Slovenian COVID-19 discourse in the context of verbal as well as physical violence against medical professionals

Abstract

During the Coronavirus epidemic in Slovenia (March 2020 to June 2021) and during the period of global public health emergency due to COVID-19 (January 2020 to May 2023), public discourse about physicians in the Slovenian media and on social media fluctuated between extremes ranging from idolisation, hero worship and contempt to verbal and physical threats. These diametrically different images of doctors coincided with the measures taken in the country to contain the epidemic and the consequences for the lives of people who suddenly lost their livelihoods and sense of freedom. The discourse observed in comments under media reports and on social media about physicians between January 2020 and May 2023 shows that the entire burden of staff shortages and otherwise poorly organised healthcare fell on medical personnel, who had to deal with long queues, exhaustion and escalated verbal and physical aggression. The depriving of the right to treatment for anyone within a reasonable period of time, which loomed over the entire healthcare system due to the Coronavirus, together with the circulation of different conspiracy theories, caused intense anger, vulgar insults and comparisons of all kinds, physical harassment and death threats against individual physicians, as well as an unjustifiably growing distrust of medicine in general. This article analyses the hostile and abusive online communications that, in real life, were unleashed in occasional physical attacks and other forms of violence against medical personnel in Slovenia. It highlights the complicated interplay between medicine and the social and cultural context during the COVID-19 pandemic and illustrates the complexity of medicine beyond biological understanding.