Why Healthcare Settings Should Drop Their Mask Requirements
Dr. Gary Sidley, a former NHS Consultant Psychologist and co-founder of Smile Free, has a piece in the Critic today criticising the persistence of widespread masking in healthcare settings and summarising the evidence for why masks are a bad idea.
Over recent weeks there has been a marked reduction in the number of people wearing face coverings in retail settings, hospitality venues and on public transport. Given the ineffectiveness of masks in reducing viral transmission, together with the multiple harms associated with them, this transition is both rational and welcome. Paradoxically, the prominent exceptions to this return to a mask-free society are NHS facilities and venues allied to health. Widespread masking of both staff and patrons persists in all hospitals, health centres and GP practices, and most dentists, opticians and pharmacies.
A sphere of society where one might reasonably expect a reliance upon evidence-based practice, is now the outlier in persisting with the unscientific and pervasively damaging mass-masking phenomenon. More troublingly, healthcare’s insistence that staff and visitors continue to wear masks constitutes additional risks to the wellbeing of the people who use these services. Some of the general harms of face coverings are likely to be particularly problematic in these settings, including:
Impaired communication
Clear communication is a central requirement for effective healthcare. By muffling speech and hiding non-verbal signals, masks significantly impede the efficiency of information sharing, potentially impairing the professional’s understanding of the clinical problem and the patient’s understanding of the recommended therapeutic intervention. Those with hearing impairment (estimated to be about one-in-six of the UK population), who often rely on lip-reading, will suffer the most. Given that the elderly population are frequent users of health services, those impacted by this mask-induced communication problem will be even higher in these settings. And the consequences of muffled speech in hospitals can sometimes be catastrophic.
Increased risk of falls in the elderly
By blocking parts of the lower peripheral visual field, and causing spectacles to steam up, masks will increase the risk of falls in older people with ongoing mobility difficulties. Injuries, such as fractured femurs, are more prevalent in the elderly. Expecting face coverings from this demographic, the most regular visitors to healthcare facilities, can only exacerbate the risk.
Aggravation of respiratory problems
For patients with existing respiratory problems, the requirement to cover their airways with cloth or plastic will often inflict additional distress. Masks can make breathing more difficult, a problem likely to be more apparent after long periods of wear, such as those routinely experienced in hospital Accident and Emergency departments. Furthermore, face coverings can inflate the risk of acquiring pneumonia and other respiratory diseases. One study found for example that as little as four hours of wearing a cloth or plastic mask increased vulnerability to bacterial infection. There are also the largely unknown risks from the inhalation of micro-plastics and the exposure to contaminants in the textiles.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Double-masking offers people no more protection than single-masking and may increase their risk of becoming infected, according to a new study from Johns Hopkins University and Florida State University. MailOnline has more.
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Because they’re worse than useless.
If I had my way masks and Covid test kits would cease to be manufactured and sold in the shops altogether. But something tells me these dratted things will be a permanent fixture in our shops and chemists from now on.
Yep, and idiots will keep on buying them.
To keep “safe”.
I was in the gym this afternoon. Blow me down when a woman got off a machine turned and I was looking at a masked face.
What the firk?
Might have been a munter.
I wouldn’t be able to keep my trap shut. If someone’s that bloody paranoid about getting ill from a virus then why the fk go to a gym in the first place? Stick with home workouts you absolute loon! Ugh
Mental!
But did she sanitise the machine before and after use with a pint of antiseptic gel?
Rather than restrict peoples choices, I would prefer the mask manufacturers guidelines were enforced.
Change them ever 20 minutes and dispose of them in a suitable receptacle, not the bin.
Family of 4, say 8 hours mask wearing per day, that’s 48 masks per day. Box of 100 masks on Amazon £5.
Cost per week – £17.50
Monthly – £75
Then disposal. No idea how that’s accomplished.
Don’t forget washing your hands every time you touch them… and, they’re supposed to be sterile, not kept in the bottom of a handbag.
I didn’t want to go too far. I would be here all night. 🤣
You forgot about the gallons of Methylated Spirits Red Hot
Oh – clinical waste ( which masks are technically?) should be incinerated at a minimum temp of 800° to ensure pathogens & dioxins are gone.
After all its safety & think of the cheeeeldren!
Polluter pays of course!!
They’re probably still burning 15 pallets an hour or some such no doubt, of the PPE that was only PE…
All the contaminated masks blowing around probably designed to help keep the ‘virus’ going.
“I would prefer the mask manufacturers guidelines were enforced.”
Isn’t this just the sort of thing we on here oppose?
I suspect that the OP would like those who want to wear face nappies to be forced to wear them according to the manufacturers guidelines.
