OPINION:
Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg, Virginia, is a place where the sick should fear to go — and sadly, the place where my husband has just been admitted.
“All visitors must remain masked while in our facilities,” Mary Washington’s website blasts.
“Noncompliance with the face mask requirement will lead to removal from the facility,” Mary Washington’s website goes on.
It’s enough to make a dictator proud.
And that’s in addition to the numerous signs that dot the entryways at Mary Washington spelling out how face masks are “required” as conditions of entry and presence at the hospital. Refuse the mask?
That’s when Mary Washington really kicks it into high gear, siccing 20s-something security officials dressed in black sweaters with arm patches to chase down middle-age women visiting sick husbands and then, upon discovering their offenders at the bedside, to pluck forth yellow face masks from hand-carried Kleenex-size boxed and slap them dramatically on the patient table. Next to the half-eaten salad. Alongside the partly picked-at sandwich.
You must wear this! Chris the Goon says, arms crossed, legs planted a firm shoulder length apart.
You must wear this at all times! Chris the Goon thunders, adopting his best and sternest holier than thou — albeit face-masked — expression.
You must wear this at all times or you will have to leave! Chris the Goon threatens, enjoying the power three years of COVID-19 government lunacy gave to the ignorant, the desperate, the unthinking, the sheep.
Chris the Goon is a real Mary Washington employee. He represents the worst of the worst of humanity — the morally self-righteous power-tripping buffoons of COVID-19 time. These are the people who once tasted authority during middle school hall monitor duty days, and have since, done everything they could to relive that glory. These are the people who’ve suffered for years in bitter silence as their societal betters have gone on to become the creators, the designers, the leaders and titans of both industry and art, the independent entrepreneurial geniuses and the like — and these are the people who, left behind, have angrily bit their tongues and bided their times and voted for Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and waited for all the socialists and Marxists to provide them their just due. Which is to say — whatever Peter has, and yes, Paul, too.
These are the people who deep down love COVID — or at least, the chaos of COVID.
Chris the Goon and his type love COVID-19 because it gives them cause to exert controls over people they normally couldn’t and wouldn’t — and wouldn’t ever normally dare — control.
Chris the Goon and his type don’t just live for face mask mandates, and social distancing mandates, and vaccine mandates, and booster mandates. They live for the chance to force others to abide these mandates. They’re the obnoxious clerk at the grocery who chases down an elderly man to invade his six-foot of supposed mandated social distance space just to proclaim loudly, “You have to wear a face mask!” They’re the obnoxious lady in line at the pharmacy who cuts through the crowd to stand near the one person not wearing a face mask, just to have an excuse to cry, “You need to put on a face mask!” They’re the obnoxious parent with child at the dentist office who takes up seat in an empty waiting room alongside the one patient who happens to be there, and who is not wearing a face mask, to then call out for the office personnel, “Hey, he’s not wearing a face mask!”
They’re Chris the Goon at Mary Washington hospital in Fredericksburg.
And here’s the thing: These people should be ignored. They could be ignored. They used to be ignored with regularity. But then came COVID-19 and then came the lunatic fringe leading the medical bureaucrat charge, and the partnering of politics with Big Pharma, and bam, suddenly and overnight critical thinking became banned. Questioning authority became barred. Science and fact became whatever made the media rounds that day — that hour, even. And the world of health became not so much something of a personal, individual matter and much more something of a collective consideration.
Take the shot — it’s the patriotic thing to do.
Wear the face mask — it’s the American thing to do.
It’s been three years of COVID and by now, it’s settled science that face masks don’t prevent the spread of the virus; the so-called vaccines don’t stop the spread of the virus; and that most everything the government and medical bureaucrats dictated during the virus as surefire, certain, irrefutable best health practices were, well, Not. It’s been three years of COVID lies by government, by medical bureaucrats, by pharmaceuticals — and on that last, in many cases, who worked with government and medical professionals, in direct violation of ethical considerations and in total conflicts of interest.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn’t even recommend face masks any more.
Virginia’s recently seated Republican-dominated government outright banned face mask mandates in most instances.
President Joe Biden himself acknowledged the pandemic was “over,” and the White House has long ago stopped pushing face masks onto the faces of federal facility visitors.
Yet Mary Washington knows best?
“Certain people should not wear a mask,” Virginia’s Department of Health — the organization that oversees medical facilities in the state — reports.
Yet Mary Washington knows best?
“Out of respect for the safety of our patients and care team, we expect all visitors to be vaccinated against COVID-19,” Mary Washington scolds, from its website.
Mary Washington knows best.
Mary Washington — the facility that just a few short years ago, in mid-2019, won recognition from NPR for suing “so many patients that the court reserves a morning every month for its cases” — yes, this Mary Washington — apparently knows best.
Unfortunately, if strong-arming visitors into wearing face masks and threatening to prevent resistors from sitting alongside their loved ones, in their times of medical needs — if this is Mary Washington’s idea of knowing best, then patients beware.
A hospital that puts patient care in jeopardy by banning those who won’t abide deceptive, randomly applied and utterly unscientific policies based on fabricated health claims is a hospital that leaves much to be desired. A hospital shouldn’t put more effort into controlling its visitors than helping its patients.
And just as a quick note: Mary Washington was asked three times over the course of 12 hours for explanation of its face mask “requirement” — including who made the requirement, who approved the requirement, what medical science was used to justify the requirement and what were the enforcement provisions of the requirement. The answer? Crickets.
Tyrants never feel the need to explain themselves.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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