Op-Ed: We Are Forgetting Our Humanity

My heart pounding, I couldn’t believe my ears. It felt like a surreal nightmare. Yet, I was in my home office on the phone with the third Greater Manchester hospital I had called that night on behalf of my friend. I had asked all three of them: “You won’t let a man die over this, will you?” This was the last thing I asked after trying every other rational approach. The third Emergency Room director responded similarly to the other two: “If he’s going to be that stubborn, then I guess he has no one to blame but himself.” The brazen callousness left me stunned.

My friend, a New Hampshire resident, was stuck in a Massachusetts hospital with a burst appendix, and the hospital was refusing to give him the needed treatment. He arrived there by ambulance from his weekend getaway writhing in excruciating pain, and in his weakness, hospital staff insisted he take a COVID test before he could be treated. He refused. 

Before you say, “Why wouldn’t he just take the test?,” consider the implications of this scenario and ask yourself: Why would anyone who arrived at the hospital in an ambulance not get immediate treatment for a present trauma before worrying about anything else? The test was wholly unnecessary for the symptoms he was expressing. It was like the Emergency Room asking a women who showed up with a bone protruding from her arm to submit to a pregnancy test before she could be treated for her arm injury. How long now have we treated patients in our emergency rooms with no documentation of their citizenship let alone any way to pay for their care? Treating trauma without asking questions is the right thing to do. What’s different now?

Some form of compliance to the COVID lunacy is now a gateway to many areas of our former American life, and it shouldn’t be. Personally, I haven’t bought in, and I won’t, and you shouldn’t either. I’m grateful for men like my friend who literally put his own life on the line to stand for principle against a tyrannical reality that needs to come to an end. If you all did what he did, we’d be watching fireworks displays, holding the hands of our loved ones in the midst of joyful crowds of families doing the same thing. Our government would serve us, and protect our rights rather than force us into a system of health injustice that is merely setting the stage for a permanent subjugation to the powers that be. 

As for me, rather than wear a mask to get on a plane, I’ve driven across the country several times. I won’t fly again until passengers are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. I never once wore a mask to buy my family’s groceries and led the fight to prevent heavy-handed enforcement of that useless health-security theater. I certainly won’t start wearing one now. How many people approached me screaming through their masks—as if that protected either of us or changed my mind. I can still feel the sputum of hate coming from their mouths, and I still pray for the fog of fear to be lifted from their hearts.

When I needed an overnight medical study, I worked with my doctor to find a way to conduct the study without a mask, without a COVID test, and without any protocol at all. When I needed medical imagery done for a different issue, I called around until I found a center that would let me come in without a mask. First they tried to make me wear a face shield as an alternative. Why didn’t I? I’m not going to bow down to the COVID fear god. I don’t practice the false religion of “science.” The answer was “NO!” I went in for the test, the last patient of the day, with my face reflecting the image of God. Believe it or not, the tech told me, “try not to breathe.” Thank God these have been my only two run-ins with medical care, but regular visits to the dentist of eye doctor have become a thing of the past.

I’m not vaccinated. It’s a violation of my faith. If someone tries to force the issue, the laws relative to self defense will come into play. To me, it’s a fatal injection, and whether or not its fatal for my body is irrelevant; it is fatal for my soul. It’s not going to happen. And so the coming “COVID Pass,” or whatever euphemism is planned as the next stepping stone to tyranny, is also something I just won’t do. I’ve never taken a COVID test and I won’t. Why do I need one? I’ve had COVID. Trust me, I knew what it was—no test needed. Illnesses come along with symptoms, and without symptoms, they’re not illnesses. And when I’m ill, I stay home and away from other people.

And so my friend’s illness, a burst appendix, certainly came with its own symptoms, and yet the doctors in at least four hospitals thought it was OK to let a man suffer for days without helping him because he wouldn’t take a COVID test. This is next-level strength, and it is deserving of next-level admiration. His wife called me, and asked for my help. I called everyone I knew who might be able to help, and then I called the local hospitals to try and talk some sense into them—perhaps he could be transferred? 

In each case, I spoke with the head doctor in charge of the emergency department that evening. I told the story of the Massachusetts hospital denying him treatment, searching for some empathy—some semblance of humanity. Could my friend be transferred north for treatment? One after another, the doctors said “No. He has to take a COVID test before we can treat him—it’s protocol.” And so I asked the question, “You’re going to let him die over this?” All three of them, in their own methodical language, said the same thing. “If he’s not going to take a COVID test, we can’t treat him.” 

There shouldn’t be a barrier to life-saving treatment. Ever! The role of a doctor, particularly an American doctor, is to treat first and ask questions later. Dr. Louis Lasagna’s Hippocratic Oath 1964 re-write states, “I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required, avoiding those twin traps of over treatment and therapeutic nihilism.” Have doctors forgotten their calling today? I think it’s time to call for a reality check.

Thankfully, my friend found someone who could talk some sense into the doctors at the Massachusetts hospital. He was given preliminary treatment a few days later. But what if his initial condition had been more advanced? What if they really had let him die? Whatever force is causing this insanity in our society has got to come to an end.

The more of us who take a stand like my friend, the closer to restoring freedom we’re going to get. Living free is still possible. It’s just very, very hard, which is why you all haven’t done it yet. You must. You need to join us before it’s too late. Things aren’t getting better, and they won’t, until you stand up with us and say “NO MORE!”

Andrew J. Manuse is chairman of RebuildNH, a group of volunteers focused on medical freedom, human liberty and constitutional governance.