Most people who wear masks wrongly don’t do it to make a point, though. I can’t prove this, but I’ve looked in the eyes of some of them and I’ve seen more intelligence in the eyes of cattle, so I think I’m on safe ground. They do it out of extreme stupidity. Mass extreme stupidity won’t be cured by coercion, but it still exists and it’s a major problem.
How? By by throwing them in the road of on the pavement… apparently
Or way out in the countryside.
I went for a walk round my favourite reservoir at the weekend – way up on the moors, miles from the nearest town and a fair distance from any villages even, then down a long track off a B road – nobody ends up there by chance! And surprise, surprise – I saw a face nappy thrown in the undergrowth, a good 20 minutes’ walk from the car park. WTF is wrong with people? Why do they thing it’s acceptable to pollute places like this with these disgusting objects?
Oooh 2 people are fans of masks and testing, evidently! Sure you’re in the correct place?? LOL
Yes Mogwai, in that great cess pit of corruption, the US centre of disease control, is appealing a court decision and trying to reinstate a muzzle mandate – well for ever.
Yes ..worse because they actually make you ill!
And nobody has the right to order us to wear anything on our faces.
It’s always a matter of personal choice and informed consent.
To me, the biggest issue with masks in healthcare settings is that they destroy confidence in the healthcare provider; they make the healthcare provider look dogmatic and uninterested in evidence-based medicine.
Masks also give a false sense of security to those who really do need to be wary of respiratory pathogens.
I ripped into a doctor when I was hospitalised for pulling faces behind a mask when he was talking to me.
He beat a hasty retreat and the next time he came near me he wasn’t wearing a mask.
We parted on good terms when he pulled out all the stops to have me discharged at my request. Less than two hours.
Crikey, things are getting serious if we can now be hospitalised for pulling faces, behind a mask, at a doctor.
If your post had been any fuller of bureaucratic newspeak, it would have blown my computer up.
Interesting how countries differ. In the Netherlands you don’t see them in any of those places listed. Went for an outpatients appointment the other day at the hospital and nobody was wearing one. Even the consultant proclaimed it was a relief to be able to talk properly and see people’s faces now. Chemists, GPs etc, no masks here. Whatever happened to “evidence-based practice” eh? Can’t believe how absurd they are in the UK, in this specific industry as well!
It’s like they’re into it because it makes them feel important, it’s power tripping and ego. None of them have examined the evidence because there isn’t any!
Its partly the Wah!NHS mentality, that toxic combination of a desire to harm the non-uber rich and no built in self correction function of going out of business when the customer is unhappy.
Healthcare professionals should be leaders in their field; they should be the most knowledgeable, most experienced, most scientifically minded and evidence-based individuals among us.
Their insistence on pseudo-religious superstition (masks) is deeply shameful and embarrassing and they need to take a long hard look in the mirror if they’re helping to perpetuate this bullshit.
Two obvious ironies that spring to mind being that, certainly during nurse training anyway, evidence-based practice is drummed into students but also the importance of effective communication. Looks like they’ve made a right pig’s ear out of both of those fundamental tenets! You’re right, I think it’s incredibly shameful and embarrassing, particular as I was a nurse in the NHS. I just cringe in disbelief now when I read these accounts.
I have a few relatives who work in the NHS and my reading of their behaviour during the ‘pandemic’ was that they enjoyed being the centre of attention; as though their time to shine had come. It was pretty sickening. Part of the purpose of the deification of ‘Our NHS’ was surely to ‘buy’ the cooperation and collaboration of those that work within it. If they’re still insisting on covid theatre, it would seem to have worked!
They certainly enjoyed the discounts that they were able to access due to their ‘heroic’ status… I did mention to my own NHS person that her brother, who lost his entire income due to the collapse of the entertainment industry, would probably benefit more than she, who was still on full whack…
I know of several NHS staff who brazenly pushed for a discount, using their NHS status; picked up several bank / extra hours / overtime shifts – then took ‘Covid’ sick leave following the dodgy tests or after being alerted they were a contact – then back on the extra pay for extra shifts when they resumed to work…and no, they weren’t ill, either!
And all that queue jumping while the rest of us shuffled forward on a one in one out basis while socially distanced. Made me sick.
Of those that work within it – and their extended families. Add up those numbers CG and what percentage of the UK population who have bought in to ALL the nonsense do you get? No accident they did that.
Ah Mogwai please get up to speed!
Up here in deranged Scotland, student midwives are being taught how to deliver babies from men!!!
Blimey. I’ve posted almost identically. Apologies CG, but I hadn’t read one post when I composed.
