[imagesource: Getty Images]

Every now and then, when warranted, we make an exception to our anti-open letter stance.

Let it be noted that these exceptions are relatively few and far between. The world is a grim enough place without an open letter open season.

As frustrating as it is for us laypeople to watch the spread of COVID-19 misinformation, let’s take a moment to consider those who work on the frontlines.

Hailed as heroes, with pots and pans banging in the evenings to say thanks (that seems like a lifetime ago), the pandemic has shown that such gestures are not enough.

Dr Lara Norris, a community service doctor in the Western Cape, points out in her open letter that medical professionals have been let down on so many fronts.

Here’s that full letter, via Lara’s Facebook post:

A letter to each and every South African…

It’s another wave.You’d think we’d know what we’re doing by now. For healthcare workers? It feels like we’re in an ocean. I’ve seen smiling faces full of optimism descend into cynicism. I’ve seen more and more doctors turn to therapy. Turn to alcohol and drugs. We don and we doff. We’re trying to catch up. But it’s an episode of Wiley coyote and the Roadrunner. And we don’t know where the end point is.

We’ve been let down by our government. Covid funds have been mismanaged. I’ve watched our colleagues post-comm serve sit at home. Yet we have this shortage of doctors. We imported Cuban trained doctors and our government nominated them for the Nobel Prize. A slap in the face to those on the frontline. Money wasted when we have some of the best trained doctors on the planet.

We’ve been let down by our colleagues. We expect the impossible from junior staff. We expect fresh-faced interns with no ICU nor covid experience to run full COVID ICUs. A generation of doctors who will survive the pandemic and probably walk out with PTSD or depression. Or an anxiety disorder. How is that fair on our interns and our comm serves?

Image: Facebook / Lara Norris

Finally we’ve been let down by South Africa. We don’t ask for much. We just ask that you wear a mask. We ask that you clean your hands. We ask that you stay at home when you can. When you walk around with your mask over your chin. When you spread blatant lies on social media. When you use an anti-PARASITIC for a virus. (Ivermectin) and find every obscure article from obscure uncredited source to scare each other from getting a proven vaccine.

Just to let you all know, healthcare workers who have been vaccinated and have contracted covid: 94% have mild disease, 4% have moderate, 2% severe disease. Vaccines work. Stop spreading lies on Facebook. A YouTube video does not discredit academia who research and track data.

South Africans. Start looking after your healthcare workers. No one on this planet is more tired of this pandemic than we are. We are tired. We are depressed. We are demotivated. We are sick of preaching the same story to a wall. no one is going to be there for you when we aren’t around.

Read that again, slowly, from start to finish.

You’re not being oppressed because you have to wear a mask to the shops, when our medical professionals wear them for hours on end.

You’re not being clever when you share misinformation or discredited studies linked to Ivermectin treatment or the efficacy of vaccines, when experts in the field are doing their best to share verified information aimed at saving lives.

(By the way, the largest Ivermectin trial results are out, before you go digging for that YouTube video.)

You’re actually pushing people like Lara beyond their breaking point, at a time when we need them most.

This isn’t a situation unique to South Africa, of course, with doctors in the US risking their lives while their neighbours insist COVID-19 is a hoax.

After her letter went viral, Lara spoke with TimesLIVE about why she wrote it:

 …in a moment of deep emotion and frustration, she opened her heart on social media.

“I did not have a political agenda. I did it for humanitarian reasons. As I sit here, I am watching them wheel a ventilated Covid-19 patient into ICU, and I am wishing the people out there could just see this,” she said…

She added that, as always, “there have been your usual trolls”.

If you’re trolling a doctor pouring her heart out about the emotional toll of trying to save lives in the toughest of conditions, you need your head looked at.

The days of banging pots and pans to say thanks to our healthcare professionals are long behind us.

They’re asking us to listen.

[sources:facebook&timeslive]