Stop Sneering at Unvaccinated People Getting Sick

What is the pandemic doing to us?

My mother, Sally Leitch, worked as an emergency room nurse at the Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center in Mattoon, Illinois, for nearly 35 years. You name it, she saw it. Every single day she went into her job, she saw people at the absolute lowest moment of their lives, people desperate for help, people mourning for their loved ones, people terrified and lonely, people saying goodbye, people without anyone to say goodbye to them. Every day, people begged my mother for assistance, screamed in her face, or both. We are at our worst when we or our loved ones are in the hospital. We are so scared.

My mother dealt with that, every day, with one core fundamental principle in place: Everyone deserves the best care possible. She took care of hardened criminals, convicted sex offenders, drunk drivers who had just killed a child before coming into the ER, and she took care of all of them with the same care and attention as she took care of her priest when he was admitted. That is the job: To care for and tend to the sick. It doesn’t matter who they were, or what they did, before they came into the emergency room. All that matters is that they are there, and that they need you. That’s the job. That’s the oath.