Partisan politics makes its way to a battle to lead Fla. hospital
Conservatives skeptical of COVID-19 vaccines fighting to take control of oversight board
SARASOTA, Fla — When his blood oxygen dropped to what he described as a critically low level in September, Victor Rohe knew he had “a bad case of COVID.”
But like growing numbers of conservatives in southwest Florida, Rohe didn’t trust the doctors at Sarasota Memorial Hospital to treat him, even though it’s part of one of the state’s largest and highest-ranked medical systems.
Rohe, a longtime Republican activist and self-described strict “constitutionalist,” instead rented his own oxygen unit and hooked it up at home. For the next several days, Rohe battled his coronavirus infection in his living room, relying on medical advice from friends and family.
“If I went to the hospital, I believed I would die,” said Rohe, pointing to online videos and conspiracy theories he watched raising questions about the care some coronavirus patients received at the hospital.
Now a year later, Rohe is part of a slate of four conservative candidates trying to take over control of the board that oversees Sarasota’s flagship public hospital, highlighting how once-obscure offices are emerging as new fronts in the political and societal battles that have intensified across the country since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Although the contenders are considered underdogs to win Aug. 23, health policy experts say the campaign is a troubling sign of how ideological divisions are spilling into the world of medical care, as fights over abortion, the coronavirus and vaccines increasingly fall across party lines.
“All you need to do is look at how [school boards] have now become very political … and how boards of education have ignored the science of education,” said Michele Issel, a public health professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “There this new disregard for the professional training that medical people have and a disregard for the science of what is best for the a population.”
The Sarasota candidates, at least three of whom are skeptical of coronavirus vaccine mandates, are rallying behind the theme of “medical freedom.” The term is increasingly being used by the conservative movement nationwide and hits a belief that patients aren’t given enough control over their medical care. Proponents point to vaccine mandates and difficulty accessing unproven coronavirus treatments like Ivermectin that were touted by politicians but rejected by physicians.
“All 4 of us are devoted Christians, conservatives and patriots who deserve to make the [Sarasota Memorial Hospital] system stronger, more accountable with greater transparency,” one of the candidates, Joseph S. Chirillo, a retired physician, wrote in a social media post.