During these difficult times, we have our healthcare workers and frontliners to thank for keeping the pandemic under control and fighting battles every day so that the rest of us can stay safe.
Unfortunately, discrimination and prejudice remain rife—instead of commending our healthcare workers and showing our utmost gratitude for their hard work and service, they have to contend with unjust hate from certain individuals.
A family consisting of a nurse, his wife (who works in essential services) as well as their two young children have been on the receiving end of such hate, having been dealing with discrimination and harassment for a year.
Here’s what went down.
Healthcare Worker’s Family Still Gets Discriminated Against & Harassed by Neighbour After a Year
On Monday morning (18 May), as the nurse’s wife was leaving for work, she was harassed by a neighbour.
As she was putting on her shoes, the family’s next-door neighbour dumped a red pail filled with soapy water onto the ground in front of her.
The woman looked at her neighbour, to which he responded in crude Hokkien, “What are you looking at?” He then shut his gate forcefully.
Unfortunately, this instance of harassment isn’t an isolated one.
After a clip of the incident was circulated on Instagram, many netizens left comments expressing sympathy for the family and disdain for their neighbour’s actions.
A sibling of the nurse shared in an Instagram caption that this was merely one of a series of harassment cases that had been happening since last year.
In another incident that happened on 3 March, the nurse was about to take his son to school, only to have his neighbour splash soapy water outside their door.
Whenever he raised his concerns over the issue to his neighbours, they would rebut saying that they were simply spraying over their gate.
The nurse shared that his son would cough when exposed to the strong smell of the disinfecting solution, which then led to him being denied entry into school.
The family has been dealing with such harassment incidents since May last year.
Neighbours had sprayed the nurse with disinfectant while chorusing “virus, virus!”
His daughter then became afraid of going out or playing in the common corridor, for fear that the neighbours would spray disinfectant at her or spit at her.
After the couple’s daughter was sprayed in the face, they filed a police report. However, they were told by the police to file a magistrate report instead as they could not take action without a court order.
TTSH Healthcare Workers Facing Discrimination with Growth of Hospital Cluster
Unfortunately, many healthcare workers face discrimination, and this discrimination has only become worse with the recent COVID-19 outbreak at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH).
Instances of discrimination include passengers visibly moving away from hospital staff wearing their uniform on public transport or tightening their masks around their faces.
Additionally, several nurses have even been asked by their landlords to move out.
You can read more about it here.
The pandemic has indeed been a strain on everyone, but it is especially during times like these that we need to band together as a community and show support and care for those who are fighting to keep Singapore safe.
So let’s all make an effort to exercise more empathy and solidarity during these trying times, and we will eventually see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Featured Image: Instagram (jibby4g)
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