(A thread) I sat down and cried today. Cried for this doctor and his family. Cried for any children who will grow up without a father. You see, this could have been me.

Red Deer doctor attacked, killed in exam room at Alberta walk-in clinic | CBC News https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/red-deer-clinic-doctor-attacked-1.5681052?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

I very nearly grew up without a father. Had the blade not missed his heart by millimetres, had it not happened in a hospital, in an area with no doors that could be barricaded, and where there were many other staff to intervene, the same thing would have happened to him.

I'm sure that the reasons for what has happened will become apparent in the coming days, but this is something that the public needs to realise. Being a doctor is not all expensive cars and glamour like on TV, or like this government is portraying it.

Doctors deal with those who are in pain, who are in distress physically, emotionally, and mentally, those who are at the limit of their coping. Obviously it is a very small number of patients who snap, but it happens.

Doctors and other HCWs go to work every day knowing that there is a real risk that they could be harmed. Maybe not as dramatically as this, but the risk is there. The vast majority do not do this work for the money, but because they have a real desire to help people.

I genuinely hope that the reason for this attack wasn't the vitriol that the UCP has been directing against doctors, but even if it wasn't, this needs to be a wake up call that we need to demand our government stop its biased and unfounded attacks against doctors,

nurses, other healthcare workers, teachers, unions, workers, and the public sector. There has already been one documented case of a friendly sausage maker who latched onto similar vitriol. We don't need another.