Dear Governor Ducey,
Massage therapists serve a vital role in helping the public boost their immune systems, reduce stress, improve sleep, and alleviate pain. Many of us are self-employed and independent contractors. Due to your executive order on April 4th to cease massage therapy services, we scrambled to temporarily close our practices, then research and apply for financial aid. With the timing on that, most (if not all) of us didn't qualify for the Small Business Administration loans that were launched from the CARES Act before they capped out. Those of us who are self-employed and independent do not qualify for standard unemployment, and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance has still yet to launch. As such, many of us are falling through the cracks! In addition to personal expenses, we have office leases, licensing, and other costs of doing business that haven’t stopped despite it suddenly becoming illegal for us to do our job!
If financial aid isn’t on the way quickly, I encourage you to reconsider if we should be included as non-essential workers. We are educated, licensed, and insured professionals who provide a valuable health service to people who are suffering! Just like physical therapists and chiropractors, we cannot provide our service from 6 feet away, yet they are still permitted to serve the public in this time. Like them, we also strictly adhere to the universal precautions outlined by the CDC to prevent the spread of disease. As such, it is worth considering if the implementation of appropriate screening, sanitization, and the use of a face mask could tilt the benefit to risk ratio in favor of our work too. More detailed outlines of these suggested procedures can be found here:
http://beintouch.pro/covid19/
Thank you for your consideration.
Signed,
Massage therapists, our clients, and those who stand behind us
