The left is truly sick if it believes denying medical care or wishing physical harm on patients who don’t share its politics should be standard operating procedure.
“I will not perform anesthesia for any surgeries or procedures for MAGA. It is my right, it is my ethical oath, and I stand behind my education,” Florida nurse Erik Martindale wrote on Facebook. “I own all of my own businesses and I can refuse anyone!”
Once the post went viral, Martindale suddenly claimed he’d been “hacked.” Of course he did.
It raises an obvious question: how exactly does he screen patients? Does he ask who they voted for? Scroll through their social media? Check their cars for bumper stickers? Maybe a red hat triggers a medical blackout.
Then there’s the labor and delivery nurse at Baptist Health Boca Raton Regional Hospital who was fired after wishing violent bodily harm on White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. In a video referencing Leavitt’s pregnancy, the nurse said, “I hope you f–king rip from bow to stern and never s–t normally again.”
Would anyone trust that person to help deliver a baby?
Apply that logic to race, religion, or ethnicity and it would be instantly recognized for what it is: bigotry. But because the left pretends it has a monopoly on compassion, this cruelty is somehow treated as moral virtue.
In reality, comments like these aren’t just offensive — they undermine the very foundation of medicine and civilized society. Doctors and nurses swear oaths to treat patients, not to interrogate them politically.
Even more disturbing is how casually this prejudice is proclaimed, as if everyone decent agrees with it.
Of course, two rogue nurses don’t represent an entire profession. Nursing has long been associated with selflessness and compassion. But there is a growing pattern of politics bleeding into medical care.
Just last week, three NYPD detectives reportedly faced hostility at an NYU Langone hospital because staff mistakenly believed they were ICE agents. They went to the ER after being spat on by a suspect, and what should have been routine treatment became a political incident. Hospital staff allegedly suggested they seek care elsewhere.
The hospital later apologized, but the damage was done.
We’ve seen this before. In Australia, two nurses were fired after boasting online they would kill Israeli patients. Other doctors have lost jobs after antisemitic rants that made clear they couldn’t treat people without bias.
Meanwhile, Israeli doctors regularly treat Palestinian patients — not because they agree politically, but because they understand a simple truth: patients are human beings, not political symbols.
This isn’t theoretical anymore. I recently spoke with someone publicly right of center who had surgery and deliberately avoided discussing their job because they feared triggering political hostility from medical staff.
It sounded paranoid — until I remembered my own experience. During a minor procedure last year, an anesthesiologist asked what I did for a living. I said I wrote. He pressed further. I said I worked for “The Post.” He asked which one. When I said New York, he launched into a rant about how cowardly the Washington Post was for not endorsing Kamala Harris.
This man was about to put me under.
Maybe it was just awkward small talk. But it didn’t inspire confidence.
We’re living in politically charged times, but there should be one line no society crosses: medical care must never depend on ideology.
Doctors and nurses should never apply a political purity test to decide who deserves treatment. That’s not compassion. That’s fanaticism — and it has no place in medicine.
