Alabama Doctor watched patients reject Covid vaccine now refuses to treat them

washingtonpost.com

1 point·DocFeind··6 comments

> “Dr. Valentine will no longer see patients that are not vaccinated against covid-19,” the sign reads.

Sounds good. Let's continue with drug addicts, obese people and smokers! Their body, their choice, their consequences!

The doctor is unlikely to catch fatness or smoking if they come into his office. COVID, on the other hand...

Healthcare workers are at huge risk of the best of times. I can understand that they mightn't be excited about having to have contact with a stream of voluntarily unvaccinated people.

The doctor did not say that he's scared of catching COVID, but that he "cannot continue to watch [his] patients suffer and die from an eminently preventable disease".

Maybe he also shouldn't treat extreme sports athletes. Sounds like an eminently preventable thing.

My body, my choice; my choice to live (or not) with the consequences.

Further, Doctors are free to refuse treatment to others for any other reason, no? Offering a fair service to all at a fair price regardless of prejudice was so last century.

In most jurisdictions, doctors are in fact free to refuse treatment for a variety of reasons. Not any reason, of course. One cannot discriminate. A current patient requiring urgent or life-saving care generally means you can't just dump them.

But something like a fundamental mismatch in philosophy regarding medicine? Maybe the patient is just rude and irritating? Patient never, ever follows advice so the doc is not sure why they're wasting their time? A doctor can fire a patient for that in many places. They can also simply just move or retire, of course.

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