An outspoken emergency room doctor with a large following on social media made headlines when he wished death on Americans who choose to live their lives without fear.
On Feb. 3, Dr. Gilman reacted to a viral video that shows maskless shoppers in a Florida grocery store.
In a now-deleted tweet, Gilman wrote: “Naples, Florida. Let ’em die. I’m so tired of these people. No vaccine for y’all.”
In a follow-up tweet, he wrote: “I’m working in the COVID ICU tonight! I’m so tired of giving 200% while others in the U.S. can’t even help by simply wearing a mask!”
When outraged Twitter followers reminded him that his impulsiveness got him fired from a hospital in Arizona, he blamed Republicans and walked back his statement.
“Republicans trying to take my words out of context as if I deny medical care to people that don’t wear masks & ‘let ’em die. My point is that we can’t waste our energy on these COVID deniers. [They] are not gonna protect themselves so let ’em die. They’ll find out the hard way.”
On Nov. 22, Dr. Gilman was fired for lying about the lack of ICU beds in the state of Arizona.
Gilman tweeted that there were “no more ICU beds in the state of Arizona.”
But Gov. Doug Ducey and the Department of Health disputed his tweet by confirming there were over 100 ICU beds available in the state that same day.
Gilman’s tweets made him a celebrity on Twitter. He received a Zoom call from Joe Biden’s transition team and Oprah Winfrey offered to send him and his family on vacation.
But others were not as tolerant of Gilman’s attention-seeking tweets.
Envision, the agency that contracts him to work temporary assignments in hospitals, told him his services were no longer needed at Yuma Medical Center in Arizona.
When Gilman tweeted that he was “fired” from his temporary assignment, the hospital said it was all a “misunderstanding” and that he still worked shifts there.
But Gilman told a reporter that he was on the schedule to work but he had not been permitted to work his scheduled shifts.
“I was told by Envision that the hospital was not allowing me to return back due to a tweet,” he said.
The hospital quietly told Envision that Gilman would not be allowed to “be vocal or outspoken” on social media.
Social media users lashed out at Gilman for his insensitive tweet about the maskless grocery store in Florida.
One Twitter user called Gilman “mentally unfit”, while others expressed their support for him.
Dr. Gilman attempted to go viral with a rap song about Covid-19 last year, but it flopped.