Hub had a a bit of a run-in with Specsavers at the weekend. He is supposed to have a check up but the conditions in our local one are utterly ridiculous. You STILL have to socially distance queue OUTSIDE, and don a mask before entering the shop and hand sanitise under the eagle glare of Karen (let’s be clear: this is a SHOP, not a medical setting as such!) He went up to the masked door-keeper at the “barrier” and asked why are they STILL operating as they are? She replied that they were following NHS Guidelines under AMBER alert 😱 and of course, this meant keeping everyone SAAAAFE! When he told her that he found it oppressive, that it didn’t make him want to return there let alone spend money, she said they were only following rules🙄! He tried to tell her that many aren’t returning (their sales are down) not because they are scared but because they’re sick if being treated like disease vectors…and she just walked off! At my last visit certain staff members made point of telling me their vaccine status…even though I hadn’t asked! So they’re all protected aren’t they?
I had exactly the same experience in Specsavers! Shouldn’t have gone to Specsavers!
Vision Express have not given me any problems although my local optician’s were awful.
Ditto for me. Vision Express has better sunglasses than Spec Savers as well.
They were alright with me – in fact the couple in front of were told that they (the staff) were only wearing them because they had to, but they didn’t want to. Told them I was exempt, no problems.
However I did have a run in with an officious medic at a clinic a week ago. I simply told them that the fact that they wanted me to wear a mask didn’t give me confidence in their competence as a medical professional and that I wanted to to be seen by someone who I felt was better qualified and educated. Seemed to do the trick.
I like that. I just bluntly refuse and make it clear that my position is non-negotiable.
Absolutely. We will not be moved. Bugger them.
Haha… I had a similar experience though, when I told them that the reason I was there was because I was having breathing difficulties and I wasn’t sure a mask would help, they soon dropped the matter!
Excellent! I do love an assertive sceptic! 🙂
I only had to be assertive once when taking my daughter to A&E with a sprained arm.. they tried insisting and got a flat refusal, followed by a stalemate where they tried to compromise by making my 8yo daughter wear one instead! That got called out for the embarrassing pettiness it was. Eventually they just gave in, tutting, and we went on in. Gotta love Britain. We’re just not cut out for fascism.
I just say I am exempt and have no problem – even get a smile. Some branches seem to be more strict than others though.
I say “sorry I can’t wear one” which is just about the only combination of words capable of conveying the truth in a non-confrontational way. It served me well throughout the coronafiasco; I never, ever put one on even once.
Excellent line CG!
The full article also rightly mentions the impact on those with mental health problems:
That’s absolutely right, and ought to be obvious to anyone with any experience of OCD and assocaited disorders: constantly reinforcing behaviours like this is going to make it worse.
The local NHS trust’s mental health service currently has a massive banner across the top of their website telling visitors to it that a lot of appointments are by Zoom, and in person ones require ‘social distancing’ plus the inevitable face nappy (no mention of any exemptions). I emailed them asking if they realised how offputting all this was, and had thought about how it would dicourage people from contacting them. Unsurprisingly, I received no response.
The NHS really is behaving in an utterly contemptible fashion, as are many of its subcontractors (such as GP practices).
Well said. One of the most evil and insidious aspects of this crime was the use of the term ‘vulnerable’ – used to both heap anxiety on anyone with any kind of health condition and to shame everyone else into compliance. When I look around me as a teacher, who do I see still wearing masks? Children with learning difficulties. How cynically abused and assaulted they have been.
For a recent hospital appointment, I was required to test negative for covid, and wear a mask. I complied, having already been triple jabbed, and – guess what – I caught covid, almost undoubtedly from the hospital.
Do forgive me, but there comes a point where one must dispense with the rational arguments and just say:
I’m am hoping to give my 94th donation of blood later this month and I will not wear a face nappy, if I am challenged, I will say: ” Do you want my blood or don’t you?”
Do you think you might also ask them to set your unjabbed blood aside to be given the the unjabbed only so that, if they ever need blood they are not forced to have the blood donated by a jabbee?
Computer says no!!
The very people who we have a right to expect (hmm) to be on top of matters medical are still conducting themselves like medieval witch doctors.
It is beyond believable and beyond stupid.
I cannot think of another way in which to more seriously undermine and demean your profession.
Whenever I am confronted with these people I just think – Bloody Idiots.
Doctors? Give me strength.
Ha! Great minds.. maybe?
Well we do tend to be on the same page. Frequently. In fact so frequently that sometimes I don’t post because you have already said what I’m thinking. 👍
Brothers in scepticism! 🙌
Come on you two love birds!
When is the wedding?
best laugh I have had all day!!
