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CHICAGO, IL (LifeSiteNews) —  A medical freedom activist died after doctors denied her the treatment she sought.

In the wake of the recent COVID-19-related death of a medical freedom activist, her power-of-attorney-advocate (POA), along with an interceding physician, have alleged medical malfeasance on the part of the hospital and broader medical system, the policies and protocols of which repeatedly denied Veronica Wolski known successful treatments, and even the ability to be transferred out of their hospital, though she begged for it continuously. 

“[We] were stymied at every turn,” said Dr. Lee Vliet, President and CEO of the Truth for Health Foundation, in a video interview on the John-Henry Weston Show last Thursday. 

Vliet was joined by Wolski’s Power of Attorney (POA), Ms. Nancy Ross, who explained the extraordinary efforts she had made, with Vliet’s help, in her attempt to save the woman’s life. Wolski died early on September 13 at the age of 64. 

Wolski was best known for hanging banners from a bridge over the Kennedy expressway in Chicago encouraging drivers to reject compliance with mask and dangerous gene-based “vaccine” mandates. Her hospital stay, along with her death, inspired tremendous support by medical freedom advocates, who called for her to be given suitable treatments for recovery, but also mockery by those who charged her with “anti-vaccine disinformation.”   

In providing insight into what was happening behind the scenes of this story, Ross began explaining how Wolski had been admitted to the Catholic AMITA Health Resurrection Medical Center somewhere around August 24 and diagnosed with “’COVID pneumonia,’ although her x-ray showed it was possible chest congestion.” 

Very soon after, Ross, a native of Chicago who now lives in South Carolina, explained, “I started receiving [text] messages” from Veronica begging for help to be moved from this hospital: ‘Get me out, get me oxygen, get me medical transport, get security here if you have to, get me out.’”  

In addition, after investigating the treatments Wolski was receiving, Ross observed “even something as simple as IV vitamins… were denied to her. She wanted her Ivermectin. That was denied to her. She wanted so many things that were not part of the hospital’s protocol. So, we began this fight [and] this advocacy [on her behalf].”  

Catholic hospital ‘ethics committee’ revokes prescription for Ivermectin, bars Ross from premises 

Illustrating the resistance hospitals across the nation are exercising to prevent the use of successful treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, Ross mentioned a recent court case in nearby Elmhurst, IL, where the “court ordered a hospital to allow a COVID patient to have Ivermectin. She ended up coming out of a coma, as is my understanding, [and] is now home playing with her grandkids.” 

Striving for a similar outcome for her friend Veronica, Ross was “thrilled” to secure a prescription for Ivermectin from Wolski’s infectious diseases doctor, considering it a “breakthrough,” only to soon discover that this physician “was overruled by the AMITA hospital system, by their ethics committee. 

“We demanded a conference with the ethics committee,” she said.

“They met without us. They did not give us a chance to present what we felt was some solid case study on ivermectin and other medicines.” 

Puzzled by this process, Ross explained how despite being within standard patient rights, as even stipulated in the AMITA admission forms, Wolski’s right to refuse the treatment being given, and to try the Ivermectin protocol prescribed to her by two different doctors, was not being recognized. 

“We understand if we had informed consent on their position, we could refuse kindly, and say ‘Ok, but we still demand to try this. This is what she wants,’ but this right was somehow not recognized,” she said.

Having lost her appeal, Ross explained, “I left the hospital and they called to tell me I was not to come back in, that they would deal directly with Veronica, that she was of sound mind and could make her own decisions, and that they would talk to me on the phone. After that, I was not allowed back in the hospital.” 

Attempt to transfer Wolski out of hospital impeded 

Beginning her comments, Dr. Vliet explained how she and her team are all “very experienced at treating COVID at all levels from critical care to outpatient,” and that, as a team, they reviewed Wolski’s records after being requested to do so by Ross and an attorney. 

“The consensus to the entire medical team reviewing [the case] was that there were so many options to improve Veronica’s clinical condition that had been totally ignored and refused,” Vliet said.

Further, after assessing the situation, the team concluded that they had the capacity to fulfill Wolski’s demand to be transferred out of this hospital and into an outpatient setting, where she could receive the treatment protocols she wanted, and to which she had a right. 

Yet having prepared for such a transfer, mobilizing everything needed, including an ambulance with high-flow oxygen capacity, Ross attempted to arrange for Wolski’s removal from AMITA, but was met with resistance and indifference from hospital staff. “’Call back Monday morning when their hospice team gets in,’” Ross reports being told. “I couldn’t understand why there was no sense of urgency to at least let her go in peace.” 

