Mississippi doctor fired for attempting to prescribe patients ivermectin

YAZOO CITY, Miss. (WLBT) - A Mississippi doctor who’s been leading the push against vaccinations said he was fired for switching patients’ prescriptions from remdesivir to ivermectin.

Dr. John Witcher started the Mississippi Against Mandates group group back in September along with a few other local doctors.

“We grouped together, and we started protesting, took to the streets and had rallies and whatnot,” Dr. Witcher said.

Witcher was never a Baptist Memorial Hospital employee, but he did work at the Yazoo location as an independent physician until he was released last week. Now, he said he can only work independently and see patients outside the hospital.

Friday, Witcher had three new COVID-19 inpatients – all of whom were prescribed remdesivir. But he said more and more data has come out that makes him concerned about the drug, so he took those patients off it and attempted to prescribe them Ivermectin.

“I was there at the hospital for three days straight in the ER and so I felt like this would be a good opportunity to try ivermectin on these inpatient patients that I had been following very closely and just see how well it worked,” Witcher said.

After learning the hospital could not provide ivermectin, Witcher said he called a local pharmacy, which delivered the drug to the hospital after Witcher made the decision to switch the three patients’ prescriptions from remdesivir to ivermectin.

He said before the ivermectin could be administered to the patients, he was informed that Baptist had terminated his contract.

Witcher said he hadn’t ever used ivermectin on any of his patients before but felt they’d be good candidates to try it on.

“There’s a first time for everything, but I wouldn’t say it was experimental,” he said. “There’s been plenty of evidence with patients right here in Mississippi that have taken ivermectin, and they’ve done well.”

He said all three patients had underlying co-morbidities and one had dementia. Despite the memory issues, Witcher said she was alert, and he felt that he could have explained the situation to her before putting her on the new drug.

“My first priority is to take care of patients. I don’t want to do any harm, and I want to do the best for my patients with the resources I have,” he said.

Witcher spoke as part of an event called “Fired for Freedom.” He said he was aware he was going against hospital policy on ivermectin but still felt like he had the option as the treating physician of those patients.

Baptist issued the following statement in response:

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