# Belligerent covid patients frustrate ER personnel **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [January 19, 2022, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068 "2022-01-19T17:58:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068/121 "2022-01-25T16:27:53Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > You bet they do, as do doctor’s offices, pharmacies, nursing homes etc. We’re under no obligation to treat people who make threats and refuse to consent to evaluation and are just there demanding services that they most likely do not need. I always appreciate your perspective. For the past 35+ years, I’ve reviewed medical records as part of my non-doctor job. I’ve encountered many references to patients as combative, aggressive, uncooperative, drugseekng…, but can’t recall a hospital ejecting someone or refusing service for such reasons. In some percentage of such situations, the patient leaves the ER/hospital AMA (against medical advice). I do recall instances in which patients acted inappropriately in doctors’ office - insulting and swearing at staff for example. In those instances, the provider has said they will no longer see the individual. I always find it incongruous when a nursing home patient is belligerent. In many of the cases I see, homeless people are transferred to nursing homes after ER visits/hospital stays, simply because they have no other place to go. I presume mental illness is often involved, but it just seems so hard to imagine that these folk cannot imagine that free “3 hots and a cot” are vastly superior to what they experienced living on the street… ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2022, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068/122 "2022-01-25T17:53:26Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I always find it incongruous when a nursing home patient is belligerent. In many of the cases I see, homeless people are transferred to nursing homes after ER visits/hospital stays, simply because they have no other place to go. I presume mental illness is often involved, but it just seems so hard to imagine that these folk cannot imagine that free “3 hots and a cot” are vastly superior to what they experienced living on the street… Given that mental illness is overrepresented among the homeless in the US, it shouldn’t be surprising that they sometimes act out ways we see as irrational or against their self-interests. In addition, the usual elderly residents of nursing homes are in various stages of cognitive decline and/or dementia themselves, and some of them are on psychoactive medications - so occasionally they get combative too. A few years ago my dad’s apartment in a nursing home was invaded in the middle of the night by another resident who was disoriented and behaving aggressively; he (the invader, not my dad) was evicted the next day. ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068/123 "2022-01-26T05:08:15Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Or their brain function is low enough that just a little bit of oxygen is enough to get it done. It’s like the mental equivalent of driving a subcompact. They get great mileage on those little bitty engines. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068/124 "2022-01-26T12:52:35Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > I am so done. I am retiring in less than 9 months. I am burnt beyond recognition. {{{ hugs }}} Sorry I can’t do more than that. You deserve more. But I offer what I can. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068/125 "2022-01-26T12:55:01Z")
Thanks, and back atcha! ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068/126 "2022-01-26T15:07:13Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > There’s no way to track infection-induced immunity, and there are no cards that say you had covid on such and such a date. Well, actually, for some of us there ARE “cards”, or at least actual medical records, that we really did catch covid. Mine even specifies which particular variant I caught the first time. I’m willing to accept such a record. However, not everyone who has had covid has such a record. I’ll also mention that I was subsequently vaccinated twice and boosted and still caught covid a second time (did not get a test to specify which variant that time). I will follow that up with my second round of covid was pretty much a non-event, as opposed to my first which was as bad as any real flu I’ve ever had, that is, a real illness that left me really sick for an entire week. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068/127 "2022-01-26T15:11:44Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Many people got sick from the vaccines. “sick from the vaccine” is WAY different than “sick from first time covid infection”. A day or two of feeling under the weather is a lot different than eight days of 102 degree fever, body aches that make you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck, and extreme exhaustion that requires you to lie down for a half an hour to rest after “exerting” yourself by walking to the toilet and back. Granted, not everyone feels that bad during covid - but then, not everyone feels that “good”, either, as evidenced by people gasping their last in ICU’s everywhere. “Sick” from the vaccine is inconvenient for a day or two. If those same people had gotten the covid infection they probably would have been a whole hell of a lot worse off, for a much longer time. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2022, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068/128 "2022-01-26T15:16:51Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > So where is the line drawn? I had 2 bad reactions to the shots that were far worse than what a lot of people experienced getting the actual disease. That’s something to discuss with a doctor. I have no idea what you mean by “bad reactions” but if you are having a medical problem with a vaccine you’ve had twice then you might have a great argument for not getting a booster. But during a pandemic that’s not necessarily something we want non-medical people to decide on their own. There ARE ways to document either prior covid infection or a medical reason to NOT get vaccinated. I know several people in the latter category, and one of them fairly well. But along with medical documentation of her condition she also agreed to comply with much stronger masking rules and distancing even at work. “I have a medical reason not to get this vaccination” is not a “get out of all disease control measures free” card. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068/129 "2022-01-27T00:01:13Z")
I want to “like” this post. Yes, there are medical reasons to skip a vaccine. Yes, having already had covid makes it less costly to skip a dose. And yes, of course if you have medical reasons why you can’t protect yourself by arming your immune system, you should protect yourself as best you can in other ways, including not doing stuff that people who have a better immune response can do. Like the immune compromised, who may not get much benefit from a vaccine, and so are in hiding right now. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068/130 "2022-01-27T19:09:54Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > And then I hear about some of these people coming into the ER with oxygen numbers in the 70s or worse, and I’m like, “WTF?!? How can they even function like that? How can they not realize how bad off they are?” At 86%, I was ready to accept any amount of help I was offered, I can’t even imagine trying to argue that “It’s not that bad”. I’ve seen data indicating that COVID causes something called “[happy hypoxemia](https://respiratory-research.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12931-020-01462-5)”. It inhibits oxygen transfer without limiting CO2 transfer, so the patient doesn’t have the symptoms normally associated with suffocation. It’s like suffocating in pure nitrogen gas, you’ll drop out without a sign of discomfort. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/belligerent-covid-patients-frustrate-er-personnel/958068.md?page=6)