Surgeon’s Account of Mandate Coercion and System Betrayal

I have a mortgage and a family to provide for. I left it as late as possible but was told I would lose my job if I did not.

After the first and second jabs, I had cardiac arrhythmias, brief sharp chest pains, and breathlessness, and was tired for several months. Some nights when going to sleep with my resting pulse over 100, I wondered if I would wake up in the morning.

I was coerced into this situation by non-medical tyrants I did not vote for. When I saw my GP about this, he asked if I thought I was anxious!

Three close colleagues have also been similarly affected. One, arguably the best in his field in our area, has left medicine completely and is still being hounded by the Medical Council. Another was stood down until he relented – the stress on his family and department (covering on-call, etc) has been huge. The third was forced to stop work for many months with no income, as he would not be vaccinated and he is still being persecuted over a trivial, trumped-up matter by the Medical Council.

All four of us have endured the ridicule of our unthinking follow-the-script colleagues, some of whom have since had myocarditis and other health problems, and are not quite so critical anymore. Nurses we worked with have been mandated out of work.

Others, forced to be jabbed, have had serious cardiac side effects – these are young healthy mothers. The DHB system, now TWO systems (Te Whatu Ora) has never been so shambolic, nor run down, as it is right now. A colleague joked the other day:
You turn up to do your operating list but it has fallen apart yet again because:
1 There are no beds;
2 There are too few anaesthetists;
3 There are no radiographers;
4 There are no anaesthetic technicians;
5 Any or all of the above.
Except it is not a joke; it is reality.

The people who are meant to support and facilitate the clinical staff, so we can get on and care for patients, have failed in their duty. The Government – Labour – has totally failed. Te Whatu Ora is a mess.

And now, to get to the point of my piece, we have found out from an OIA this week that secret deals were made for 11,000 jab exemptions. I am dumbfounded, shocked.

I actually do not have the words for how gutted and betrayed I feel. This is beyond anything. After all the threats, coercion, marginalisation, personal health effects, and being called a conspiracy theorist – to find out the Labour Government conspired with its officials to gaslight us, force us to be jabbed, lie it was safe and fully tested, while all the while quietly letting “their own” off the hook.

I finally now can never forgive them. The further damage this does to the very shaky Te Whatu Ora is yet to be seen, but it will do nothing to strengthen the recovery that must happen. I have nothing but contempt for the people who are meant to run the health system, and now after thirty years of working for them, I feel absolutely no loyalty. I do not see how I can keep working for them after their two-faced betrayal.