This week, the hospital in Sturgeon Falls, Ontario issued this notice to everyone in the community. “Due to an increase in COVID-19 cases, visitors will not be permitted”. Not some visitors. All visitors are now prohibited.
They aren’t the only hospital. Many are resorting back to the same tactics as 2022, 2021 and 2020. Limiting visitors anytime there is an uptake in respiratory viruses circulating. They act like this is normal. Most people accept these rules and act like we have always done this. But these rules should not be accepted as normal or acceptable.
Before 2020, hospital never prevented visitors. Even during the worst outbreaks. Here is a news report from Kitchener in 2019 when their hospital experienced an influenza outbreak. Here is another in Thunder Bay where once again a flu outbreak occurred. The hospitals never stopped visitations. They simply recommended visitors postpone their visits if they were sick. They never even contemplated the idea of asking (let alone forcing) people to wear masks around their loved-ones.
But here we are in 2023. After “two weeks to flatten the curve”, a lockdown, school closure, another lockdown, society destroying vaccine mandates, another lockdown, more school closures we are resorting back to the same tactics.
Despite the fact that everyone has had the chance to get up to six mRNA COVID shots by now and are allowed to wear as many face masks as they choose*, we going to keep acting like respiratory virus season requires draconian rules again.
*Who the hell else is going to use all the blue masks in the little box at the entrance of every office?
My wife, Danielle wrote about this stupidity back in 2021 (originally published on a blog we no longer operate, but republished here). She was commenting on what was the second COVID death in the entire North Bay region (of over 100,000 people) after nearly a year of lockdowns, masks and fear.
I must repeat again that this region of over 100,000 experienced only 2 deaths of (or with) COVID in a full year. How did society not realize this was overblown?
At the time, the media kept declaring this death of a 75-year-old as a tragedy. This man’s death was sad but it was not tragic.
Just like when my own grandmother fell ill to a respiratory virus seven years ago and passed away shortly thereafter. It happens to thousands of Canadians every year. What was tragic in 2021 and tragic today. Is that the 75-year-old COVID victim in 2021 had to spend his last three days on this earth all by himself. The man died completely alone. Not a single one of his children or his wife could be by his side while he struggled to live and eventually died.
Buried in the CTV News article of the second COVID death of the pandemic was
Tragically, Arthur's health continued to decline in hospital with staff informing the family he only had a few days to live. Sadly, his family was not allowed at his bedside… "We couldn’t go at all, which was really, really hard," said Arthur’s daughter.
And we still haven’t stopped doing this. The hospital in Sturgeon Falls makes it clear that no exceptions will be made unless “senior management approves”. One would imagine that they will likely be forced to allow a single caregiver if someone is dying. But that does not leave me with much comfort. If something happened to me and I’d be on my deathbed, I’d have to decide between Danielle and one of our three children to whom I would get to say goodbye.
When my grandmother passed. It was sad. But every one of her eight children were in the room. No one was afraid to catch a cold or the flu. Let’s go back to living like that please. As Danielle said in 2021, “We are all dying, but we should not have to die alone...
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One of the greatest gifts of living in Canada is the changing seasons and the beauty that comes with each season. Late fall and winter are more serious and perhaps traditionally more full of risk. But this does not give health authorities the right to distort the fact that illness is a part of life and nature and that they do not have the moral right to separate love ones and to decide who belongs and who will be excluded.
Its terrible, doing that. When I was I'll a few yrs ago and worried it was COVID-19 I told my family to not even suggest I go to hospital until I was unconscious.
Will I ever trust doctors enough to go back to the days of annual checkups?
I'm thinking nope.