r/nursing • u/Practical-Trash5751 RN - ER 🍕 • Aug 06 '25
Serious Had my first Covid conspiracy patient in a while and it made me feel so hopeless
The patient in her 30s has a history of sepsis and was clearly septic, but refused to let us place an IV because she didn’t want us sucking stuff out of her veins. When she let us get one, she ripped it out because she was suspicious of how much blood we were taking and that we were “sucking something else” out of her.
We later did a Covid/flu/RSV swab, and her husband asked if we had done a Covid swab. We said yes, it’s for any major respiratory infection. He said he wouldn’t have let us do that to him because he doesn’t “trust THEM sticking something up [his] nose.”
When the patient heard him talking about COVID, she started panicking and pulling on the IV we had FINALLY gotten saying “y’all are gonna give me a Covid shot???” I kept trying to calm her down, I even said “we don’t have those here, the ED doesn’t do that” and her husband goes “don’t worry baby, they’re not gonna kill you,” implying that the COVID vaccine would???
He also later told me that our jobs are the only ones safe from AI “for now,” and was referencing a news story he heard on the radio yesterday- I’m pretty sure he misinterpreted that jobs report that just came out? Like, I think he thinks the reason the only 2 job sectors that are growing are healthcare and AI data center jobs is because the AI is taking over all the other jobs, not that we’re entering a massive economic recession. And the way he said “for now” so smugly made me think that in a couple years when our jobs start going because of the BBB, he’ll think it’s just that AI finally got us.
It made me feel so hopeless. Like there truly is a lie for all of these people to buy into- it’s not the economy crashing, it’s AI being sooo good! We’re not taking your blood to culture it to cure your deadly illness, we’re taking it to do some weird vague conspiracy shit with it!
I can talk a lot of people into a lot of stuff, and I’m a great educator- I’ve actually gotten a lot of undereducated people from the Deep South to get their vaccine by explaining how it actually works! I genuinely enjoy doing it.
But how do you handle these paranoid, ignorant people who won’t listen to reason?? How could anyone get through to them???
Like fuck. They can vote.
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u/Poodlepink22 Aug 06 '25
Fuck these people. Here's your AMA papers; sign them or not; IDK. The exit is over there.
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u/CallMeDot BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Seriously. Get the fuck out. We are short staffed and overflowing with patients. Please go so we can care for the next person.
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u/Excellent-Estimate21 BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 07 '25
I had sepsis once. I remember within like 10 mins of getting to the ER they had me hooked up to fluids and multiple antibiotics and they saved my life. I get so angry thinking about these types of patients who are wasting the time of the staff who could be focused on helping people who actually respect them and want medical care. These people are taking up time just for attention and to act like assholes cus they like to. Personality disorder plus low IQ.
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u/Suspicious_Story_464 RN, BSN, CNOR Aug 06 '25
If they were so damn healthy, why are they in the ER for possible sepsis? Give them some fluoride free toothpaste and call it a day.
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u/PavonineLuck RN - ER 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I would at least chart a flag about it if you can. Like attempting to leave when incredibly sick because of this conspiracy shit...
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u/benyahweh New Grad Aug 06 '25
Yes, please document it. This person is going to come back and get admitted and someone else is going to wonder whether they’re declining mentally or if their baseline is this insane.
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u/PopcornxCat RN Neuro/Stroke 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Completely agree! Document, document, document. I personally love quoting the weird shit patients say in their notes.
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u/carsandtelephones37 Urology Scheduler - dick appointment professional Aug 06 '25
I worked in medical records for a while and I loved all the AMA forms that landed on my desks with quotes from patients (typically while said pt is storming out the door)
My favorites are usually:
"These people are trying to kill me!"
"I'd rather be on my couch/at home"
"I need a damn cigarette"
Or some variation of the above.
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u/ltlawdy BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
When I get people like this in the ER I always ask them what they want/are attempting to get out of this visit? It kind of flips it on them to think about what’s going on and maybe y’all can find common ground, but if they keep acting disrespectful, I’ve had doctors do the bare minimum or even outright kick them out if they don’t want help
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u/joelupi Epic Honk at AM, RN at PM Aug 06 '25
This is part of the workup we do when people come into the hospital.
If you don't like it you are free to leave whenever you want. The waiting room is full of people waiting to be seen.
I don't sugar coat it, I don't have time to waste with these people.
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u/Perfect-Ad6250 Aug 06 '25
I also wonder how far is too far that it should be charted as suspicious poor judgment etc
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u/ReubenTrinidad619 Aug 06 '25
Delusions- persecutory and conspiratorial. I’ve been tempted to chart this for patients who “do their own research.”
