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Cleavon Gilman, MD, an emergency room physician, working at a hospital in Yuma Arizona tweeted his concern about the lack of available ICU beds on Nov. 22.

His tweet was clear-cut: "no more ICU beds in the state of Arizona."

Gov. Doug Ducey and the Department of Health said that same day that there were over 100 ICU beds, Gilman said, but when Gilman went to the E.R. he said he wasn't able to transfer a single patient to the ICU.

"I tweeted that, because that was a lie. Right?" Gilman said.

When there are no more ICU beds, E.R. patients are forced to board in the E.R. and the doctors there must take care of them for longer periods, which means that new patients will be sitting in waiting rooms for 8 to 12 hours.

"The point of that was to warn Arizona that we are in a very precarious situation. That our hospitals are on the brink of collapse," he said.

He transfered one patient with a headbleed, who he said waited in the E.R. and went "probably to the O.R., but not to the I.C.U."

The next day, Gilman said, "I was told by Envision," which is a medical group that he contracts with, "that the hospital was not allowing me to return back due to a tweet."

The hospital issued a statement that there had been a Gilman said.

"There's no misunderstanding here. The fact is I was sidelined for three weeks," he said, and because of his large social media following, "I was able to shine a light on this egregious act."

Gilman said he was quiet about his situation until a reporter for the called him.

"No one knew about any of this except Envision and the hospitals and probably my co-workers, who saw that I wasn't there anymore," he said.

Gilman said he was willing to wait another week, but at that point, once the story had been leaked, he wanted to "get ahead" of it.

"I wanted to share my side," he said.

"A lot of people try to get into semantics ... about 'were you fired?' I was not permitted to work for three weeks... I'm a highly trained E.R. doctor in a pandemic. Three of my colleagues were sick with the virus. I was unable to pick up any of their shifts to help out my team because of a tweet."

Asked whether the hospital had reached out to him, Gilman said, "No, they haven't reached out to me," and that "negotiations were not happening."

On Saturday, Gilman said that Envision has been in "continuous negotations" with the hospital over the last three weeks, but he has not been part of those discussions.

As for rumors of him being scheduled to work, Gilman said Envision kept him on shifts "because they were confident that this would all blow over... I've been scheduled to work. I have been not permitted to work."

He was scheduled to work in November and, for December, he was scheduled on Dec. 1 and this weekend, plus "a whole lot of shifts" next week. (Schedules are released the month prior.)

But the hospital kept telling Envision that Gilman would not be allowed to "be vocal or outspoken" on social media.

"What I don't get is how I'm in a state where they talk about freedom of 'I don't have to wear a mask,' yet I don't have the freedom to speak openly about this deadly pandemic. And that's what this hospital did they ... tried to muzzle my voice."

That's all this comes down to is power, and them not seeing me as an ally but as a threat, and I was never really a threat to the hospital. I was an ally," he said.

On Saturday afternoon, after an "outpouring of support" from the community in Yuma, he told 番茄社区, he's "looking forward to returning back to work."

"I feel supported here... The doctors, the nurses and the community here, they've been great. That's truly why I'm looking forward to coming back and ... advocating for everyone here."

"I need to tell people in real time what's happening in the hospitals, and that's not a HIPAA violation ... that's not a violation of anything."

"I think all people should be afforded due process. And hospitals should not have the abilty to just say. 'You're not gonna be able to work here, we're gonna take you off of the schedule'... I moved my entire family here. Thank God I didn't buy a house here."

Asked why he sent the tweet, Gilman said it was because cases in Arizona were rising. He was "sounding the alarm," because he felt that stricter measures were needed.

"Three thousand people have died per day the last two days, which was up from twenty five hundred a day... if not higher," he said.

"I've been to war ... You don't have to have served in Iraq to know that we are currently at war," he said. Gilman stated that on Thursday, there were .

"Where are those patients gonna go?"

Gilman said his goal has always been to raise awareness about the danger of the pandemic and to encourage people to consider their behaviors, to wear masks, and to social distance.

Gilman has a strong social media following and has been sharing videos and written accounts of his observations on Facebook for months, including when he worked in New York City through the height of the pandemic.

But unlike in New York, Arizona's lawmakers don't appear to take the virus seriously, he said.

"Here there's no state-wide mask mandate ... Indoor dining is also open here, the gyms are open," Gilman said.

"I'm just going to be honest with you, we need a hard-line approach. We need a shutdown. [That's] the only thing that's going to prevent a virus from finding new hosts... We actually have to keep people sheltered-in-place."

But instead, during the pandemic were held in Phoenix, with players coming from across the country, he said.

"This virus is real," he said.

For those living in states that aren't going to issue mask mandates or put restrictions in places there are still things people can do.

"You can protect your immediate family and not have any guests over... I've sheltered in place for 10 months now," he said.

He goes to parks and the grocery store when it isn't crowded.

"That's how I protect my family."

Throughout the pandemic he's tweeted about the people killed by the virus: young people, teachers, law enforcement.

Gilman lost three colleagues and his 27-year-old cousin to the virus.

His cousin, went twice to the hospital and was sent home without a test and told he had anxiety.

After he died, he did ultimately did get a swab -- from the coroner, Gilman said.

He was positive for COVID.

Gilman said he would ultimately like to do more work in health policy and was delighted to, who commended him for his work. The two men -- apart from being COVID-prevention activists -- share something else: a stutter.

Gilman explained that the phone call from Biden happened prior to the election. He was given advanced warning that the president-elect would call and asked to videotape his side of the call, which he did. Then he uploaded and sent it to the Biden team.

"They merged the two together but it took a while for them to post," he said.

Asked whether he would encourage more clinicians to speak up, Gilman said he would not. Some people cannot afford to lose their jobs, or livelihoods, for themselves or their family.

But he supports the

"I spoke out because I have a moral obligation ... When everything's said and done I'll be on the right side of history."

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