Inhumane

Sechelt Hospital’s COVID-19 visitor restrictions are inhumane.
Imagine an elderly patient with ongoing health challenges in the hospital indefinitely. His wife of more than 50 years, now living alone, can only visit her husband once a week for a mere half-hour. She has to wear a mask, not touch her husband, and stay six feet away. She has to strain to hear his voice and always under the strict and watchful eyes of hospital staff.
If hospital staff can touch the patient, why can’t the wife? This kind of harsh treatment is somewhat analogous to the treatment of Nazi prisoners, separated, isolated, no touching, no communication, and ordered to stand in one place. Human beings require touch.
The wife in question now has nothing to live for. She wants to not wake up in the morning. She turned her head away in tears while speaking.
The effect of these hospital rules is that the living person is dying as the hospital keeps the dying person alive in body, but not in soul. At any stage of life, this inhumane treatment amounts to emotional and psychological torture.
Remove the distancing. Banks and grocery check-out stations do. Position a 3×5 foot high clear plexiglass shield or sturdy plastic on ‘screen divider’ rollers beside the patient’s bed. Create holes or teller style openings at bedrail level through which the visitor can easily touch their loved one. Now is the time to have empathy. Exercise humanity. Stop the senseless control. This is a clear violation of our democratic rights and freedoms.
Carole James,
Roberts Creek