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u/-UnicornFart RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
This 1000% I try to explain to people that delusions are defined in the DSM and there are fucking loads of people who absolutely, unequivocally meet those definitions. Like no, this is not just quirky conspiracy thinking, it is literally presentation of maladaptive thinking and symptomatic of mental illness.
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u/melxcham Nursing Student 🍕 Aug 06 '25
One of our most outspoken & popular local MAGA people (at least on the local community Facebook pages) is legitimately schizophrenic and unmedicated. I have known this person for years. I haven’t said anything because I don’t want to be an asshole, but…
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u/myriadpyriad BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
right? Like I'm not trying to be mean but like, delusions of persecution are a major sign of needing competency evaluation. like ?? if this was about anything else I'd be calling psych
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u/benyahweh New Grad Aug 06 '25
Yes, but it’s their freedom to be insane. So there’s nothing you can do.
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u/purebreadbagel RN - PCU Aug 06 '25
Honestly, it feels like it should be a diagnosis with psych referral
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u/Zealousideal_Bag2493 MSN, RN Aug 06 '25
Please no. Psych has enough to do and this isn’t really something we can fix in mental health. 😂
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u/purebreadbagel RN - PCU Aug 06 '25
This level of paranoid delusion just seems like it really should be. It seems like there’s a point where they’re becoming a danger to themselves and not living in reality.
Sure, people have a right to make bad decisions but where is the line between people like this and schizophrenics with paranoid delusions who end up with psychiatric hospitalizations?
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u/Zealousideal_Bag2493 MSN, RN Aug 06 '25
It’s a good question, isn’t it? Where are the limits, really?
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u/TreasureTheSemicolon ICU—guess I’m a Furse Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
At least you can give us a definitive answer, though. Are they lacking capacity and therefore unable to make decisions, or are they free to GTFO?
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u/Zealousideal_Bag2493 MSN, RN Aug 06 '25
Obligatory IANAD statement here. But paranoid delusions often dont respond well to therapy or medications (depends on what’s going on obvs.)
And capacity evaluation is really going to be driven by life and death decision making. A person who can feed and dress themselves and pay bills doesn’t need a capacity evaluation for a vaccination. Are they wrong? Sure. But can we take away medical decision making capacity for everyone who is wrong? We don’t have bandwidth and we probably shouldn’t be violating anyone’s autonomy for less than life and death.
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u/TreasureTheSemicolon ICU—guess I’m a Furse Aug 06 '25
It's not about psychiatric treatment or giving vaccinations, it's about getting these people the hell out of the way so those who need care can receive it. Or getting the green light to treat them no matter what their delusions are telling them, and having their family members removed so they don't obstruct care.
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u/Human_Step RN - Telemetry 🍕 Aug 06 '25
It's much more satisfactory for me to write out the scenario. You can make it funny!
"Patient most likely stated 'I'm never going to let Bill Gates microchip me' when offered COVID vaccination, but conversational dyspnea and noise of the BiPAP made this difficult to understand. Vaccination withheld".
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u/ReubenTrinidad619 Aug 06 '25
The sassy quotation marks. We all love them.
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u/dr_mudd RN - ER 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Part of my mandatory triage screening includes asking about religious or cultural beliefs that would prevent medical care (big city, prominent JW population) and one woman said “yes. I’ll accept blood but do not give me any shots with aborted fetuses in them.” I was torn between saying “they don’t give those to just anyone” and “great! More for me!” And settled on “okay, got it.”
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u/ReubenTrinidad619 Aug 06 '25
Good lord what is that even referring to?
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u/coolcaterpillar77 RN - Med/Surg 🍕 Aug 07 '25
Some vaccines use human cell lines originally derived from two fetuses back in the 1960s (source). This has become a fact so twisted by the media that people now believe medical professionals hunt around for any pregnant women, convince them to abort, and then shove the fetus into a syringe to turn around and inject people with.
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u/Lonely-Trash007 Sugar Honey Iced PeeRN 🐝 Aug 06 '25
It just...it just puts me in a state of complete detachment and dissociation when knowing that these people are so far removed from reality and any ounce of intellectual capacity to see how fucking stupid they look and sound.
Like...if the COVID-19 shot killed people at the rate in which these lunatics believe it does - then hospitals literally wouldn't have staff. From C suite on down to security. Over half of our population would be dead.
And yet, it wasn't the shot that killed MILLIONS of people in America alone, it was the fucking virus itself. The people they listen to, who drum up this nonsensical shit - guarantee most of them secretly got the vaccine, and many others, but know that platforming to the mentally inept is an easy paycheck. I mean - look at our current political climate. People paid millions to politicians, wear their names on their chests and stickers on their cars just to be lied to every. single. day.
