I hesitated to post this, as I rarely post something so personal, but I just feel that I must.
I am so angry right now I can't see straight and my anger is directed at two COVID related situations:
At work we've been rotating on a 3-day-in-office, 2-day-telework schedule for several months now. As you have likely heard, COVID is spiking BIG time with the beginning of the cool/cold season. Even though at the office we are required to wear our masks in hallways, bathrooms and break rooms, we unfortunately have people who regularly go around those areas with their masks pulled down below their nose and even some with their masks pulled down below their chin, which, of course, undermines the whole reason for the masks.
A few days ago when I was working in-office I went to the restroom. After I left the stall and went to the sink to wash my hands another woman came out of a stall and came up to the sink right next to me and started talking to me - with her mask pulled down under her chin!
That was the last straw for me and I spoke to a supervisor about it. I am in a group that is at risk for severe complications, according to the latest CDC guidance, should I get the virus - 63 years old, cardiovascular disease, overweight (gained back 2/3 of what I had lost before my heart attack - after I quit a 48-year history of smoking), high blood pressure and hypercholesterolemia. The supervisor agreed that it would be a good idea for me to telework full time and asked that I get a doctor's statement confirming my risk factors. I figured that would be no problem. I was wrong.
I called my cardiologist's office to get a statement from him, as he obviously knows my cardiac health history since he's the one who put in my stent after my heart attack in December of 2019 and has been seeing me regularly since that time. His office called me back the next morning and told me that he would NOT give me a statement because he felt that there were no contraindications for me to work in an office. No contraindications!!!
Now, I've suspected from some of the comments he's made during the visits I've had with him that he's probably a conservative, but I never dreamed that he would put a patient's health at risk for the sake of political ideology. Apparently, however, he's a full blown right wing nutcase, willing to deny medical reality for the sake of the current party line. I mean, what the hell else can I believe at this point?
Anyway, I made an appointment with my general practitioner, who readily agreed that I am definitely high risk and should be teleworking if my job can be done from home (it can). The cardiologist has on file the same medical record history as my general practitioner. The GP wrote out my medical excuse with no problem whatsoever and now I am working exclusively from home and feeling much safer.
The cardiologist in question has a reputation for being both a top notch doctor and a top notch dick when it comes to "bedside manner." I've never before cared about bedside manner as long as the doctor was qualified and competent, but now it's a different story. I have one more visit scheduled with him before the end of the year and we're supposed to have a medication review to see which meds I can stop taking now and which ones I need to continue. I plan to keep that appointment and afterwards fire his ass and find another cardiologist.
Question is - at this point, considering what I've experienced, should I require any doctor who might be treating me in the future to advise me as to their political ideology? Seriously, I hate it that it's come to this, but I also don't want to literally put my life in the hands of a health care provider who cares more for their personal political ideology than the health of their patients. This is the world we live in now, and some people - people we thought could be trusted with our health and safety - are easily as dangerous as the virus.
