"“They Suck my life away, and say they’re saving me” -From Falling Apart, Geriatrics Vengeance Club
For a year we’ve imprisoned trusting souls in long term care, we’ve locked them up, deprived them of human companionship, of hugs and smiles, of everything that makes them human. In this prison they have had no rights and no say, they couldn’t see their families or friends, they could do no exercise or stimulate their minds, they were met by squads of people draped in masks and shields, scared to death day after day. So many became more frail, more confused, weaker. So many died from their isolation and deprivation. And what was most tragic is that none of it worked. They all still became infected with COVID-19, right through the masks that were supposed to protect them, in their lonely cells, they came down with COVID-19 and they died of it, they died scared and alone, they died of COVID and of our treatment of COVID, and yet, we just kept them in that prison, we just kept it going, unconcerned about the feckless, inhuman brutality of it all. All of long term care was controlled by the dictates of the health department, the Governor’s office, of number counters who cared less about human life than COVID cases. Even after everyone was immunized, the locks remain, tightened even further if even one employee became sick, a policy bereft of scientific sense and human decency. We who are trained in geriatrics, the aides and nurses who have cared for our beloved patients forever, we had and have no voice. We suffer helplessly with our patients, our protests muffled by mandated masks that are a symbol of compliance and myth, of snake oils used so long ago to trick patients into thinking we care and are skilled in healing, not of the medical science and compassion that our patients expect of us. We have tossed trusting human beings in a prison and deceived them with our lies, as we hide behind masks and allow them to suffer and die. That is COVID to me. That is the health care system to me. That’s I write, why I fight. My books all delve into the imprisonment of individuals by a society that manipulates and de them, highlighting the heroes who dare to fight back. Whether fiction or nonfiction, my books pave a happy path forward, they are upbeat and joyful, they are funny and disturbing. That's why I write and why I fight. And I will never stop.
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