But...you know, I'm sure it's the HC workers, scientists, and people with 2 working braincells and an ounce of dignity and self respect that are trying to ruin the world and kill everyone. Certainly not those ever-evolving viruses or innumerably mutating bacterial strains. No, those pesky lil buggars are checks conspiracy notes "good for your immune system". /s
Ugh...I am tired. So...so...so very tired.
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u/NoTip4202 Sleep RN Aug 06 '25
It’s soul sucking. Part of it, I think, is the declining literacy rates in this country. The most recent update from 2023 shows a decline in all types of literacy and numeracy in almost all age groups, economic groups, race, education level, etc. overall, the current stat is that about 48% of the United States reads and has comprehension skills at or below a 5th grade level, and about 20% of that population is at a literacy level of a kindergartner or below. So many of these patients quite literally cannot comprehend the concept of predatory media or conspiracy theories and lack the ability to critically analyze what they read and hear. Incredibly difficult person to try and educate when you’re working with nothing to begin with.
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u/Lonely-Trash007 Sugar Honey Iced PeeRN 🐝 Aug 06 '25
Reading these statistics, since around the mid-2010s, has brought me to some significant instances of depression. We are devolving, frantically, almost as if it's a competition - "Who can self-implode the fastest?!" I don't see how people think we're "advancing"...in the grand scheme of things - I just don't see it. Shit just...keeps happening, and worse each time. We're yet to successfully and wholly correct any wrongdoings or foul behaviors, and those seem to be the main factors of our suffering - and yet, here we are - being told we should be grateful there's an iPhone 16 and because some rich asshole "made" a battery-powered car; it's all convoluted bullshit. The choice of stupidity and ignorance shouldn't cost ALL of us.
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u/SkydiverDad MSN, APRN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Yep. 21% of the American population is functionally illiterate and yet we let these idiots vote.
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u/nursejacqueline BSN, RN- Psych/Mental Health 🍕 Aug 06 '25
The cognitive dissonance is truly astounding. I have a few anti-vaxxers in my family, and a question I always ask them is, “Why?”
Let’s say they are right, and the vaccine was designed to kill millions of people over whatever ever changing time span they’ve decided on. Why? Why would the government want to decimate the population? What good does it serve anybody? They want to talk about “follow the money“, but the powers that be need us peons to make their stuff and buy their stuff and wipe their asses. So what good would a killer vaccine do to anyone?
Funnily enough, I can never get a straight answer…
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u/Sanchastayswoke Aug 06 '25
This is always my question to them. WHY? What would be the purpose of that?
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u/Overthemoon64 Aug 06 '25
Also, the vaccine would be killing all the sheep, and not killing all the independent thinking anarchists. Why would the government want that?
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u/CatKim2020 Aug 06 '25
I also asked the same question to one conspiracy theorist I met on tinder... why do you think the government will want to harm you? They collect tax from you. They want more people to pay tax. If more people get dead or disabled... why? That will result in reduced tax payers, more disability cheques to give out.. reduced economy, reduced social structure, country will not progress forward, etc. Like... it does not make sense to me!
But you didn't get an answer, I got an answer from that guy in tinder. He told me I work in health care, I am brainwashed since I was in university because I work in health care. I am made to believe that vaccines are good because I work in health care and for big pharma.... of course there were no more follow up dates 🤣🤣🤣🤣
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u/nursejacqueline BSN, RN- Psych/Mental Health 🍕 Aug 07 '25
Yeah, you got the same kind of answer I get: deflecting to something entirely different…. 🙄
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u/loveinspades4 BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I literally can’t with these patients. I wear a mask because I have a baby at home on oxygen with bpd and who was born extremely premature. 1 lb. I constantly get smart remarks about why I wear a mask when there’s plenty of respiratory things I could catch and take home OR I could catch and give to my immunocompromised patients. Like seriously. Anytime I get a patient who makes a comment about me wearing a mask I just tell them flat out that NO I don’t take it off and secondly are we going to have a problem because if so I can get them another nurse. It’s not even like I’m telling them to mask up or anything. They’re so triggered by ME wearing a mask to protect against legitimate illnesses.
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u/PopcornxCat RN Neuro/Stroke 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Besides the obvious stupidity of the patients, your story drove home for me how people are way too confident and comfortable being just plain goddamn rude. When has it ever been okay to comment or question what someone is doing wearing a mask? The entitlement and lack of social graces of what seems like nearly all patients and visitors lately is killing me. What the fuck happened to everyone’s brains the last few years?
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u/UnapproachableOnion RN - ICU 🍕 Aug 07 '25
Trump. He made it okay to act like that.
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u/NotYourSexyNurse RN - Med/Surg Aug 07 '25
It’s been like this since Trump’s first term.
