‘Masking Humanity’ – Why routine masking must never return to our care homes and hospitals

This is a guest post by Dr Gary Sidley, former NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of Smile Free, about the powerful new short film ‘Masking Humanity’. I highly recommend watching it — though be warned, the opening scene may send your blood pressure soaring. It reminds us that our leading public health experts did not recommend face masks at the start of the pandemic — and yet we went on to endure harmful, unnecessary laws that compelled us to wear them.

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We live in an increasingly technocratic world, involving top-down control of our behaviour, where government experts purportedly know what is best for us. One important example of technocracy in action was the requirement – imposed five years ago during the covid event – to wear a mask in community settings; a restriction that achieved negligible benefit in terms of infection control, yet inflicted widespread harms and misery. Thankfully, most sections of society have now ditched the face coverings, but one part of our society remains disinclined to return to mask-free normality: our health and social care sector. In recognition of this outlier, the campaign group ‘Smile Free’ has recently released a short film, titled ‘Masking Humanity’, that powerfully demonstrates the distress inflicted by this pernicious restriction upon vulnerable people in our care homes and hospitals.

Technocracy has inhuman consequences. The government advisers and academics who recommended mask mandates failed to consider the bigger picture. With a blinkered focus on infection control, they did not recognise the wider ramifications of insisting everyone hide their faces behind strips of cloth or plastic. The negative consequences for many users of health and social care services have been profound and far-reaching.

To heal and restore vulnerable people involves much more than the delivery of technical expertise. Without the bedrock of human connection – involving empathy, rapport, a sense of being on the same wavelength, compassion, mutual respect – medical and nursing interventions are rendered less effective. And the key asset required to achieve this essential connection is the human face.

The routine masking of patients, staff and visitors in health and social care settings causes suffering in a variety of ways:

• The old man who falls and fractures his femur in the outpatient department due to the mask-induced restricted vision;

• The old lady with dementia – living in a care home – who, in her final weeks of life, rejects the physical comfort offered by her husband because she does not recognise him with his face covered;

• A young woman, a victim of historical sexual and physical abuse, who is re-traumatised by flashbacks triggered by the somatic sensations of cloth covering her nose and mouth;

• An autistic young man who is confronted and harassed by the hospital security guards for not wearing a mask he cannot tolerate;

• The confused old man in a care home, at risk of dehydration, whose hearing deficit results in him not understanding the muffled voice of a masked care worker when she asks if he would like a drink;

• The frightened child in pain at the GP surgery, denied the soothing comfort of seeing the human face of a nurse or doctor;

• The care home resident who – discouraged from social interaction with his masked care givers – gives up on life, and turns to face the wall;

• The patient with chronic respiratory problems whose discomfort is amplified by the reduction in oxygen associated with mask wearing.

Over the last few years, Smile Free have heard many personal stories of frustration and misery evoked by masking requirements in health and social care. Echoing these sentiments are the voices of front-line health professionals, some of whom are included in our ‘Masking Humanity’ film: a care home inspector who describes the distressing impacts of mass masking on vulnerable and confused residents; a social worker, who specialised in dementia care, who believes the masking of care givers in care homes is the ‘epitome of cruelty’; the ambulanceman who talks about the many lonely and isolated people he meets in the course of his work and how covered faces stymie what might be their only human interaction of the day; a qualified nurse whose ability to carry out her role was compromised by extended periods of mask wearing; and a retired consultant surgeon who confirms that he wore a mask at work, not to keep viruses at bay, but to prevent the splashback of bodily fluids.

The film has taken a long time to make, much longer than anticipated, but I – like my colleagues at Smile Free am very happy with the finished product. Importantly, we hope it will be watched by staff and managers who work in our care homes and hospitals, and that some of them will feel empowered to actively resist any future attempts to impose mask requirements in these settings. Humane healthcare, delivered with demonstrable warmth and compassion, will always be more effective than the robotic version emitted by a faceless professional hidden behind a veneer of sterility.