Sunday protest at Providence to support parent camped outside

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Another protest is planned by supporters of Marvin Abbott, who has been denied the ability to attend to his daughter, now in critical care at Providence Hospital in Anchorage.

On Saturday a small group of protesters joined him, including Assembly member Jamie Allard and several members of his family, and he is expecting a much larger crowd that says it will join him Sunday from 2-4 pm.

Abbott posted this Facebook video this morning:

“We don’t live in the world we see on TV people,” he says in the video, his voice breaking with emotion. “There’s been so much love and compassion.”

The Kodiak resident says he won’t leave without his daughter, and is going to camp there until the hospital lets him in to be with her.

Hospital rules say no family members can come in, unless their loved ones are on death’s doorstep.

Rachelle was medevaced on Sunday night from Kodiak, and Abbott came, too, even though he knew of the hospital policies. He said he would take a test for COVID-19. But the hospital has refused to allow him to see his daughter.

People in Alaska found out about the father’s plight after he posted a Facebook video of himself lying on the lawn near the hospital, with a sign behind him that reads, “Let me see her!”

On Sunday morning, his sleeping bag was covered in frost. He had been joined overnight by a family friend, who slept nearby in a sleeping bag on top of a cot propped on the lawn and sidewalk.

The Providence Board of Directors meets on Tuesday, but Abbott says the board could meet earlier by teleconference to change the policy.

26 COMMENTS

  1. Nothing more important than family. ALready proven medically that loneliness is a contributor to premature death and illness. This father’s dedication to the health and welfare of his daughter is exactly the example we need in Alaska!!

      • The question no one is asking, and the staff cannot answer it when asked: Why aren’t staff members routinely tested for COVID-19? Wouldn’t that make sense to know, if the institution are actually trying to keep the hospital free of the virus? Maybe the answer is, they do not want to know how many staff members are actually asymptomatic? #ignoranceisbliss

      • He offered to take the test. The hospital employees probably take the same test daily in order to work.

        Patients’ and families’ rights are being violated every day at Providence, “pandemic” or no.

        Drs and nurses, contrary to their own assessment, are not God. People are social creatures, not faceless automatons, and they have inherent dignity and value.

        But, when the medical community accepts the wholesale butchering of helpless, preborn human persons as a form of “healthcare,” can we really expect them to treat adults and the elderly with compassion or dignity?

        No.

        I will pray for this suffering family. Thank you for letting us know about them.

      • Following your logic Greg, that implies the staff must be quarantined as well, right? If they leave to go home, go grocery shopping, meet a friend for coffee, etc…they can bring it whatever “micro death” back inside with them…right? yet this is not the case.
        Why can’t family members don clean suits? This is a well-intended policy that has gone awry and causing more harm than good. it Covid is so scary dangerous, why aren’t healthcare workers dropping like flies? They are not. There is no logic involved here.

  2. This is another sad example of the imperfect intersection between large impersonal human organizations designed to provide general social services (hospital medical care) versus the individual requirement for personal, emotional, interactive care.

  3. Even more so, as alluded to by an earlier comment, the real dichotomy is between the human care-giving impulse of the medical personnel – nurses/physicians – versus the impersonal corporate structure that they must work within.

  4. Thank you so much, Suzanne, for providing this kind of information! You are taking such an important, active role in fostering bonds of support among neighbors by alerting us to people who need our support and prayers (and institutions that need major community pushback for overstepping the bounds of decency)!

  5. I don’t see it.

    This guy is just another attention seeking nutbar looking for a reason to draw attention to his otherwise dull existence. What kind of medieval idiot thinks that his presence is going to make his adult child better when in fact he had that chance and clearly whatever mojo he thinks he possesses, doesn’t work or she’d not have needed to be hospitalized. Here’s the shocker; it didn’t work when he tried it before and it won’t work when he tried it again.
    =
    So he stows away on a free medivac flight only to post a boring blog. He wakes up from camping on someone else’s property, takes a slow and scripted yawn as if this somehow seems extemporaneous and pertinent… then shows pics of a sleeping bag.

    Spare me. This is not interesting and it’s not an example of ‘the man’ holding this goofball down. If you had a family member in that hospital would you want any goofball SJW that wanted to draw attention to their cause to be able to spread who knows what you your beloved patient? That answer is hell no… and this goof needs to shut up and realize that he’s not getting anything special and sleeping on the lawn is just stupid.

    Suck it up, butter cup. Nobody wants any nutbar that feels the urge to be able to introduce yet another dynamic into the healthcare mix. Grow up and go home.

    • What? There is nothing in the story about any of that, not the age of the daughter. Where are you getting your information? And Providence is indeed keeping all family members out.

      We have a friend going through prostate cancer and he was in for a few days after surgery and no family members allowed. That is awful and ridiculous.

      On the other hand a couple of months ago my father spent over three weeks at OHSU, and was in and out of ICU, in leftest ‘Covidian’ Portland Oregon after a bad car accident. My mother was allowed to be with him every day. So what the heck is with Providence?