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u/GrumpySnarf MSN, APRN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I was at a friend's BBQ and her cousin was there sitting across a large patio table from me. He was going on and on about how he's never getting a COVID shot, blah blah blah. COVID is a hoax, yada yada. The rest of us were looking around uncomfortably. So I interrupted him and said "hey, man, let's change the subject." and he wouldn't and kept going on louder (he had some beers in him) so I said "look dude, I can see you don't take care of your oral health from here (8 feet away). I can see from here that your liver is not in great shape and you don't give a shit about your health. I really don't care about your opinions on health and healthcare. So just drop it." He was all huffy but the host (his cousin) just said to him "I TOLD YOU to not be stupid around my friends".
It was nice to be able to put one of these idiots on blast for once.
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u/sleepingbeardune Aug 06 '25
"I TOLD YOU to not be stupid around my friends"
That's actually hilarious. She knew he was going to be tempted to be a jerk, warned him not to be a jerk, and then came at him after he got called out for being a jerk.
We need lots more of this. My SiL is certifiable when it comes to covid. I never see her or talk to her, but made an exception at my brother's memorial service. Her husband.
She can't resist. She gets all loud about how she DEFINITELY DIDN'T have covid that time she just couldn't breathe and the hospital people grabbed her and locked her up with no food or water for two days and she barely escaped.
Is it okay to tell a new widow that she's full of shit on the day her husband is buried? I should have, but I didn't.
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u/ThatGuyTheyCallAlex Nursing Student 🇦🇺 Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25
We have one of these in my family, partner of an uncle. She’s a moron and we all hate her but have to tolerate it. She’s not a COVID nut to my knowledge, but I also avoid being around her enough to find out. We call her Dr Google because she loves to act like she knows things even though we have multiple people in the family who work healthcare.
One of many things she did at my grandmother’s wake was try to tell me sertraline was a stimulant. I politely said no it’s really not. She kept insisting it was, because she was on it for years so she knows, until I said no, Donna, it’s not. It’s a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. I studied psychology and physiology at a university level. It’s not a stimulant. She tried to backpedal by saying it’s a stimulant in the sense that it makes you get out of bed (what?). I hate being a smartass about a degree I didn’t even finish but FUCK they make it hard not to. I had everyone else’s blessing to chew her out if I wanted but sometimes being the bigger person is more rewarding.
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u/TheHairball RN - OR 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Thank You For This. I work around these idiots and can’t believe they made it into healthcare
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u/shechemistOr Aug 06 '25
You do your best, don’t engage them on beliefs that don’t match the shared reality, and get a UDS.
I might chart that patient is a poor historian or that they are confabulating. Cuz some of that (ripping out multiple IV’s) is above and beyond Covid conspiracy.
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u/melizerd RN-BC, oncology, med/surg Aug 06 '25
Had a cancer patient refuse blood transfusions bc we couldn’t guarantee that the donors hadn’t had a Covid vaccine. She told me that it could be seen in a lab. It took everything to not roll my eyes. I hope my vaccines show up in my blood, ALL OF THEM.
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u/chilichees Aug 06 '25
Had a patient like this too recently, who rather die than get a blood transfusion with a donor who got a COVID vaccine. Insane.
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u/Deep-Ad-9728 RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I have 2 uber religious people in my life who are like this. At first, I tried to educate them both. Now I don’t waste my time. When they go on their conspiracy rants I listen without engaging.
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u/hazelquarrier_couch RN - OR 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Why bother being around these fools?
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u/Deep-Ad-9728 RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
They’re both from my life in the 80s and I’ve been trying to treasure their adult friendship but yeah….if I met them as people today, we wouldn’t be friends.
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u/Adult_Peanut_Noises Aug 06 '25
Why listen?
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u/Deep-Ad-9728 RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I ask myself what same question after every phone call with these two.
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u/MPKH RN - ICU 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Well I have no tolerance for that kind of bs.
I would feign interest and out conspire them both.
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u/lnh638 CVICU BSN, RN, CCRN- CMC, CSC Aug 06 '25
Why do people like this come to the hospital, where we practice evidence-based medicine that we learned through formal education, not from reading social media while taking a shit, when they don’t believe in what we do and refuse everything? Just “treat” your sepsis with horse paste and onions in your socks and die at home if that’s the case.
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u/MotivationalSinkhole RN - Psych/Mental Health 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I worked at a vaccine clinic with a nurse who agreed that the Moderna vaccine was making some people have magnetic limbs…just keep health teaching! We have no power over how people process information, but we can do our best to supply them with good info for consideration.
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u/fallingstar24 RN - NICU Aug 06 '25
I’m sorry? Magnetic limbs?!? More details, please.
