By Antonio Planas and Caroline Radnofsky - NBC News
A doctor in Alabama has informed his patients that he will no longer treat those who are not vaccinated against the coronavirus.
In that state, just a third of citizens are immunized and the highly contagious delta variant has placed hospitals on the brink of collapse.
Jason Valentine, a doctor at the Diagnostic and Medical Clinic Infirmary Health in Mobile, recently posted a photo on his Facebook page that appears alongside a sign that reads:
"As of October 1, 2021, Dr. Valentine is now will not treat patients who are not vaccinated against COVID-19
.
"
NBC News has not been able to verify the authenticity of the publication, which is now no longer public.
He was also unable to contact Valentine or the clinic where he works.
After sharing that image on social media, Valentine wrote that three unvaccinated patients asked where they could get immunized, The Birmingham News reported.
"If they asked me why, I would tell them that
dying from COVID-19 is a miserable way to lose your life and I can't watch them die like this,
" he wrote.
[
Alabama runs out of hospital beds and in Mississippi 20,000 students go into quarantine in the first week of school
]
Valentine planned to mail the letter to his patients but decided to post it online instead, the newspaper reported.
"We still do not have effective treatments for serious diseases, but we have a good way of prevention which is vaccines. Unfortunately, many have refused to be vaccinated and some end up seriously ill or dead," the doctor wrote in his publication.
"I cannot and I will not force anyone to be vaccinated, but neither can I continue to see my patients suffer and die from a largely preventable disease
," reads his message, according to the aforementioned newspaper.
"Therefore, as of October 1, 2021, I will no longer see patients who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19. If you want to continue being your doctor, showing the documentation about your vaccination will be enough. If you want to choose another doctor, we will be happy to transfer your records, "he concluded.
Alabama ran out of intensive care beds this week because of the advancement of the delta variant
,
"We've never been here before,"
admitted Don Williamson, president of the Alabama Hospital Association, according to NBC affiliate Montgomery station WSFA.
"We are really in uncharted territory in terms of the bed capacity of our ICU," he added.
Some patients have been treated on stretchers in the corridors
, according to the aforementioned station.
[
"I did not get vaccinated, I did not help myself": the crude testimony of a COVID-19 patient who fights for her life
]
"Today there are 1,568 patients who need ICU beds, and there are only 1,557 beds in the state," Williamson added, "In the Montgomery area, we have eight more patients than available beds."
Valentine is not the only doctor in Alabama who has posted messages on social media about the importance of vaccines.
In a Facebook post in late July, Dr. Brytney Cobia pleaded with skeptics to get vaccinated because she says she's tired of seeing unimmunized young patients pay for it with her life.
"I am admitting healthy young people with very serious COVID infections to the hospital
. One of the last things they do before being intubated is begging me for the vaccine,
" he wrote,
"I take them by the hand and tell them I'm sorry, but it's too late. "
Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey last month blamed the unvaccinated for the rise in infection rates in the state.
"People are supposed to have common sense," he responded in response to what it takes for people to get vaccinated, "but it's time to start blaming unvaccinated people, not normal people. It's the unvaccinated people. the ones that are letting us down ".
