When Katie Smart took her nine-month-old son to the hospital in the US – after seeing him twist his ankle, and deciding that she should have his fever checked out at the same time – she wasn’t expecting to be called a “loser”.
Indirectly, anyway.
Before she and her son left the hospital, she saw a note from the nurse that had been left behind in their room. It was directed towards another person – presumably another member of the hospital staff – and read: “need to fx fever; 0 immunizations … Loser!”
This is how The Stir reported on the issue:
Smart says that she felt “judged” after seeing the note. And with good reason — she totally was! Doesn’t get much more judgey than the word “loser,” does it? “For her to say that, she doesn’t know why I choose not to vaccinate,” Katie said. She added that she and her husband chose not to vaccinate two of their three children after researching the ingredients of vaccinations.
Now, while we can all agree that “loser” is not a nice word, the fact here is that the nurse is a medical professional. A medical professional who – while perhaps using unprofessional language – is no doubt deeply troubled by seeing kids brought into the hospital every single day who haven’t been vaccinated.
And so often the reason these kids haven’t been vaccinated, is because their parents have done research on the internet (which, let’s face it, is not always the most reliable of sources) and stumbled across anti-vaccination scaremongering.
Let’s not forget: the reason vaccinations have been created is to combat incurable diseases. Incurable diseases, that many children around the world still die from.
The nurse in question has since been suspended from her job at the hospital.
What do you think about this situation? Was the nurse being inappropriate, and should she have been suspended? Or was she just trying to do her job?
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Top Comments
I haven't read the previous comments so excuse me if I repeat what others have written - the nurse did not call her a loser to her face therefore she should not have been fired But the mother is a loser in my opinion
One minute were lobbying against bullies. The next we are not only justifying name calling, but engaging in it. Regardless of what your view on vaccines are, bullying those by name calling, is simply not acceptable.
I may not agree with the anti vaccine crowd. But I also don''t agree with parents who feed their children junk food everyday. I dont agree with parents who hit their children, or don''t breastfeed or bla bla bla. Should I now go calling all these parents names?
It is almost as if bullying anti vaxers is socially acceptable, whilst it is condemned in most other areas. We are either going to accept that bullying is not ok for ALL people, or simply ok for everyone who is not a perfect parent in YOUR eyes.
Which one is it? Shall we bully everyone who lives their lives differently to ours? Is this why we cannot control our own children behaviour because we are all bullies ourselves?
Actually bullying by definition is a repeated occasions of harressment or abuse, social isolation etc. A one off incident such as this is not bullying. It is important to teach and explain the difference to children - all children say and do hurtful and nasty things to each other on occasion but it is unhelpful to label every occorance of poor behaviour as bullying
yes. fair point. However, it is important to note that the bullying and yes bullying of antivaxers on this site and in the general media is repeated and continuous.
And, regardless if it happens on the off occasion ( which it doesn't), we should not justify such behaviour and make it socially acceptable, when we normally would not accept it for any other group in our society.
It is simply hypocritical to suggest it is ok to name call anti vaxers, whilst those such the likes of Chrissy Swan ( of whom I really like and adore, regardless of her poor choices) who smoke during pregnancy and or feed their children absolute crap day in and day out, are not allowed to be given the same treatment on this site. And I would hope that it never gets to the point where it is accepted to bully anyone, let alone anti vaxers. But clearly, it is simply acceptable and is quite clearly the norm to trash these people. I
Sure, the lines are always blurry - but it's difficult sometimes not call a spade a spade, or an idiot an idiot.
The mother says the nurse did not know her reasons for not vaccinating but has now (presumably) admitted publicly that she apparently thinks she knows more about vaccines than the worldwide medical profession because she read the ingredients. I'm not sure how one should describe such a person.
It's worth noting here that the nurse's opinion was probably not intended to be publicised widely or directed at the mother, so it's not bullying in any classical meaning of the word. That said, the nurse probably should have stopped at the sad face.