The COVID Vax Still Haunts Hospital Workers in Florida

As a nurse, I am lucky that my hospital is in a conservative area. During the Pandemic, while the hospital enforced all kinds of hysteria (thank you federal government), the community outside the doors was almost completely normal. There was never a mask mandate and nobody practiced “social distancing”. Some businesses did close for a “lockdown” at the beginning, but only for a brief time. Unlike so many other places, our favorite eateries and small shops survived. Even our local church carried on normally, while so many people elsewhere were forced to participate in worship via livestreaming. “Vaccine” uptake was on the low side of national averages, and no one did much of anything about that. In the community that is, in the hospital we were severely pressured.

All that surrounding normality gave me the strength to deal with my 8 – 12 hours of COVID misery per day. I knew that as soon as I hit the parking lot, the “Pandemic” would be over, and I could go live my life in freedom again. That fact, combined with the Jesus Prayer, kept me going through even the worst shifts.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

So it should come as no surprise that when the hospital lifted its mask mandate, patients and visiting family were thrilled. Masks are optional! No one will be asked about their “vaccine status”! Of course, no patient is ever happy to be getting admitted to a hospital, but you can see the relief on the patients’ faces knowing that they will at least breathe freely while seeing their nurses’ smiling faces.

Only, not so fast. What they don’t tell the patients is that only nurses and staff who have taken the jabs are allowed to go mask free. Almost a 1/3 of us got religious or other exemptions from the jabs. We must continue to wear masks – possibly for the rest of our careers. Patients aren’t told that when they check in. And we are not allowed to tell them ourselves on pain of being fired.

The patients only know that some nurses and staff show up to care for them wearing masks. You can see the change in their demeanor when that happens. They immediately assume the worst.  Many patients demand to know, “Why are you wearing that? Didn’t you hear that the mask mandate is over?” It can get heated. We cannot answer honestly. If we do, we are promised prompt discipline. So we defuse the situation as best we can and try our best to avoid awkward conversations and confrontations.

Do you know how hard it is to have your patients see you as a mask Nazi? After two years of frustration with this Pandemic, many patients now see me as the enemy – a person who is so wrapped up in COVID hysteria that I am still wearing a useless mask that I could take off if I wanted to. Only I can’t. And I can’t even tell them why.

So they assume I am one of the controlling people that forced them and their loved ones to wear masks in our facilities for the past couple of years. They assume I am on the side of the vax, the lockdowns, the school closures, and all the other oppression we have experienced.

Only patients have it completely backwards. In an ironic twist of fate, the most COVIDIAN members of our staff are the ones celebrating mask freedom with the patients. Everyone is all smiles at being human again, patients never suspecting that the unmasked staff are the compliant ones. Many of whom were the staff most paranoid about COVID. Many of whom clung to masks with a religious fervor, and reported any violation of COVID rules to management immediately.

Many of the now unmasked were still demanding, until quite recently, that we keep our restrictive visitation policies in place. Nurses who wanted granny to die alone, are now basking in the praise of their patients for having overcome the evil “mask mandate”. Meanwhile, the patients and family look suspiciously, and with great irritation, at still-masked nurses and other staff – assuming that we are the totalitarian enemy.

Here is what I would like to say to my patients and their visitors, if I could:

At the bedside when I’m looking at you and explaining the course of your medical care, don’t judge or blame me for wearing a mask. About a year ago our jobs were threatened, we stood up against the forced tyrannical shots and risked our own children’s welfare to do so. We are the ones who refused to comply with the jabs, and the ones who wanted this whole hysteria to end as quickly as possible. This mask order has no expiration date. We could be forced to do this the rest of our careers. The federal government and our management chose to single us out as a warning against non-compliance. Look at the staff badges. Those that complied with the jabs have a special sticker. That is their “get out of masking” mark.

 

Your anger against me is misdirected, and actually helps the COVID totalitarians you obviously despise. Your attitude towards me is part of the punishment they are subjecting me to.

 

I am your nurse. I would gladly work all night, through holidays, and through storms to be at your side. I have no control over the political factions that rule and pressure our facilities. I’m here for you, I’m not the offensive enemy that has held you captive for over 2 years.  I am the one that is smiling under her mask, thanking God for your and your family’s newly recovered freedom. I probably won’t have the freedom to be unmasked at work for many years to come, thanks to this political climate. Yet, I’m so thankful to God that I can see my patients’ faces and their loved ones’ physical cues of confusion or satisfaction. I’m attuned to their every move, gesture and remark. Glory to God, I will happily live masked if forced to do so to care for my patients. That is my gift to God, as little as it is.

But, you might ask, isn’t there a nursing shortage? Why not just get another job? All of the hospitals in our area have the same policy – only the “vaxxed” can go mask free. Officially, this is based on federal policy set by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Comply hospitals, or the Feds cut off your money. So management complies. But don’t be foolish enough to think they are reluctant to do so. They want to see us miscreants singled out and punished just as badly as the Feds do.

But wait, hasn’t even Pfizer now admitted that the jabs never stopped transmission of the virus? That all that talk about getting vaccinated to protect others was nothing but lies? Where is the “science” behind making us wear useless masks?

There is no “science” here. It’s about power and obedience.

Aren’t the mRNA jabs, we unmasked hospital employees refused, now implicated in all kinds of serious adverse reactions such as myocarditis, changes in menstrual cycles, reduced sperm counts, paralysis, cancer, auto-immune disorders, strokes, sudden adult death syndrome…?

Yes, all that is true. The shots are useless and dangerous, as are the masks, but no one seems to care about facts. We are guilty of having disobeyed, and now we must be punished. As an unvaccinated nurse, all my employment options either require I get vaxxed or continue masking. At least I’m lucky to be in a state where my religious exemption is honored. My soul is spared the choice of taking a shot linked to abortion or quitting nursing altogether.

I have looked at some remote jobs for nurses. Those are largely dead ends. Most companies hiring remote positions are based in Blue States, and the jab is required – no exceptions. Besides, I got into nursing to care for actual people, not file paperwork for insurance companies.

So here we are. The unvaxxed nurses and staff, once hailed as heroes, are now despised by our own management and our patients alike. It is a hard place to be. I pray a lot, especially when I want to burst out yelling about how unfair all this is.

Since all things work for our salvation, perhaps this is my opportunity learn that some battles, God must fight for me. I listen to a lot of prayers on break to help me focused. This is one of my favorites:

Please, remember to pray for your nurses and hospital staff. Those of us that did not take the jabs are sentenced to what could be a lifetime of discrimination. Those that took the jabs look forward to an unknown future of potential adverse reactions, in addition to having their souls linked to the evil of abortion.

My Hope is the father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit; O Lord glory be to Thee.

Maria is a nurse with decades of experience and an Orthodox Christian

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