Healthcare Workers Now Being Shunned During COVID-19

Dr. Monalisa Muchatuta, an emergency room physician in New York City who’s been on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic since it began, has never been one to keep her feelings inside.

But she knows that in her profession, discretion is sometimes the better part of valor.

Muchatuta troubled by what she believes is a shifting public attitude toward her and her fellow healthcare workers.

“In the past few months, I’ve been isolated from family events, left out of playdates with friends with children, and much more, all because of my job,” said Muchatuta, who is a clinical assistant professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center.

She was recently denied entry to her gym. She also had made plans to get together with a close friend who was visiting, only to see her friend back out at the last minute.

Muchatuta says an increasing number of people are simply afraid of being near her due to concerns she may have contracted the novel coronavirus through her work.

“It’s hurtful, especially because we know that healthcare workers are not the people who are spreading the virus,” said Muchatuta, who in April created a YouTube video in the emergency room to inform the public of what it was like during the height of the first COVID-19 wave.

In the video, she also urged young people to stay home because they could be spreading the virus to others and may end up getting sick themselves.

“Some of the people who called us heroes back then now seem to think it’s OK to ostracize us and talk about putting us in a colony,” she said.

Dr. Jodi Richardson, an emergency room physician at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., who’s also been on the COVID-19 front lines, agrees with Muchatuta.

“It does feel different this time around. People are avoiding me,” said Richardson, whose sister will not allow Richardson to visit her or her family.

“It’s a slap in the face as a frontline person,” “It feels like my life is becoming defined by this.”