Distraught about this situation, she then called the police who told her there was nothing they could do about the situation, as it was a “civil matter.”  

Hospitals across nation using the ‘same playbook’ to block patient rights, ‘losing people every day’ 

In reflecting on their efforts to save Wolski’s life, Vliet said, “what was shocking to me as a physician, knowing what the legal and medical ethics are, is that the most astounding interference was the interference and refusal to honor the patient’s request… and not only that but to refuse the patient’s power-of-attorney, who has a legal duty as the agent, to carry out the patient’s wishes and to see that that is done.” 

“I have not, ever in my career … seen patient’s power of attorney legal rights overridden so flagrantly and abusively as we witnessed over this four days with Veronica’s situation,” she said. 

In hospitals across the United States, there appears to be “exactly the same pattern of abuse of patient rights [in these COVID situations]. This is medical tyranny,” Vliet continued.

“It is overriding all of the legal and medical ethical principles that have been operative for my entire career, or my knowledge of the history of medicine in this country.” 

These hospitals “are using the same tactics and the same playbook, and the same blocking of the patient’s rights and the power of attorney access to the patient,” she said. “This is a much bigger issue than simply denying Ivermectin as one medicine.” 

Furthermore, in her assessment, Vliet said, “basics are being denied: adequate IV fluids, adequate caloric intake, vitamins, comfort care with allowing private duty nurses if that is what the patient wants, allowing the patient to be discharged to home hospice, which is a legal right of the patient… That is supposed to be honored. It’s always been in my experience in medicine.” 

“And so, I think that the very, very serious and very chilling development is the consistency of the pattern hospitals are using: the fact that the patient’s legal rights as a patient are being overridden, the fact that power of attorney, legal documents are being thrown out and ignored. And if we don’t stand up to this medical tyranny then we are literally losing people every day because their wishes are not being followed and basic treatments are being ignored,” she said. 

Hospitals paid many thousands of extra dollars per each patient on a ventilator, causing ‘unnecessary deaths’ 

When asked about the interests of hospitals in insisting COVID patients take ventilators, Vliet said, “There’s a tragic and very simple answer [to that question]: They are paid thousands of dollars more for every patient on a ventilator. And this is happening in every hospital.” 

The enormous amount of extra dollars hospitals are paid for prescribing “Remdesivir, ventilators, and COVID diagnoses,” has all been documented, she said. 

Since emergency COVID-19 legislation was signed into law last year, establishing government COVID-19 “relief funding,” the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been providing what some have called “perverse incentives” awarding significantly more compensation to hospitals if patients are classified as COVID-19 positive ($13,000) or put on a ventilator ($39,000). 

According to the testimony of one whistleblower, such incentives, along with the policies of keeping family advocates out of the hospital, can lead to a “perfect storm,” involving a “complete and absolute disregard for human life” and many “unnecessary deaths.” 

Corporate interference with doctors’ ‘ability to practice independent medical judgment’ 

When asked to explain how so many doctors could forgo prescribing treatments that work against COVID-19 and instead pressure patients to accept a ventilator, Vliet said that “the majority of primary care doctors in the United States now … are employees of large, primary care, outpatient practice groups. Most of the large groups are actually owned by the hospital systems” which may tie the hands of physicians regarding the prescribing of medications “off label” though it has been a common practice in medicine immemorial. 

As was the case with a friend of hers, who is a doctor in one of these groups, the physicians have all been forbidden in many places by their employers from prescribing hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19. 

“So, all of the proper off-label uses for hydroxychloroquine, for many things, that many of us have done for years, was forbidden to this group of doctors by corporate interference with their ability to practice independent medical judgment,” Vliet explained. 

Thus, “the large health systems are actually controlling the outpatient practices and directing them not to do the outpatient care, and that drives everybody into the box canyon of the hospital, where the diagnosis of COVID increases the revenue. The use of Remdesivir … increases the revenue, and where, as soon as they can get them on the ventilator, it increases the revenue,” Vliet explained. 

“The public needs to understand that … patients are prisoners of protocols. They are not being treated as individual patients for this situation,” she concluded. 

Ross honored Wolski for her courage, boldness, and wisdom.

“She stood strong in this incredible battle that we’re seeing across the country, where our constitutional rights are being violated,” Ross said.

“[Wolski] loved all people, she loved America, she loved her faith, and in the end she fought till her death for medical freedom,” she continued. 

“She is an American hero, and her work will continue.” 

 

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