Lynda Wharton
The Health Forum NZ
THE NZ PRIME MINISTER MONDAY 12 SEPTEMBER 2022
“It’s time to safely turn the page on our Covid-19 management, and live
without the extraordinary measures we have previously used,” Ardern said.
“Finally, rather than feeling that Covid dictates what happens to us, our lives, and our futures, we take back control.”
And with the utterance of those two sentences written no doubt by a parliamentary speech writer, New Zealanders pull the curtain across the Human Rights abomination that was the New Zealand Covid Response.
“WE TAKE BACK CONTROL” she said.
I awoke with a gnawing heaviness in my belly.
It took me a few hours to understand the blocked feeling in my gut, and the sensation of tears brimming just behind my eyes.
Then I got it.
I am feeling anger and grief for the thousands of New Zealanders who have become a part of my life in the past 18 months, those who shared their pain with me.
The vaccine injured.
The vaccine bereaved families who have lost a mum, dad, child, brother or sister after their (possibly mandated) Covid injection.
The mandated out who have suffered professional and personal abuse, lost their careers, their professional esteem, their income….and their trust in the system.
The families who lost a loved one during lockdowns, and experienced the excruciating pain of virtual imprisonment at home while a loved one died alone, frightened, in a hospital or rest home.
The Kiwis stranded abroad who were unable to get a quarantine room to return home for the death of a loved one or the birth of a child.
The New Zealanders (including me) who have been deemed the black sheep and cut off from family because of our decision to refuse the injection.
The mothers with adult children who will no longer speak to them because of the vaccine divide. The adult children with mothers and fathers who have shunned them for the same reason.
The teachers who were marched off the premises with nothing more than a box of personal possessions, and a warning that if they returned they would be charged with trespassing. Their crime? Refusing the injection. For that, they lost their job and were refused the chance to even say goodbye to their beloved students.
The families where both mum and dad refused the injection, perhaps based on pre-existing medical conditions and a personal risk/benefit analysis. They lost their jobs. They lost their homes. Mortgages foreclosed.
The grandparents who for months were banned from seeing grandchildren because of their unvaccinated status.
The teenagers and children who lost their sport clubs, their team memberships, their ability to sit driver’s licenses, their ability to enter a library or a cinema.
Their complete alienation and isolation as a result of their unvaccinated status.
The elderly living in Retirement villages, who for months were forbidden from entering any communal space, and were virtual prisoners in their apartments, because of their vaccine status.
The patients who visited doctors and were “seen” in back alleys next to rubbish bins as they were deemed too high a risk to enter the building. Even with no covid symptoms and a negative PCR test. Virtual lepers because they refused the injection.
The doctors, nurses, surgeons, teachers, police, military (and more) who were severely injured or nearly died from their first shot and were refused an exemption from further doses.
The mandated who collapsed with severe Anaphylaxis from a dose….and then were refused exemptions, instead being instructed to take their next dose in ED with a resuscitation team and a crash cart by their side.
The teenagers who were crippled by Myocarditis and refused exemptions. Instead, they were left with ongoing health problems, a potential shortening of their life… and kicked out of their Universities, training institutions and jobs.
The pregnant mothers who delivered their babies wearing a mask and surrounded by vaccinated staff wearing PPE equipment. Their partner allowed to stay for only a couple of hours before being removed from the premises.
The thousands of New Zealanders who have not received the medical care they needed due to staff mandates, chronic understaffing and a refusal to safely return unvaccinated skilled staff to the medical field, even with PPE and negative tests.
Thousands of years of medical and teaching skills removed from our community due to medical mandates. Surgeons, Psychologist, Psychiatrists, Pathologists, Doctors, Nurses, Midwives, Aged Carers and more.
Suicides.
Many suicides.
Businesses lost.
Mortgages called in.
Husbands leaving wives.
Wives leaving husbands.
Teens plunged into depression and suicidality.
Vaccine broken and injured.
Vaccine bereaved.
Poverty. Isolation. Fear. Derision. Separation. Castigation.
Today many New Zealanders will sip their lattes and for the first time leave their masks in the car.
For them, it is OVER. Covid is OVER.
My day will continue just as it has every day for the past 18 months.
I will receive emails from Covid vaccine-injured New Zealanders seeking help and hope.
I’ll follow the chat threads of the groups I’m in where real New Zealanders seek and find comfort from other Kiwi’s who “understand” their pain and suffering.
Many who I now consider personal friends, will today simply try to survive yet another day in a torturous hell they never asked for…and were never warned about before they rolled up their sleeves and took one for the team.
The amazing, courageous men and women who today will just try to make it through to bedtime, doing battle with pain, exhaustion, depression, neurological disorders, cardiac dysfunction and more.
The wounded soldiers labelled “necessary collateral damage” by a high profile media personality; and a senior journalist in our leading newspaper.
As masks are discarded and workplaces open up to all Kiwis, not just those who complied with a medical order, please don’t forget those who are changed, perhaps forever.
As New Zealanders are invited to “take back control over covid”, not everyone has the physical, mental or emotional ability to do exactly this.
We are surrounded by “the broken”.
They may be invisible to you…but I promise you they are there.
Please never forget.