[quote theendoftheworldasweknowit]@Maskwoes I'm sorry for the way you were treated.
I don't agree with the way that our Government has handled this at all. I agree with previous posters that there needs to be some kind of official exemption rather than a self-certified one. People are scared of catching Covid-19, so everyone who can wear a mask needs to wear a mask, and the people who legitimately can't wear a mask need more protection from other people's fear and anger than their own word.
I think it's fair enough to be hacked off with some joker who refuses to wear a mask because he doesn't want to, but the problem is, it's impossible to tell the difference between that kind of person, and between you. In a civilised society, we could operate on an honesty basis where if someone says they have a hidden disability we take them at face value, but this country is an absolute car crash at the moment. I honestly don't know if we've ever been this divided. The trouble with sunflower lanyards is people who shouldn't be wearing them can easily pick them up. There's a lot of anger and fear and some of it is getting directed at the wrong people.
I can understand why the people around you in the hospital were scared. I don't think they handled the situation well, but I can understand why they challenged you. A&E staff get told so many lies and are so overworked that their default reaction is sometimes open suspicion.
You talk about wanting to make changes - you said there was nowhere private for you to explain why you couldn't wear a mask. Getting that changed would be an excellent thing to campaign for. No one should ever feel obliged to recount such personal details in earshot of non-medically trained strangers - you deserved more compassion than that. If you had been able to be quickly ushered into a private space without fuss, the whole ordeal might have been less traumatic.
The hospital staff may not have had access to your medical history. GP and hospital notes are notorious for not being joined up. I've experienced this myself and found it baffling, seeing as I've been specifically treated as an in-patient for a condition my GP is supposed to deal with the majority of the time, but at least it's been inconvenient in my case, rather than traumatic. Perhaps there needs to be a way of better identifying people who are exempt from the mask rules by linking some sort of flag to their NHS number. That's another change that you could press for - if you give your details and staff can locate you from them, they should be able to see that a doctor has already decided you don't need to wear a mask. There should be no need to get into that decision again and ask for details.
You mentioned you were given a visor to wear - did you get on with this at all? It sounds like by the time you were given a visor mask you were in a bad place and anything would have been terrible, but if perhaps an adapted version might work for you (the internet is full of people selling custom made masks these days) that would be ideal. I appreciate that it might still be triggering for you, and this might be a complete non-starter, but wanted to check whether there was any mileage in exploring that option further.
Although staying at home as much as possible if you don't want to/can't wear a mask is probably the right thing to do, as you rightly pointed out, with a potentially broken limb, you didn't have much of a choice but to venture into the outside world and into a hospital with people there.
Suing the NHS is rarely the right thing to do, but making a formal complaint and campaigning for change (if indeed you have the strength to do so) would not be wrong.
Again, I'm sorry that you had this experience, and that you've perhaps had to share more details of your trauma on this thread than you would have liked to in order to convey your point. None of it is fair or deserved.[/quote]
The visor was hot and claustrophobic. The whole experience just took me back to my assault and reliving it. I just wanted away from it, I was totally broken.
But I have to take issue with your "stay home" comment. If I had COVID symptoms I wouldn't leave the house, because that's my civil responsibility. I do not have to wear a mask because I am legally exempt from doing so, and yes, an official blue-badge style card would've removed these sorry experiences from everyone who has suffered as a result of being illegally challenged.