Not to wear a mask?

[Hmum0fthree]

From my understanding any NHS setting you have to wear a mask but unless its busy / I am going to be close to someone I don't due to being heavily pregnant and having bad nausea and wearing a mask makes this worse.

Went into the pharmacy today and a man in there already told me to put a mask on (not staff) I ignored him and was stood at least 4/5 meters away!

He then proceeded to shout at the staff behind the till that I wasn't following the rules and he is vulnerable

The lady behind the till turned to me and said you are required to wear a mask unless exempt to which I replied then why aren't any of the staff, she didn't know were to look and another member of staff was coughing into their hand then proceeded to stock the shelves.

So the man then started on the staff members and said he was reporting the pharmacy!

AIBU not to wear a mask when the staff don't bother to either?

@Hbh17 - masks ARE still required in healthcare settings in England.

He was rude, you were rude.

If you don't want to wear a mask, fine, but don't then have a pop at the staff instead of owning your decision.

I choose not to wear a mask in certain places now but I'll still do it where it's requested - like in the pharmacy or the doctors surgery.

[quote NeedAHoliday2021]@Hbh17 - masks ARE still required in healthcare settings in England.[/quote]
But the staff aren't wearing masks - it's right there in the OP.

So much misinformation here. Masks are still required for healthcare settings. If you come in and give staff or patients covid then you create a nightmare. Wards closed so not enough space for patients to receive the care they need and staff isolating from work. Both of these issues mean cancelling operations. That’s the impact you could have.

I think you'd class as exempt as it makes your nausea worse.

Being heavily pregnant (therefore breathing is harder anyway) and having to wear a mask in a warm place must be awful.

Ps a pharmacy is not a healthcare setting. My local pharmacies are in supermarkets.

@musicalfrog

I think you'd class as exempt as it makes your nausea worse.

Being heavily pregnant (therefore breathing is harder anyway) and having to wear a mask in a warm place must be awful.

I was pregnant last year. Wearing a mask in a warm environment when pregnant is the same as wearing a mask when not pregnant.

Wearing a mask doesn't make the nausea worse. It's fine.

@NeedAHoliday2021 - again, if masks are required, why are the staff not wearing them?

I’d say that if a mask makes you severely nauseous you are exempt (under the rules in place while they were mandatory). I found that wearing a mask during the first trimester made me throw up within minutes. At my booking appointment I was sick twice (and I wasn’t generally throwing up at that point without a mask on). Can’t imagine that wearing a mask helps very much when you’re taking it off to be sick but the midwife still wanted me to wear it.

@NeedAHoliday2021

So much misinformation here. Masks are still required for healthcare settings. If you come in and give staff or patients covid then you create a nightmare. Wards closed so not enough space for patients to receive the care they need and staff isolating from work. Both of these issues mean cancelling operations. That’s the impact you could have.

A pharmacy is a shop. It isn’t a healthcare setting.

If it wants it’s customers to wear masks then it can do so but then it’s staff should also wear them.

A Doctor refused to see me unless I was wearing a mask.
I had seen a different doctor 4 days before with a breathing problem.
The medication given was not working so back to surgery.
She could see that I couldn’t breath properly and I had to steady myself by holding the back of a chair.
I had to give in to wearing a mask because I needed something now!! !
A letter of complaint has gone in.

Tell them COVID‘s so last year, the cool kids are doin‘ WWIII these days

@Alocasia

Of course a pharmacy is a healthcare setting!

www.pharmacymagazine.co.uk/latest/pharmacies-not-treated-as-healthcare-setting-by-test--trace - not according to this article, it’s not

@girlmom21 that's your experience of it - just because it didn't make your nausea worse doesn't mean it's the same for everyone.

I had HG in my pregnancy at the end of 2020 with my Son - I was vomiting 10+ times a day and felt awful. On the days I did manage to get out to the shops if I wore a mask for more than a couple of mins it did make me need to throw up. I'm pregnant now and have HG again and it still does the same thing. Sometimes I'm fine to wear one (my sickness isn't as bad as last time) but other times it makes my sickness much worse.

My GP did say at the time that HG is a reason for mask exemption and I have seen/heard similar from others.

Don't just assume because somethings fine for you that it's the same for everyone else

@Lou98 HG is massively different to nausea

You should just have said that you were exempt. The reasons you give would have exempted you even when masks were compulsory.

@girlmom21 it's still the same concept - making sickness/nausea worse. As I said, just because it doesn't for you doesn't mean it doesn't for others and it's extremely ignorant to think otherwise

@Hbh17

If you are in England, masks are not required. You have a choice what to do and don't need to go along with other people's paranoia.

And the pharmacy has a choice and doesn't need to serve people not wearing a mask.

I still wear a mask in shops and on public transport.

But I wouldn't appreciate a random man telling me what to do, nor a member of staff agreeing when they themselves aren't wearing a mask.

I've taken the approach that now that mask wearing is no longer mandatory I will end up in places where people aren't wearing them, and that's for me to deal with, not them.

I've pretty much stopped wearing masks in shops now (except if it's particularly busy), but am still wearing them in healthcare settings - including pharmacies.

Oh FGS just put it on - there are highly vulnerable people in hospitals and if the hospital management has decided masks are the way to go then just get on with it.

People are getting blasted out of their homes in Ukraine and you are making a fuss about this. Get a grip.

@fairylightsandwaxmelts I’m slightly dubious that a pharmacy employee would be so stupid as to not wear a mask but then tell a member of public off. Our pharmacy teams are still all behind screens so wouldn’t need a mask. So I can’t comment on the specific scenario as I wasn’t there and I imagine there’s a few different versions of this from the people who were there. Should the man have shouted? Nope but I politely ask staff to lift their mask if it’s dropped or let a visitor to our hospital know that they need a mask and here they are. I understand people are confused and this thread demonstrates that. The abuse our hospital staff are getting is horrendous right now. My post was aimed at those declaring you don’t need a mask for hospital/healthcare settings. Yes you do. If you’re speaking to a pharmacist (a healthcare practitioner) then you should wear one. There’s very few in that pool of staff so if they had to isolate from work with covid you could have no pharmacists (healthcare staff have to staff off work until they have 2 negatives.

It’s confusing as most of the public hear the headlines and not the nuances. My post is purely intended to clarify.

Nah @girlmom21 you have less capacity in your lungs when you're heavily pregnant. It's definitely not the same, mask or otherwise.

YANBU.

They are pointless anyway and this is now acknowledged.

I went into my local Boots pharmacy to collect my medication last week. On the door and at the counter were signs saying customers had to wear masks. I was wearing one. Some customers were and some weren't. Not one of the staff were wearing them, neither those at the counters nor those on the shop floor.