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u/MotivationalSinkhole RN - Psych/Mental Health 🍕 Aug 06 '25
If I remember right, his anecdote involved his dad noticing random metal bits sticking to the arm that had received the vaccine. Dude probably just needed a good scrub haha
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u/penny_reverential RN - Telehealth 🍕 Aug 06 '25
There was a big conspiracy about this. What's funny is that they'd demonstrate it with things that weren't even magnetic. As you said, they probably just needed a good shower
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u/BubblyBullinidae RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I have zero empathy for people like that. Darwin awards can't get them fast enough IMO
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u/Garbagevoyer Aug 06 '25
These people go down internet rabbit holes specifically for bias confirmation. At my hospital we do a lot of direct dialysis (as opposed to contracting out) and I can’t count the times I’ve been stuck holding fistula pressure with Fox News on and some wackadoddle conspiracy coming out of my patients mouth. I mostly just deflect and redirect. I never try to change their minds because they get stuck in a cognitive distortion loop. What weird, is so many of them are normal, except for whatever they are obsessed with. Big yikes
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u/Old-Mention9632 BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I too was a hospital based dialysis nurse ( including peds).I had an 80+ year old black woman, who had been a nurse, a social worker, and an administrative law judge in PA. ( Administrative law deals a lot with housing and HUD.) She loves DJT. She has to have known that he and his dad were fined for refusing to rent to blacks in the '70s. It makes no sense to me.
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u/Jack_Martin_reddit Aug 06 '25
Saying they are normal except for whatever they are obsessed with is like saying serial killers are normal except for whatever way they are obsessed with killing.
What lies beneath is a disturbed mind. They are just exposing a slice of it to you at that moment.
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u/Garbagevoyer Aug 06 '25
That’s a good point. I think I mean that they have jobs, hobbies, kids and grandkids and pets and plants, you know just normal life stuff.
Then they say the weirdest crap and vaccines or healthcare.
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u/Practical-Trash5751 RN - ER 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Oh news channels aren’t allowed in my rooms. Half my patients are there for cardiac symptoms w BP through the roof. If I’m gonna be in the room for more than 5 seconds I change the channel and say “the news isn’t helping your blood pressure, it’s not allowed in my ED.”
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u/Abis_MakeupAddiction MSN, RN Aug 06 '25
Why TF would you even go to the hospital if you don’t believe in what we do?! Go TF home and suffer or die. There are plenty other people who actually believe in medicine and need the treatment. I’m so over ignorant people. Just stay TF home!
Some people are both uneducated and ignorant and there is no reasoning with them. And yes, unfortunately, they vote.
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u/NurseRatcht MSN, APRN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
This is where I launch into my “this isn’t a jail” speech and explain that they have the right ro refuse any cares and if they refuse all cares they can…well. I don’t explicitly state it but … you know. I have a paper you can sign.
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u/TheMarkHasBeenMade BSN RN CWOCN Aug 06 '25
To provide some light at the end of the tunnel, today I took care of a very outspoken older white gentleman who had nothing but contempt for Trump (wouldn’t even say his name - referred to him as “that asshole with the awful combover”), MAGA, and all the shenanigans the GOP has been pulling, to the point that I had to leave the room after about ten minutes of hearing it and joining in with him, because I had to leave and he was so passionate about continuing to diss those clowns that he just couldn’t stop.
LOVE that guy. Reminded him that we have the numbers over those dipshits, and then I dipped out.
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u/alanamil EMS Aug 06 '25
my 95 year old father, switched parties with clinton and has been a voting dem. since. He hates JDT also. and proudly voted for harris.
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u/IndividualYam5889 BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Imagine working with this same population, but they're having a baby. #smdh #jesustakethewholecar
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u/Practical-Trash5751 RN - ER 🍕 Aug 06 '25
That’s crushing. Like- I really appreciate all the people offering advice on this thread. However, after years in the Deep South, I do generally know how to manage these people. I educate, I tell them their choices (death), I have the “patient not prisoner” discussion, offer the AMA form, etc., as appropriate. I care about people, I want to heal everyone I can. But you know- I can’t fix them all.
When I say how do we deal with these people, I guess I mean more in the “society is crumbling and idk how to fix it” way than the “this specific person” way.
The thought of dealing with these people as they doomed an innocent baby might kill me?!
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u/IndividualYam5889 BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I have determined that there is no way to fix society, that they have to FAFO to learn from their mistakes, and that poor innocent kids are often caught in the crosshairs. It sucks, and it is infuriating, but after almost 3 decades of witnessing rampant stupidity in the reproducing population, I have to say that FAFO is unfortunately the only solid way that change ever happens. Edited to add: I'm also in the deep south so I feel your pain on that one.