Apart from “mask wankers” meme above!
“I cannot think of another way in which to more seriously undermine and demean your profession.”
I do wonder about being treated for, well pretty much anything, by someone who thinks that a penis is synonymous with the birth canal…
And that’s another rant I could develop.
I won’t though.
They really do put all of the healthcare professions to shame. I’m beyond disgusted. They may as well have written on their stupid masks, “Trust me, I’m a qualified doctor…whilst I simultaneously deny science!” This is the non-verbal signal they are broadcasting loud and clear to the sane folk. But the cabbage brained will just think, “Well if all the doctors and nurses are wearing masks then there’s still something to be afraid of.” And it’ll reinforce their anxiety and compliance to never ever give up the bloody things.
Don’t forget the vets, whose masking rules (here at least) are just as non-evidence based. The only real difference is that one can easily get an appointment,
Doctators and Witch Doctators.
This guy is great….I know there are a few good Youtubers, but I stick to just a handful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asiGNI2NX2M
looking at the gaps around the comfort blankets on the masked faces today in the supermarket, (and the doc’s on that pic), how big do they think virus germs are?
Roughly the same size as the gaps in their understanding of air and relative particle sizes.
At the end of the article it says,” In the words of one enlightened GP, it’s time to “put the patient first again” by ditching the mask in healthcare settings.”
A doctor should always follow their oath and put the patient first, let’s not praise this “ enlightened one” for doing something they should always have always be doing.
Went to the dentist today for routine clean and inspection. I was told by email to stay in the car and ring in to await further instructions. I ignored the message and opened the unlocked main door which had a “wear a mask” notice. Of course I ignored it having totally exempted myself at he outset of the Covid scam. The entrance lobby was also plastered with further advice on social distancing and other such nonsense. I ignored the hand sanitiser as always and went on in, where a masked receptionist and an elderly N95 masked up patient were attempting to make arrangements about a future appointment. The patient was clearly quite death and what should have taken 30 seconds took about five minutes. The patient eventually left and I approached the receptionist who seeing I was unmasked immediately lowered her face diaper to the still annoying under the chin position and we then chatted almost like normal human beings. The unmasked hygienist called me through, she did mask up for the actual work which was fair enough. After cleaning and a short wait I was sent on to see the unmasked dentist, who looked into my mouth for less… Read more »
Exactly the same with my dentist.
Interesting account, I need some dental work but have been waiting for some time hoping the mask bollocks will be dropped
It will obviously depend on individuals. This was my third visit since the Covid bollocks started and I have never joined in with the mask nonsense, no one has bothered. The dentist was masked up in May last year but not in November.
Is that a private practice? I was forced to go private because the NHS practices in my bit of Wales literally laughed in my face when I asked if they had room for me. Boy, am I glad I did. My dentist never believed any of the covvibollox and only went along with it (superficially) because they’d have closed him down if he hadn’t.
It is private.
You could be waiting a long time.
My advice FWIW is that you should get an appointment and get the work done.
I had no dental treatment for over 2 years due to the covid bollocks and the fact that they were not allowed to drill etc. I almost lost 2 teeth. It isn’t worth it.
Deaf not death, that was being a bit too harsh.
Now now, let’s not jump to conclusions, pantyhose + mask is a game changer!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10777965/Double-masking-DOESNT-work-raise-risk-catching-spreading-Covid.html
Because it shows these highly educated people know absolutely f*ck all about basic health, and can’t be trusted to make the right decisions about mine?
Well by complying with mask bollocks they’re basically advertising the fact they failed their virology module and suck at critiquing scientific studies.
I had an appointment at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton recently and because I had no intention of wearing a mask, I braced myself for the inevitable confrontation. I was pleasantly surprised. On arrival the receptionist asked if I was able to wear a mask. When I said that I wasn’t she simply said “very well Mr Kreis, please take a seat and the consultant will be with you shortly”. No hysterics just a common sense approach.
Zombification continues apace in almost all settings.
I heard of someone who went to a hospital appointment wearing a mask that was much more protective (against real dangerous bugs) than a standard-issue one. Not sure whether he had an FFP2, FFP3, or a 7500, or what. But as soon as he was through the door, the nurse handed him a bog-standard tissue one and asked him to put it on instead, “because it’s our rules”.
That’s how sh*te the NHS is. That’s how sh*te what @PartyTime calls “healthcare providers” are, whom he bemoans the loss of “confidence” in. That’s how sh*te Britain and its “education” and “health” systems are.
Best to keep away from them if you possibly can. (And the good news is that a lot of people have learnt that lesson.) Those who run to nursy-wursy and to medics when they’ve got a sniffle or a pimple on their butt deserve… well, pity at best.
