The Mask Gestapo

Dr Vernon Coleman





The mask gestapo are still at it.

When Antoinette went to the hospital for her latest mammogram, the receptionist demanded to know if she had proof that she didn’t need to wear a mask – a letter from her doctor of some kind.

Naturally, Antoinette didn’t have a letter or an `I do not need to wear a mask’ passport. Indeed, doctors have been instructed not to provide exemption letters for those unable or unwilling to wear a mask. There is no way to obtain official proof that a mask isn’t needed. The receptionist, working at the hospital, should have known that.

The receptionist then wanted to know why Antoinette wasn’t wearing a mask, thus compounding her mistake for the Home Office ruling seems to be that if someone chooses not to wear a mask then that is a personal decision and not one which should be questioned.

It was all in vain anyway.

Antoinette had to put on mask before she could have her mammogram.

The mask gestapo don’t lightly take ‘no’ for an answer.

And now we have to wait ten to fourteen days (ten to fourteen long days it has to be said) for the results which they will post to us – second class mail.

Second class mail.

That’s 240 to 336 hours we have to wait for someone to look at the mammogram and decide whether or not it is clear.

Of course, there shouldn’t be a wait at all.

In the old days (pre-covid) Antoinette would have known whether or not there was anything to worry about before she left the hospital.

By the way, I went with Antoinette (although we were told that I couldn’t be there) and I sat outside the mammogram department. Half the chairs had been turned to face the wall, thereby cutting the available seating space in half. All part of the nonsensical social distancing rules I suppose.

And the tragic thing is that I don’t mind betting that things never go back to the way they were.

Waiting times for results will remain cruelly long. And, as a result of absurd and entirely unnecessary social distancing rules, patients will have to wait ever longer to obtain medical treatment and many of those who do receive life changing news will receive it sitting in a small, soulless hospital consulting rooms – alone and separated from anyone who loves and cares for them.

Copyright Vernon Coleman May 2021





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