabama stood last month beside a sign declaring that he would not be treating unvaccinated patients starting Oct. 1. A Florida doctor wrote to her patients earlier this month informing them she wouldn't be treating unvaccinated patients after Sept. 15.
Trunsky, 55 years old, sympathizes with other burnt-out medical professionals.
"We are all physically exhausted, me included, but we are also emotionally exhausted. . . He told The Post that he doesn't think a week passes by without seeing someone die.
Trunsky spent approximately four hours per day calling families of patients to update them about their loved ones' health. Some of these conversations still impact him. For example, he once called a woman to tell her that her father had passed away. He recalled her saying to him, "I'm sorry that I can't answer your call right now." "We are burying our mother."
Another time, when Trunsky called a woman to report her brother's death, she answered the woman with "Look, I lost my mother, my father, and my brother have died. And I don’t want any bad news."
He said that the only thing that makes him more sad, according to The Post: "Those I don't recall." He can't recall all the patients he lost during the global pandemic.
Trunsky and his staff were confronted with a surge in coronavirus patients for most of 2020. Trunsky stated that morale and hope were restored to his hospital after the Food and Drug Administration approved the first vaccine in December. However, this did not last for long. Hospital beds started to fill up again as the vaccine rates declined and the highly contagious delta strain began spreading.
Trunsky stated that different reasons exist for people not getting the vaccine. Trunsky said that some regret making the decision, such as a nursing mom who was worried about her baby's health after she had received the vaccine. Trunsky stated that others are convinced they made the right decision - even if it means they die.
He said that whatever their motives, "they're paying the price" and was mad at The Post.
He said that it was easier to treat patients who are grateful than those who threaten to sue if they don't get ivermectin. However, he is still committed to providing the same level care to anyone with covid.
He said that six of the eight people he mentioned in his Facebook post about the difficult shift earlier in the month have since died.
Two remain in critical condition, including the husband and wife of the woman who berated ICU nurses.
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