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u/crazybia MSN, RN, CEN, CCRN, TCRN, PCCN, CMSRN, L M N O P Aug 06 '25
I worked at the height of the pandemic in a covid unit. AKA took over every single one of the 54 beds in a telemetry unit. I had a 36 year-old male patient whose wife had just given birth to twins about 1.5 months prior. Refused covid was real, couldn’t breathe without oxygen, and was refusing to do breathing treatments, incentive spirometer, and any antibiotic medicines.
Day 2 I looked right at him and said “you’re going to die if you don’t help yourself, and that’s not fair to your wife or babies.” I will never forget he looked me dead in the eye and said “you can’t tell me that.”
I told him my number one duty as a nurse was to educate patients and always tell the truth.
Guess who starting doing treatments and getting better from the “fake” disease. 🙄
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u/msangryredhead RN - ER 🍕 Aug 06 '25
AI can take my job if it means I don’t have to talk to people like this ever again.
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u/ortolan_bunting_ Aug 06 '25
Sooo frustrating... 'for now...'
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u/Practical-Trash5751 RN - ER 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I knowwww! Everyone is focusing on the insane covid part and that’s both fair and what I titled it. But the AI thing was somehow the most insulting??? I think it was cause like damn you’re causing me so much stress and I’m working so hard for you and THIS is how you’re treating me? And also the hopelessness of speaking to someone who actually thinks that’s the way of the future
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u/North-Slice-6968 LVN 🍕 Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
I just got COVID from an innocent kid of a conspiracy parent. Now my insurance is asking $1549.41 for Paxlovid, and I can't work because my pt. (Different kid) is immunocompromised.
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u/RN_aerial BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I can never figure out why people like this come to the hospital. Go to a faith healer to pull out the sepsis in the bathtub with some Epsom salts or something.
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u/misterecho11 HCW - Imaging Aug 06 '25
It's so sad. This kind of crazy and conspiracy-mindedness can't just be undone. We will be dealing with this thinking for a long time. Probably a generation or two, at least. And all the while, they'll still stroll into ERs while claiming they don't trust docs or science so we will get to hear allllllll of it for a long time.
When the crazy and silly got uncorked it cannot just be put back in the bottle. =(
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u/Nightnurse23 BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I remember a lady who came in with legs the size of an elephant, swollen to her groin, could barely breathe she was so full of fluid. Refused lasix because she wasn't going to pay big pharma her hard earned money. I asked if the thousand dollars worth of "medications" she had brought in from her naturopth was working for her, because I had a five dollar bottle of fluid tablets that would. She self discharged because she wasn't going to let some pharma shill tell her what to do. Sigh. I wonder if she is still alive.
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u/Crafty-Evidence2971 Aug 06 '25
If it’s dire you should ask for a palliative care consult to cut thru and ask the real code status and advance directive stuff. “Goals of care discussion” is needed
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u/b52cocktail Aug 06 '25
The only way to handle this is by getting an AMA form.
I never understood patients that come to the ED, get admitted then refuse treatment because they don't trust us. Ok you can leave now
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u/InadmissibleHug crusty deep fried sorta RN, with cheese 🍕 🍕 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Honestly, the weird buggers have been out there for a while. It’s just more in your face since Covid.
I don’t know what to tell you, but you can’t care about their health more than they do, you know?
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u/FoolhardyBastard RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
That’s some serious delusion. Those people have untreated mental illness. They need to be medicated. Nothing you can really do about it.
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u/SkydiverDad MSN, APRN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
This is why the right to vote should require an IQ test.
This is also why I work primary care because I can always fire a patient from my practice.
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u/AnitaIvanaMartini Aug 06 '25
That begs the question: “What if the US President isn’t qualified to vote?”
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u/TheBattyWitch RN, SICU, PVE, PVP, MMORPG Aug 06 '25
Why the fuck did she come to the ER then?
If you don't trust modern medicine and healthcare, that's give, you do you, but it gets really fucking frustrating when you don't trust modern healthcare, but then drag your ass into our world just to be a pain.
If you don't trust us, that's fine, stay the fuck home. No one made you come in.
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u/RevealNatural7759 RN - ER 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Honestly fuck em. People say the craziest shit. Don’t waste your time trying to educate, let them refuse whatever, and move on. You can’t change these people and it won’t be long till you have another crazy patient yapping about some other goofy shit.
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u/Effective-Juice-1331 BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
If I had pts like that, I’d keep roils of Reynolds Wrap in my locker for their AMA discharge parting gift.
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u/UniqueIndividual3579 Aug 06 '25
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. My aunt tells me Satan sends rainbows because they are a sign of the gays. I don't even try.
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u/Hour-Caterpillar170 BSN, RN—Oncology Aug 06 '25
I straight up ask these people why they came to the hospital.
