Login
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) will convene patients, families, doctors and nurses on Sept. 28 for a roundtable to discuss what he called “something very dark” that happened inside hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The stories are horrific, and it wasn’t just at one or two hospitals. This is in hospitals across the country,” Johnson said this week in an interview with Children’s Health Defense (CHD) CEO Mary Holland on “Good Morning CHD.”
The roundtable, “COVID-19 Hospital Protocols: Real Stories from Real People,” will begin at 1 p.m. EDT in Washington, D.C., and CHD.TV will livestream the event.
This will be the first of Johnson’s COVID-19 hearings and roundtables devoted entirely to hospital protocols for COVID patients.
“What I want to come out of all my hearings is just the truth. Just simple truth,” he said.
The event grew out of nearly 600 testimonies Johnson said he has collected over several years from medical staff, patients and families about their experiences in hospitals during the pandemic.
The accounts include allegations that hospitals failed to provide proper care, incentivized ineffective treatments, restrained patients and separated them from loved ones.
“The number of times people talk about how callously they were treated,” he said. “It wasn’t just a one-off. This happens time and time and time again.”
‘Am I a patient or am I a prisoner?’
Johnson said he chose to hold a roundtable instead of a formal congressional hearing so people can share their experiences without Sen. Richard Blumenthal and “the Democrats denigrating those individuals” for challenging the mainstream COVID-19 narrative.
“It’s about time that they can tell their story,” Johnson said.
Among the witnesses expected to speak is a woman who was hospitalized during COVID-19 and wanted to be discharged. Johnson said an argument between the woman’s husband and hospital staff lasted for hours before the woman finally asked, “Am I a patient or am I a prisoner?”
“Those are the magic words that actually set her free,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, [in] too many cases, they were prisoners.”
He also recounted testimony from patients who said they were restrained, were denied informed consent to medical treatments, had their phones taken away, and were unable to communicate with family members or others who could advocate for them.
“Particularly if they or their loved ones were unvaccinated,” Johnson added.
He said some of the most painful testimony came from patients and family members who were unable to be with loved ones as they died.
Johnson said he heard accounts of doctors telling family members, “‘Oh, your father’s unvaccinated? He’s gonna die. Your dad’s gonna die. What did you expect?’”
“It’s just the cruelty, the callousness and oftentimes [it was] exhibited toward people who refuse that experimental gene therapy,” he said.
‘I’m profoundly disappointed by what I witnessed’
Johnson said he entered the coronavirus pandemic with great respect for healthcare professionals. He shared that his infant daughter, now 42, was born with a serious congenital heart defect and that doctors and nurses saved her life.
But the stories he heard about how the system treated COVID-19 patients changed his view. “I came into COVID with just the deepest level of appreciation and respect for doctors and nurses and medical establishment,” he said.
“But I just have to say, I’m profoundly disappointed by what I witnessed,” Johnson added.
Johnson said his criticism was not directed at healthcare workers who provided good care, but at those who allowed their biases to interfere with their duty to patients.
He recalled testimony from a nursing professor who said that in 2021, she witnessed other nursing professors refuse to provide accommodations to students who wouldn’t receive a COVID-19 vaccine. According to the testimony, the students would simply be dropped from the program.
One professor reportedly said, “Just let them try to find a different … career,” prompting the group to laugh.
“Just think of that,” Johnson told Holland. “They laughed at the prospect of these young people’s dreams and ambitions being crushed. They laughed because they wouldn’t get that experimental gene therapy injection.”
This article was funded by critical thinkers like you.
The Defender is 100% reader-supported. No corporate sponsors. No paywalls. Our writers and editors rely on you to fund stories like this that mainstream media won’t write.
‘Legacy media is not covering this’
Johnson said he does not expect extensive mainstream media coverage of the Sept. 28 event.
“They can’t refute me,” Johnson said. “They can’t prove all these things I’ve been saying [were] false. They’ve all been true. All these conspiracy theories have turned out true. So … they just ignore it.”
He said the truth will spread as witnesses share their experiences with family and friends.
“We’re all making progress. It’s slow because the media have been complicit in this,” he said. “At some point in time, truth will overcome the lie, and people will be forced to cover this.”
Johnson urged people not to assume their family and friends already know what happened during COVID-19. Instead, he encouraged them to watch the roundtable and share it with others.
“Tune in,” he said. “We need word of mouth because legacy media is not covering this. They’ve been complicit in this. … So if your eyes have been opened, do everything you can to open other people’s eyes because it’ll save lives.”
Watch Johnson on ‘Good Morning CHD’ here:
Related articles in The Defender
- ‘Heartbreaking’: Jury Sides With Hospital in 2021 Death of 19-Year-Old Admitted for COVID
- Witness to Tragedy: ‘Huge’ Financial Incentives Led Hospitals to Use COVID Treatments That Killed Patients
- ‘Remdesivir Papers’ Allege Controversial Drug Used to Treat Service Members Led to 601 Deaths
- Colorado Medical School Will Pay $10.3 Million After Denying Religious Exemptions for COVID Vaccine
- Healthcare Workers Reject COVID, Flu Shots Amid ‘Tremendous Erosion of Trust’ in Health Agencies
