‘Lost their minds’: Hospital denies treatment over face mask

A patient with long-term breathing issues was refused medical treatment by Baptist Hospital in Northeast Florida yesterday for not wearing a mask. 

When 37-year-old Katie walked into Baptist Hospital’s emergency room Wednesday, she was experiencing chest pains and blood pressure of 90/47. She was also having breathing difficulties and was unable to take deep breaths. 

But that didn’t stop the hospital from demanding that she wear a mask. 

After the intake process, a nurse approached Katie and asked her to put on a mask. When Katie refused, the nurse threatened to call security. 

But Katie didn’t back down. 

A security guard came and he, too, insisted that she wear a mask. Katie pushed back.

“Are you going to deny me treatment over a mask?” she asked. 

The security guard said that she would not be denied treatment, but a manager was called to see if they could succeed where the others failed. In the meantime, they would not let Katie be seen by a doctor. 

In fact, when the nurse who had first approached Katie was asked to take Katie's blood pressure, the nurse outright refused.

“'I’m not going near her if she won’t wear a mask,'” Katie recalls hearing the nurse say. 

While she waited, Katie noticed something odd. Multiple members of the medical staff and other visitors and patients were either not wearing masks or wearing them under their noses. 

“You better kick them out too!” said Katie. 

In response, she was told to “check her white privilege” by a young woman who was wearing two masks. 

Katie then turned to the group of hospital workers who now encircled her and the room full of patients who were silently watching this saga unfold beneath their masks. 

“I can’t believe you all just go along with this. What’s wrong with you?” she asked the room. “The masks are pointless make believe.” 

In response, the main nurse justified the mask policy by saying that the hospital was following government recommendations. Specifically, they mentioned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who still insist that masks should be worn. 

The CDC has come under fire recently for not lifting their mask guidance even as the world begins to relax mask mandates. 

The main nurse then asked Katie to wait outside the hospital and a doctor would come out to her. 

She stepped outside and, after waiting a while, a doctor did indeed come out and point-blank refused Katie medical treatment unless she came inside and wore a mask. 

The doctor insisted that Katie was not being refused treatment; she could receive medical treatment if she would simply cover her mouth while struggling to breathe and stormed off back into the hospital leaving Katie unattended to outside, still experiencing chest pains.

While Katie waited for her husband to pick her up, a nurse who hadn’t seen what happened came out just off her shift and sat beside her, taking her mask off with relief. 

“I can’t stand wearing this,” said the nurse. “I look forward to getting off work so I can breathe.” 

Katie and her husband drove about an hour to St. Augustine, where she was seen by a doctor who did not require her to wear a mask. The doctor said that she had bruised lungs, which can feel like heart pain, and that it’s likely due to her breathing issue which causes coughing fits. 

“Most of the hospital staff have become heartless automatons,” Katie said about the ordeal. “These hospitals have lost their minds.” 

When she tweeted her story, Baptist Hospital responded with a suggestion that Katie call one of their patient advocates. Katie did call and spoke with Ashleigh Roseberry, a patient advocate at Baptist. Roseberry simply re-affirmed that the hospital’s policy is to refuse treatment to patients who don’t wear masks. Roseberry said that this policy was handed down from the hospital's C-level executives.