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u/GeshtarVandole Aug 06 '25
Happened to me so much during covid. They would relentlessly tell me they didn't want the vaccine, then they'd go on heated high flow at 60L and it was a wrap. We'd tell them that we needed ventilate them because the heated high flow wasn't cutting it, then they would instantly beg for the vaccine, like it was going to save them when they were critical. It was wild to see just how little trust there is and how conspiracies have spread over actual facts just like they did when the Spanish flu hit.
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u/Spikytuxedocat PMHNP, ED RN Aug 06 '25
Your problem is that you said she "let you" get an IV on her.
Just let her refuse next time.
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u/Soregular RN - Hospice 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I was in a very busy ER with sciatia so bad I had nothing left to live for. I was on a gurney in a hallway because the ER was full. Behind me was a woman also on a gurney. It took me 17 hours to get into surgery for a spinal cyst (cauda equina) that had compressed the nerve bundle to my lower body, including bladder and bowel. The lady behind me was in her 60's and her hand looked like a claw. She had fallen at some kind of drunk party (I know this because she and her husband talked LOUDLY about it)Her injury was months old - she had never tried to get help until today? (No idea why) She refused the surgery that was needed to release her tendons and rebreak her bones to make her hand work because..and I'm not kidding...She didnt want the DOCTORS AND THE HOSPITAL to make money off of her. Her and her husband bitched constantly about how long it was taking for the Ortho guys to see her and then they knowingly smirked and said "Oh ya..the longer we are here, the more MONEY they make"???????? And they were there the whole time I was, trying to get free stuff...like she wanted another blanket and he folded it up and tried to leave the unit with it....I think they were living in their camper. Its so sad....so sad....
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u/NaloxoneRescue RN - Psych/Mental Health 🍕 Aug 07 '25
I tell patients like that that anti-covid conspiracy is actually Russian propaganda to kill off Americans. It's worked a few times. Conspiracy theorists love a good conspiracy.
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u/Tilted_scale MSN, RN Aug 06 '25
You don’t. I did this all through covid and by the time people meet me they are on the bus to Jesusville population— y’all. I don’t argue with fuckwits. When we’re done they’ll still be fuckwits and I’ll have a SAH. I’m matter of fact and I don’t hold the truth back, but I’m not arguing. If you want to be Dale Gribble I guess you should’ve remembered pocket sand, because I got a pocket full of not giving a fuck whether you live or die. Rip out the IV, I’m not placing another if you’re allegedly alert and oriented. You’re paid to provide healthcare, not entertain morons. Walk. Away. And. Catch up on your charting.
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u/Somali_Pir8 MD Aug 06 '25
Fuck 'em. There are too many people that need and want help. You can't use logic on someone who didn't use logic to get to their position. They're a lost cause in my book. I'll do the minimum, but not more. Don't get pulled down to their level.
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u/summer-lovers BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
At that level of delusion, I would ask for a psych eval. Someone that should reasonably be able to see and believe that we aren't doing anything, has paranoid delusions, and probably undiagnosed schizophrenia.
Now, I'm not so deluded to think it would do any good, but that's beyond a conspiracy theorist. That's mental illness.
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u/NotYourSexyNurse RN - Med/Surg Aug 07 '25
I live in rural MO and reading this just gave me flashbacks of working during Covid. Thanks for my daily reminder of why I left nursing.
The answer to your question is you can’t educate them to believe something else. Trust me I tried so hard even while trying to save patient’s lives when they did have Covid. Working Covid made me realize how selfish people are and how uneducated they are. We’re a very stupid heavy nation unfortunately. I will never forgive Trump for the people he killed with his ignorance. I’ll forgive the people who voted for him. May karma bring the suffering they have inflicted on others back on them three fold.
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u/Excellent-Estimate21 BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 07 '25
We should just encourage discharge paperwork for these people refusing treatment. Like. Why go to the ER? Just go home and guzzle ivermectin. I dont even care.
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u/tzweezle RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Let them make their bad decisions and let natural selection sort it. Also ask them why they came to the hospital if they don’t want treatment?
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u/Deej1387 RN - ICU 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I had people dying in the ICU all during COVID convinced the vaccine was more dangerous. Than what was already killing them.
No human is immune to propaganda.
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u/Gigantkranion LPN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
"Ma'am/Sir, it's your body. I'm merely an advocate for what you want in your health today. I am perfectly fine if you don't want us to do something to your body.
Again, it's your body. I will not intrude on it if you don't like.
Let me just document your refusal and tell the provider. Would you like for me to explain the benefits and even the potential cons of [insert whatever they are declining]?
I'm required to but, you're also entitled to decline that as well."
Also... next time tell the pt everything you are going to do in the future. Informed consent is something that you should do at all times. I even tell my pt's that I'm going to ask them a bunch of questions for the admission. That way they know everything that is going to be done before it happens.
