Immediately after the news broke that three doctors died due to COVID-19, people took their frustration to Twitter and were quick to blame patients for their failure to divulge accurate health and travel history. For many, this alleged ’lie’ caused the life of an unsung hero who was at the frontline battling the pandemic.

A patient withholding facts and misleading health workers is no laughing matter. Physicians cannot appropriately diagnose and treat patients unless the latter share information freely. Thus, the feelings of anger, hatred, and frustration felt by many doctors last week were all valid. These feelings make them human after all. But, this is more than a simple case of dishonesty. To directly equate a person’s death to a lie, whether intentional or not, is a bit overstretched. Alternatively, our frustration directs us to question what could have possibly gone wrong between the patient-physician relationship.

Patients also fear for their lives, much like the rest of us in the field of health care. Some patients are intimidated, only to share their whole health history after their first conversation with a health worker.  Truth be told, it is sometimes difficult to share private information to our friends and families. What more to people you barely know? Unfortunately, this is not an excuse for patients to deliberately lie about their health status.

Although motivations for withholding the truth vary from patient to patient, options to address this problem are rooted in one concept: a collaborative patient-health worker relationship. It is important, I suppose, for our patients to feel that we trust them and that they, too, can trust us. Let us allow our patients to freely verbalize their thoughts and feelings. Let us take time to listen to them so that they can put their trust in us.

Conversations with patients are almost always difficult. But given the gravity of what’s at stake, we are encouraged to find ways to expand and make better the existing lines of communication. We are encouraged to find ways to make patients more comfortable to admit embarrassing behaviors, and facts about themselves. Finally, we are encouraged to create a trusting environment embedded in the system to allow and support collaborative relationships between patients and health workers.