Dear Editor,

Below is a letter I am sending to Chief Minister Michael Gunner tomorrow.

Given you have yet to reply to my previous two letters, I’m not expecting a response to this letter either.

My first letter to you was regarding continued public vilification of a subset of your constituents, and the second regarding COVID-19 vaccination mandates and potential broad-scale childhood COVID-19 vaccination.

Having said that, I could not let our departure from our adopted home city of Darwin tomorrow to go unacknowledged, and you need to be made aware of the consequences of your aggressive, unscientific and unethical COVID-19 public health policies, specifically vaccine mandates.

Until a few weeks ago, I had been a registered nurse for 14 years. I have now surrendered my professional registration in protest against the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency’s support of COVID-19 policies like your’s.

While I have worked in several Australian jurisdictions, the vast majority of my professional experience has come from working in the Northern Territory. I qualified as a critical care registered nurse at the end of 2010, and spent a decade working in Royal Darwin Hospital, primarily in the intensive care unit, with additional experience in organ donation and outpatient neurosurgery.

Like many other healthcare workers in RDH, I worked tirelessly within a broken and chronically under-resourced system, one which you and your bipartisan colleagues have neglected for years, if not decades.

I regularly worked as an ICU team leader. I did double shifts when staffing was short, which was often. I cared for critically ill and injured patients and their families with compassion. I advocated for my patients. And I respected patients’ treatment decisions even when it was difficult for me to personally relate.

I did all these things because supporting and caring for people is a fundamental part of who I am.

In a system regularly operating with inadequate human resources, this was often challenging. Yet I continued to give my very best for years, to the detriment of my own physical and mental health.

Rather than acknowledging my, and other’s significant contribution, you label me as ‘selfish’.

My husband Matt, an Australian Army veteran who served our country in an active conflict zone in the Middle East, had been a fire fighter with the Northern Territory Fire and Rescue Service for the past six and a half years. Respected by his colleagues for being a competent and professional operator, he has served and protected our local community in frontline emergency services duties and contributed to the ongoing professional development of junior and recruit fire fighters.

He was unceremoniously dismissed from his job by NTFRS just days before Christmas, despite being on approved leave and not in contravention of any of the chief health officer’s directions.

I have no doubt that the importance of our experiences and contributions to the Northern Territory will be lost on you as you continue to cling to the ridiculous assertion that people who decline COVID-19 vaccination are ‘anti-vax idiots’.

You have previously alleged that losing people like my husband and me from the NT workforce as a result of this policy is not important because it means losing ‘teachers who don’t believe in science’ and ‘health care workers who don’t believe in medicine’.

What an asinine reflection.

As a former critical care registered nurse, I can assure you I have consulted a significant body of academic research and real-world data in the process of considering whether or not to take a COVID-19 vaccine.

Similarly, it is abundantly clear that COVID-19 vaccination does not stop infection and transmission, further calling your policy of mandatory COVID-19 vaccination into question scientifically, logically and ethically.

You have maligned us publically and actively encouraged others to do the same. You have created division and hatred within our community in a misguided attempt to advance your own political position. You have misrepresented us and our views and tried to convince our fellow Territorians that we are undeserving of their respect, compassion and acceptance.

But you have underestimated our wonderful community, and despite your abhorrent and relentless attacks, many in our community, and nationally, and even internationally, have refused to let your baseless abuse stand unchecked.

To these people, we say thank you. Thank you for standing up regardless of your own personal medical decisions. Thank you for refusing to let our
government come between us and our desire to navigate this complex situation while also ensuring we do not lose sight of our empathy, kindness and humanity.
On Monday my husband and I say goodbye to Darwin, the city we have made our home for the better part of 12 years; the place where we bought our first home, where we got married, where we planned to start a family, and where we gave the best of ourselves to enrich our community.

You have effectively chased us out of town, simply for carefully considering our individual risk profiles and subsequently choosing to decline COVID-19 vaccination, as is our fundamental human right; and for having the courage to stand up to your bulling and coercion.

We are two of many, some forced to leave like us, others who had no choice but to bend to your will, against their own. We are not any more or less important than these other people, we seek only to demand you see us all not as ‘idiots’ or ‘anti-vaxxers’, but as citizens,
constituents, friends, community members, and in our case formerly dedicated public servants.

You may mock and shame us now, but I fear your unscientific and unethical public policy decisions and your disrespectful and unprofessional attacks on us and others, will not age well in the coming years.

To our beautiful Territory and our fellow Territorians, you have left an indelible and enduring impression upon us. Thank you for everything you have brought to our lives, we’ll never, ever forget you.

Laine Jolly

Darwin

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