Southern Manitoba doctors encounter threatening, unsettling behaviour as mandatory vaccine deadlines loom

A southern Manitoba doctor filed a police report a couple weeks agoafter finding a disconcerting hand-written letter dropped off at his home in the Winkler area.

Its author accused him of pushing the COVID-19 vaccine on patients.

Along with the letter was a kind of tabloid newspaper that contained misinformationsuggesting the vaccination campaign was a plot by elites to depopulate the Earth, claiming theimmunized were likely to die within a few years.

"It was just filled with ludicrous conspiracy theories,"said the doctor, whomCBC News isn't naming because he fears he could become more of a target.

"They've chosen to drop this off, not at the hospital or the clinic, not mail it, but hand deliver it to my home, which they sought out somehow. I think there was clearly a threat implied."

What the Winkler-based family physician and emergency room doctor experienced is part of an emergingpattern of privacy violations andforms of threatening behaviour amid looming mandatory vaccine deadlines this fall.

Some also have to contend with phony exemptions.

This week, a patient went to the doctor's clinic and got past reception's COVID-19 screening without a mask on after presenting a button that said he had a medical exemption.

When pressed, eventually the patient copped to buying the button online.

He didn't like wearing masks and said"I don't want to get the needle because I'm going to die from it," the doctor said.

"I had a challenging encounter," he said.

"We sort of are left at this impasse, where I can't provide proper care for him if he can't come into the clinic like,you can't just have no rules and let people do whatever they want,endanger everyone else in the clinic."

'Invasion of privacy'

Another Winkler physician,Dr. Don Klassen, said he and his colleagues have regularly encounteredpatientsat Boundary Trails Health Centre refusing to betested for COVID-19 or to disclose their vaccination status.

Klassen also had a similar experienceto the other Winkler doctor recently.

About 2 weeks ago, someone putconspiracy theory literature beneath his vehiclewindshield wiper, with a handwritten note addressed to him, urging him to read the material.

"It is an invasion of privacy," he said.

Klassen said in recent weeks a doctor colleaguehad someone spreading rumours on social media about them downplaying the true severity of COVID-19.

None of these things would have happened pre-pandemic, he said.

It's putting some on edge.

"It's not like you go to work and, oh boy,you're just looking behind every door to seewhat's coming,but there is a little bit of that, right? Things you just never thought of before in terms of practising medicine."

Doctors Manitoba gets more reports

The experiences of these two doctors are not isolated.

"It really is heartbreaking," said Dr. KristjanThompson, president of Doctors Manitoba.

"Physicians and health-care workers are here to help, and soacts of intimidation, aggression, threatening remarks or violence is absolutely inexcusable."

The organization has heard from a lot of members recently who have been having similar experiences, Thompson said.

"This behaviour is inexcusable," he said.

The organization put together a guideline document sent to physicians Thursday to help them navigate threatening or aggressive situations. Thompson also wants more physicians to reportincidents to Doctors Manitoba.

He's had his own encounters.

Thompson works in a Winnipeg emergency room, andafew months ago, the son of one of his older patients, whowas dying of COVID-19, was invited in to be with her in those final moments.

The man became aggressive. Herefused to wear a mask andintentionally coughed in Thompson's face and pushed him aside.

Security escorted the man outside, where Thompson said they managed to hash thingsout.The man apologized and was invited back in with a mask on, but the exchange stillleft a mark.

"It's important for people who are suffering, who are frustrated, to really be mindful how they channel their anger," he said.

That message hasn't entirely resonated in parts of the south.

"It's become a very, very hostile community to work in," said the physician based in Winkler.

He also worksatBoundary Trails, where staff face moreoutright hostilitythan in the clinic setting, he said.

Boundary Trails serves people from a variety of communities, including Winkler and the rural municipality ofStanley, where vaccination rates are thelowest in the province at 41.8 and 24.7 per cent, respectively, as of Friday.

Those rates reflectpervasive attitudes doctors encounteron the job there, the doctor said.

"To try to help someone that thinks you're the enemy and is accusing you of withholding the proper care, not knowing what you're talking about ...it's been frustrating," he said.

"What I wish people would understand is thatwe're doing our job just like we always have, and our job has always been to try to keep people out of hospital, to try to prevent illness and harm, rather than trying to just fix it once it's happened."