Ignorant nurse calls mom 'loser' for refusing to poison her child with vaccines

Sunday, November 17, 2013 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: child vaccines, ignorant nurse, alternative parenting

(NaturalNews) Imagine rushing your nine-month-old son to the emergency room for a severe fever, only to have one of the nurses there backhandedly call you a "loser" for adhering to a different philosophy on how to raise your own child. This is what happened recently to a South Carolina mother who received a nasty note from an immature nurse who obviously disagreed with her stance on vaccines.

According to WISTV.com, Katie Smart had just arrived at Palmetto Health Children's Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina, when medical staff asked her whether or not her son had been vaccinated. When she told them that he had not been vaccinated, the nurse assigned to come and give the child medication for his fever decided that it was somehow appropriate to voice her personal opinion on the matter.

After delivering the medicine, the nurse in question proceeded to place a small note next to the boy's mother. The top of the note appeared to simply designate instructions for the boy's treatment, while the bottom contained a personal message to the mother about her choice not to vaccinate. Next to the words "0 immunizations," the nurse drew a face in the shape of a frown, and below it scrawled the word "Loser!"

Outraged by the note, the mother decided to send a picture of it to a Facebook group that supports mothers who question the safety and efficacy of vaccines. This group, known as "Great Mothers (and others) Questioning Vaccines," shared the note publicly, and it was quickly picked up by alternative media outlets all across the web, as well as by local media.

"My wife took our nine-month-old child into the E.R. around 5:45 p.m. on Monday the 4th of November for an injury he sustained trying to pull up and start walking earlier that day," explained Trevor Smart, Katie's husband, to WISTV.com. "After the initial screening and overall check of my child, we found out he had a temperature of 101. The doc came in and wrote a prescription for the fever and ordered an X-ray. The nurse came in and left this note on the table."

Hospital apologizes for incident but still insinuates that parents who refuse vaccines are uneducated and uninformed

The incident gained widespread publicity so quickly that Palmetto Health Children's Hospital was forced to address it publicly, posting a note on its own Facebook page apologizing for the fact that it occurred. But in the apology, the hospital admitted that it officially endorses vaccines, implying that those who choose to refuse them are ignorant.

"Palmetto Health advocates vaccinating our pediatric patients, yet we recognize that it is our role to provide information and education to our patients and their families, and empower them to make the health care decisions they feel are right for them," reads the duplicitous apology.

While the hospital also claimed to have taken "quick and appropriate corrective action" to deal with the nurse in question, it has not publicly specified what this corrective action entailed. It also says it is using the incident as a "real-time learning opportunity" to reinforce appropriate standards of interaction between its team members and patients, which is also unspecified.

Not surprisingly, many health freedom advocates are dissatisfied with the hospital's response, believing it to actually reinforce the underpinnings of what led to this type of incident occurring in the first place. The fact that the hospital openly promotes vaccines and assumes them to be the product of education and information suggests that those who oppose vaccines are the antithesis of this supposed enlightenment.

"The hospital is saying they advocate vaccines, and provide 'information & education' to parents," writes one commenter at MyNaturesMedicine.com. "So basically they're saying this parent is uninformed and uneducated. This thinking is also part of the problem."

Sources for this article include:

http://mynaturesmedicine.com

http://www.wistv.com

http://thestir.cafemom.com