No, wait. Perhaps the Sun newspaper can give them “free” sticks with little pictures of the “queen” on to put up their noses on Jubilee Day, just to make sure they haven’t caught the lergy. They’ve already got mental super-lergy, after all.
Put up the cost to £5 per nappy.
Then see how healthy the zombies think they are.
Make that £10.
Special offer! One for £10 or a pack of five for £100.
A logic test which many of those who favour nappification may well fail…
“Double-masking offers people no more protection than single-masking”
Twice zero is zero.
Indeed. It effectively doubles your outward display of gullibility though.
We now know from research that mask wearing makes those constantly inhaling recycled pathogens ill with respiratory conditions – so is the NHS diktat designed to encourage more of the epidemic ‘sickness’ reporting from staff to increase waiting times for desperate patients?
After two years of consolidated lies, absolutely nothing would any longer surprise me.
When I went to the dentist last week, there was no push to wear a mask. There were 2 receptionists. One had a mask dangling under her chin, the other was mask less. A couple of patients came into the waiting room wearing a mask, another picked one up from the box on the counter to put on but then just held it, another patient and myself didn’t bother. The dentist and hygienist put a mask on when undertaking the examination and treatment, which was fine. There is an extra charge imposed for the PPE precautions. I couldn’t see anything which justifies the increased charges – it was just normal clinical / cleaning routine. Walking back to my car, I passed specsavers which somewhat resembled the Marie Celeste. Looking through the window, past the ‘wait outside until you are told to enter’ and the ‘you must wear a mask on the premises’ signs stuck on the windows and door, no one was in sight, apart from an errant elbow sticking out of a doorway (I presume the elbow owner was adjusting their mask at the time) and it soon disappeared. I did some shopping in the precinct and during that… Read more »
Yes, Specsavers do seem to be quite hysterical about the coof, don’t they? My local branch is the same. Pre 2020, it was always full, people there for appointments, to pick up spectacles, ask questions….now, when I look in, there’s more (masked) staff than customers.
Serve them right.
Health and safety of staff associated with mask wearing, swabbing or injections was and I suspect still is, blatantly ignored. Those in charge don’t seem to have realised that continuing with the mask wearing charade just shows people how stupid they are.
Nice article. Here in Florida, the ONLY places where masks are required is health care facilities. And there is pretty much 100% uniformity in imposing mask requirements on both patients and staff at every health care facility I’ve been to. I always ask if they have any exceptions and they always say “no”.
At first when I would disobey the mask mandate, multiple staff would harass me about it, but nowadays, I think they mostly pretend not to notice. When they see maskless people every where else, they have to know that it’s all BS.
So Florida is not the ‘land of freedom from Covid nonsense’ as we have been led to believe…
Masks are incredibly effective in getting people to eat shyte and say it’s delicious, their goal….
Presumably, the clowns running the health circus haven’t got round to reading this new study, highlighted by the Daily Sceptic a couple of days ago, showing mask-wearing could be causing COVID deaths,
https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/Fulltext/2022/02180/The_Foegen_effect__A_mechanism_by_which_facemasks.60.aspx
If doctors want any credibility as ‘being followers of evidence-based medicine’ they have no choice but to drop the mask mandate.
If they want credibility as Bill Gates’ Gauleiters, I think we all know how their lives will end up….
“If doctors want any credibility as ‘being followers of evidence-based medicine’ they have no choice but to drop the mask mandate.”
You have set the bar too low there rtj1211.
If they want credibility then they should start asking themselves what is in the jabs they get paid to administer and do some critical thinking about whether it is a good thing to continue jabbing kids and boosting elderly people so that they end up with no functioning immune system. We all know that and we aren’t all medically trained so why don’t they?
Our current political class is appalling. In our local election we have the choice of 4 socialist parties: Conservative, Lib Dem, Greens and Labour.
I will not waste my time voting.
Boris Johnson has time to spare to address the Ukrainian parliament
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KqMbFE9VdE
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces many domestic difficulties, from the soaring cost of living crisis to the collapsing National Health Service. Rather than tackle these important matters, he chooses instead to try and pose as an international statesman, bestriding the world like a colossus. This was an attempt doomed to failure from the start.
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I had some fun asking our local Clinical Commissioning Group for the evidence that masks work. All the pathetic bureaucrat who responded could do was keep on repeating the official narrative BS
We can all start by reminding anyone wearing a mask, they do not protect them or anyone else from anything and they may be dangerous in terms of breathing in all the bacteria, fungi accumulating on this warm, moist surface they are wearing over their mouths.