Matt GoddenSep 28, 2023

Anyone working in any medical context should be required to wear a #Mask whenever they are in the workplace.

"Until when?” you say?

Until they retire.

Just like spay painters, welders, stone kitchen fitters, medical folks need to wear their PPE whenever they are on the job.

For ever.

Brought to you by the sheer horror of watching nurses cheering at not having to wear masks around patients, as mask-mandates are lifted.

Show threadPamelaWaldmanSep 28, 2023
@metaning and it is stunning that this view is considered extreme
Show threadMatt GoddenSep 28, 2023

@PamW We literally have *at the same time* a catastrophe of folks working with engineered stone countertops receiving terminal Silicosis diagnoses at 20-30 years old, because they weren’t wearing masks. It’s madness.

I wear a powered respirator, with a huge battery and spaceman helmet whenever I step into a welding booth, no reason a doctor or a nurse can’t wear an N95.

Show threadLeszek KarlikSep 28, 2023

@metaning @PamW

There are good arguments for N95 being a problem for a person whose main task is to communicate effectively with their patients. (Especially that Deaf patients frequently lip-read)

These are not arguments for lifting mask mandates but for developing and mass-producing clear faceshield medical powered respirators, which we should have been doing for the last 3 years.

Show threadEmber? Sep 28, 2023

@Leszek_Karlik @metaning @PamW

This is where I get tripped up, yelling at the top of my lungs all.sjift can be rough, but also keeping some people's hearing aids on is honestly.like trying to put hearing aids on a cat. And a lot of older people don't know any ASL so even the small basics I have are useless.

Show threadMatt GoddenSep 28, 2023

@technicolourPenguin @Leszek_Karlik @PamW There will no doubt be a near-term future of clear face shields, worn over masks, whose only purpose is to have amplifying speakers, (large) text display, facial expression drawings etc so that patients can get more visual cueing from masked medical staff.

I expect them to appear in Japanese nursing homes about a decade before they come to the west.

Show threadEmber? 
@metaning @Leszek_Karlik @PamW I also see it as another argument that everyone should learn their regional sign language honestly.
Sep 28, 2023 at 3:02pmWeb
Show threadMatt GoddenSep 28, 2023
@technicolourPenguin @Leszek_Karlik @PamW That would certainly be an interesting forward step on normalising accessibility. I wonder how that intersects with people who have muscular / neurological conditions - if you lack the coordination to sign… I imagine a hand tracking device like a Leap Motion could be used to great effect to build sign-speech-text translators in cases like that.
Show threadEmber? Sep 28, 2023
@metaning @Leszek_Karlik @PamW oh absolutely, it's also the more ways of communication are normalized in a culture, the more options there are for adaptability. Like, my background before being in geriatrics was with kids with multiple high support needs. We used everything there for communication. Coming into a population where AAC isn't normalized was honestly so frustrating at first. And now all of our residents with aphasia or who are HOH/deaf and refuse hearing aids have pointing boards because I was not going to continue the mask yelling trend. Even taught a 98 y/o how to use proloquo on her iPhone last week.