A glimpse inside the war on COVID-19

1. Visible Recognition. To demonstrate our county-wide support of the work the Health Care Teams do for all of us, banners will be raised on Picton Main Street and at the Picton Community Centre. Apricot ribbons and signs will dot the landscape on poles, lawns, buildings and more throughout the county.
2. Personal Recognition. Starting with the 113 staff working at the Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital, each person will receive a letter thanking them for their dedication and tireless efforts to keep us safe and healthy. The letter will include a gift card from PIcton Tim Horton’s.

   The public is encouraged to nominate additional Health Care workers in the county . The nominee will also receive special recognition. Nominations can be made below or on the Rotary Club of Picton Facebook page.

3. Doing Our Part. Another way to show our support for the stellar work of our Health Care Teams is to continue to follow the public health guidelines for reducing the spread and impact of the Covid-19 virus. Our ability to reduce the burden on the health care system goes along way to helping those entrusted with managing our health care. We can also personally thank the health care workers we know or meet.

Just as veterans have different shooting-war experiences and memories than civilians who lived through the same time, so it is with our war with COVID-19.

Those of us who don’t directly fight the virus daily still have our challenges: stress and worry over vaccinations, education concerns for our kids, longing to visit friends and family. The list goes on.

Picton Rotarians had valuable opportunities recently to see inside another world: the front-line war on COVID-19. This was via a talk by Stacey Daub, CEO and President of Quinte Health Care, and a video featuring Emma Holmes, an RN at Belleville’s ICU.

The information is riveting. Transfers of COVID-19 patients from the GTA have, of course, further burdened an already busy system, particularly in critical care and the ICU. Nurses are commonly asked to work supplementary 12-hour shifts. Those shifts typically require full PPE wear—goggles, gowns and gloves—for 13 hours. Sometimes there are simply no breaks possible on these shifts.

Because it has been discovered during the pandemic that patients on ventilators fare better in the prone, chest-down, position, they are necessarily first connected in the back-down position and then turned. This is an arduous procedure, with various tubes and wires needing to be carefully manipulated. Six to eight staff members are required to each time this occurs.

COVID-19 patients who have been transferred from the GTA are in both a strange hospital and a city of which they may have no prior knowledge. For some of those, English is not their first language. At times, staff have had no choice but to resort to Google Translate. These patients are afraid and truly alone.

Apart from the above, and many more examples of life on the COVID front lines, both Stacey and Emma shared their perceptions of public attitude.

They both feel that when “we” the public hear “front line health workers” we pretty much think doctors and nurses. They stressed that the often-unmentioned-but-just-as-vulnerable are a host of categories: cleaners, personal service workers, paramedics, and others.

Emma Holmes was particularly vocal about respiratory therapists and how potentially vulnerable they are. COVID is a respiratory disease after all, and respiratory therapists, in their work, get “right in the patient’s face”, to quote Emma.

Rotarians were moved by all of this. So much so that we have resolved to keep momentum going forward in support of these wonderful workers as much as it is in our power to do. One of the tangible things we can do is honour front line workers who have come to our attention.

If you meet someone who has impressed you in the health care system by giving service above self , please tell us at pictonrotary.ca using the form provided and mail to us at:
Rotary Club of Picton
PO Box 6015 Picton ON.

We will make sure this person is honoured.

You will be seeing and hearing more of our celebration of these workers soon.
Look out for it!