    • Your compassion for your fellow man overwhelms me……

      Sarcasm aside, having been a patient in ICU, it is an environment full of unfamiliar noises, machines, procedures and words, that are even more stressful because of the pain and anxiety you are already under.

      A familiar friendly face can greatly reduce this anxiety. Family members not only provide emotional comfort to patients, but are also advocate for them, conveying their wishes and help with medical decisions.

      I find it distressing that Providence chose to lock out visitors. As a hospital, infection control is supposed to be their forte and they should be prepared for this kind of circumstance. Putting visitors in a mask (and a gown for ICU) and gloves and limiting one visitor per patient, seems much more reasonable and doable to me.

      Since staff come and go everyday and interact with the greater public on their time off, this is clearly not a sealed environment and therefore barring visitors seems especially cruel.

    • You apparently are not a parent, thank heavens. Your child is your child no matter their age. Your lack of compassion is shocking.

      • I am a parent. One’s in finance, one’s a doc and one’s an engineer. Neither have a hint of medieval goofball in them and neither would expect they should be able to compromise well intentioned restrictions based on the nonsensical concept that ‘I just want it my way and to h– with any degree of risk to anyone else’.

    • Well, why wouldn’t he protest to a fake plandemic to hurt the economy in election year, and make the Chinese more rich with all the PPE that taxpayers are paying for .to these out of control liberal hospitals, best worry about the 200 trillion dollars America owes, and the huge food shortages going on globally. The father’s love for his daughter is impressive, at least he should be able to put a plastic suit on and visit her.

  6. What is with Providence? How insanely archaic! How old is the daughter? Can Mr. Abbott somehow request she be transferred to Alaska Regional or even Mat-us? Mat-Su regional allows a family member to be there, and I believe Alaska Regional does as well.

  7. It’s being reported today that the number of coronavirus cases is growing in 11 states. Alaska is first on the list. Do the emotional needs of one family clearly outweigh the risk of spreading the virus in a hospital, of all places? If the rule is set aside for one, then it would necessarily have to be set aside for all. How would that play out? Do all visitors enter at the same time? Do we expect hospital staff to monitor their movements and mask-wearing at all times? Would managing that movement require extra staff and/or volunteers? Could it be managed on a “one-at-a-time” basis – I’m sure other families must be in this same predicament, and I am glad a commenter pointed out there are alternative hospitals in the area that do not have this rule. It would be edifying to learn hos MSRMC is handling this. But please do not vilify and threaten the good people at Providence – like the rest of us, they are doing the best they can to keep people safe, in a really difficult time.

    cnbc.com/2020/09/13/coronavirus-cases-are-growing-in-11-us-states.html

  8. Obviously social distancing and masking doesn’t work. If it did work they would let this guy mask up and see his kid.

  9. Dear People: There mortality rate in hospitals goes way up when patients do not have an advocate. My sister who was a picture of health went into hospital this May for hypothyroid and never came out thanks to HYPO-COVID19ISM (the thyroid condition should never kill someone). She simply could not think clearly and they made many critical mistakes. So this issue hits close to home with me.

    The most significant issue is how FEAR of COVID has gripped everyone as though we were all going to die because of a flu virus. Just keep watching the news and CDC etc. and we are all at great risk, so we go into hiding against the enemy instead of preparing and facing the danger, we look at case counts. The virus will be gone after the election because it has low mortality rates, especially when patients are treated early. Take a look at Africa where they treat people instead of sending them home to quarantine without treatment, they have very few deaths, and people there are at high risk from the standpoint of immune health. Many more deaths from lock-down have taken place than the virus my dear friends, just look at drug and suicides alone.

    If you are in hiding please take courage, get out and get the virus so you can be done with it. We all need to get it, not hide from it. I have a plan and am prepared to get the virus. I often hang out with COVID nurses and could care less about masks etc. and I’m over 60. I also know it will not kill me because it’s not that difficult to treat a virus which is so easily killed. If you don’t have a plan to treat the virus, then your dependence is probably on the government and healthcare system. Not a good idea. My daughter is a nurse in the COVID-19 unit in one of the nations best hospitals, and they are giving patients vitamins and steroid injections, that’s it …….. hello! The hospital won’t treat you until you are almost gone then they give vitamins and ventilator.
    My COVID treatment plan will work for any patient, young or old. What is your plan? Are you preparing to battle this little virus, or hide? Come on America where is your guts. The people who took us through WWII like my 85 year old mother think we are a bunch of sissies. She traveled all over the country with me so we could deal with my sisters death, and did not care about this virus. Why? Is my 85 year old mother stupid? No she is actually quite wise and knows this is not something to fear.

    How many freedoms are you willing to give up?

    Providence Hospital Board members get your head out of the sand and politics and help people get well. Those sisters of God that you represent are displeased with your lack of faith. Also, governor Dunleavy you are a good man and we love you, please muster courage and lead this people away from fear, and into preparation instead of HIDING.

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