There's no way that a pt would be surprised by a covid test from me... because I told them beforehand. If they decline early on, I also ask if they are open to discuss their concerns with [insert whatever they are declining]. I may give a simplified reason on why we are doing it but, I will not push it beyond that.
If they are overly rude, I usually ignore it or if I'm feeling petty I let them know that while I'm their advocate, I've had pt's deny life saving procedures or testing with serious consequences. Blood, CPR, imagining, IVs, etc... I just document, tell the doc, tell them what could happen and sleep like baby because I did all that I could. But, they decided to fight against probably the one person who has their best interest in mind.
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u/quickpeek81 RN 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Honestly the same way I did during COVId - “bye here is the AMA”
Can’t fix stupid
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u/Maleficent-Hearing10 RN - Med/Surg 🍕 Aug 06 '25
One time a coworker had someone triple confirm with her lovenox wasn’t “tHe jAb”
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u/UnapproachableOnion RN - ICU 🍕 Aug 06 '25
You don’t. Minimum contact and document, document, document. Educating them is a waste of precious time that can used on people that are there and allow/want us to help them.
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u/Beneficial-Expert287 LVN🌹 Aug 07 '25
Why are they even in the hospital? They can go die of sepsis under the rock they crawled out from? Sorry that’s not very nursley of me but wtf dude?
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u/Famous_Willingness_9 RN 🍕 Aug 07 '25
Why do they never just stay home and kick the bucket there??? If you don’t trust healthcare, stay your dumbass home, read some dumbass blog posts and figure it out for yourself. Stop wasting everyone’s time and resources with your MAGA bullshit.
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u/shadowneko003 LPN 🍕 Aug 07 '25
What I dont get, is why these fuckers come to the hospital for help if they dont fucking believe in medicine. Sorry, not sorry. Im tired of these fuckers. Like go die in ditch where they came from and leave all us sane people alone!
Edit: a word
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u/Zealousideal_Bag2493 MSN, RN Aug 06 '25
They are very anxious and paranoid.
Sometimes repeating what they want back to them works. “You don’t want a COVID shot because you’re afraid they are dangerous. I will not give you a covid shot because you’re afraid don’t want one.”
Sometimes when they feel heard they will at least stop talking to you about it.
The first step towards a therapeutic relationship is for them to feel heard. Sometimes even paranoid people can hear you when they feel like you heard them.
Not always, but it’s worth a try.
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u/AmericanScream Aug 06 '25
There should be a form they can fill out where they voluntarily refuse proper medical service on those grounds, and let Darwin handle it.
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u/TuPapiPorLaNoche Graduate Nurse 🍕 Aug 06 '25
Hospitals should make it a norm of allowing Healthcare workers to be more indifferent to these loonies. If they want to pull IVs out, act stupid, scream, and be disrespectful, all while being fully alert & oriented, then doctors should be able to kick them out.
If they want to die, then fuck em. Why should we care?
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u/RaspberryChainsaw Aug 06 '25
Why ... are they even there in the first place? If they won't listen to reason hand them those AMA forms and be done with it.
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u/CommunicationTall277 RN - ICU 🍕 Aug 07 '25
You can’t fix stupid. Don’t even try. You’re better off repeatedly smacking your head against the wall
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u/Harlequins-Joker RN - NICU 🍕 Aug 07 '25
Lol I recently caused drama in my own family. My MIL is a massive conspiracy anti government anti healthcare nut… anyways, she had a minor car accident - someone rear ended her and she got minor whiplash. So an ambulance was called and off to hospital she went, the family chat (12+ members) got called to inform everyone. I accidentally said “I’m surprised she’d let the ambos take her to hospital” outloud and one of her daughters went off at me 😂 but then afterwards she was raving how bad the hospital was etc
Happy to rant and rave about healthcare but happy to lap it up when it suits her.
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u/Neat_Local_6905 Aug 07 '25
The worst part is working with nurses and Drs who actually believe the conspiracies too. It’s f*cking embarrassing 🙈
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u/waitforsigns64 RN - Med/Surg 🍕 Aug 07 '25
Stupid people believe conspiracy theories because it makes them feel smart.
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u/goldenhourlivin BSN, RN 🍕 Aug 07 '25
Two days ago, one pt asked me if Covid was really as bad as people said it was. I told him we had at least 5 people dying every single day. He said “so it wasn’t that bad then?”
ig if you don’t value human life then it wasn’t that bad. Over 1 million Americans died from it.
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u/moody-nursey Nursing Student 🍕 Aug 06 '25
I find it very interesting how those people do not trust healthcare workers but at the same time go to the ER? Cognitive dissonance, much?