Redeployed: A Pandemic Diary

A Helpful Hint for Employers If you are an employer and you sense that your employees are exhausted and stressed, you might think that offering them a chance to “talk to someone,” via an employee assistance hotline, is the thing to do. It’s well intentioned, and these programs are certainly essential. However, you should know that under certain circumstances, this suggestion can actually be received as insulting. Here’s how it feels: It feels like I’m walking home from the grocery store carrying 15 heavy bags, when a friendly neighbour approaches. “It looks like you are struggling with all those bags,” she says. “Would you like to talk about it? I can teach you a meditation exercise to help you cope.” The problem is that at this moment, I don’t want to learn to cope. I want someone to take some of the bags. You might not be able to help, and you might feel bad about that. But in that case, you’re honestly better off just walking on by. Especially if you’re the one who handed m...

Today, perhaps due to my PPE expertise, I’m working with the infection control team. We’re working on setting up different nursing stations and supply rooms in the Hot and Cold zones on each floor, so that materials are no longer being transferred between zones. This is harder than it sounds. How much material gets allocated to each station? There are more Hot than Cold patients, and they have more needs. On the other hand, if needed we can transfer materials from Cold to Hot but not the other way around. When it comes time to transport things, we need a rolling cart, but all the carts are currently Hot. Here’s what you do in that case: take the cart down the Covid elevator, doff PPE, disinfect cart thoroughly, don PPE, take the cart up the Clean elevator, load items in the Cold zone, roll to the Hot zone, unload items. The cart is now Hot again. It’s a bit dizzying. To get materials, we go down to a large room on the first floor that’s storing a jumble of miscellaneous items. Parts...

Big day: we have uniforms! Not enough and not the right sizes, but still. Ça s’en vient. Now in between PPE policing I have another job: folding uniforms. Laundry while multitasking, at least this feels familiar! I’m stationed near the kitchen. A friendly worker pops out often to give me juice and make sure I’m taking my breaks. Her mother lives upstairs and is sick. She hasn’t seen her in weeks, but she’s told she is stable. Regular staff are starting to grumble about the “volunteer” PABs. An extra pair of hands is appreciated, but it’s not a substitute for a trained worker. Staff are not sure what the helpers can and cannot do. A (real) PAB comments to me that it takes her longer to see her patients with a helper; she has to explain everything and feels responsible for supervising closely when she does delegate. There are now lots of people on site who can do a few things, and only a few people who can do all the rest of the things. 81% of our residents have now tested pos...

Today I’m the full-time PPE Police. I suspect this assignment is a reflection on my abilities as a PAB, but if so I don’t disagree and I’m not complaining. It’s sometimes stressful and sometimes very, very boring. I guess it’s a good idea to have someone do this, because when things get busy it’s easy to miss a step. I say, “wash your hands again,” at least a hundred times. The nice thing is I’m getting to know names and faces because I see them each so frequently. “What are you in your other life?” is a favourite subject for small talk. Everyone seems to be settling in to the new routines. The main concern today is the supply of Purell; a growing number of dispensers are marked Empty and the refills are on back order. The staff don’t seem too worried. Just a little bit worried. I’m off for now. Day 4

My shift starts at 7am. I get up early, leave my rings on the night stand, when was the last time I took them off? Get dressed, pack a change of clothes since they don’t have scrubs for us yet. I get stuck on tying my hair - where does the visor strap go again? I can’t remember, this is all too new. Peek into my kids’ rooms, they’re still asleep. Bye my loves, praying I don’t bring anything home to you today. On site, the atmosphere is radically different from last week. Infection control protocols are finally in place, starting today. Many more staff are there, all in protective gear, almost all from other sites. The whole building, so quiet last week, is buzzing with activity. There’s a new donning station where a staff member watches us put on the PPE before heading upstairs. A similar station for taking it off, at the other end of the hall. I’m assigned to a floor where all the residents have Covid. Weirdly, without the red dots, I wouldn’t have known. I don’t know what I ...

7 staff from this morning’s training were assigned to our site. 4 showed up. So I guess the training was effective. Staff at the CHSLD are clearly overwhelmed but holding it together. Most of the staff we met today have been transferred from other sites in the past few days. Everyone was very kind and so grateful to have help arriving. We had a general orientation to the building and passed by the residents’ rooms. COVID positive rooms are marked with a red dot, “clean” rooms with a green dot. There are very few green dots. We got to practice the PPE procedure a couple of times with supervision, which was helpful. They seem to be working hard to get protocols in place and get the situation under control. It was overall less chaotic than some of the scenarios we’ve heard about, although definitely still critical. So far the goal is just to keep up with residents’ basic needs: if everyone has had breakfast by 1pm, that’s a good day. But staff expressed hope that with more help, ...

Morning training session for the new recruits. Walk into an auditorium for general orientation. Try to find a seat 6 feet from anyone else. The room is full of healthcare professionals. Everyone is visibly upset, anxious, borderline hostile. Almost everyone cries at least once during the session, including the presenters. We start with a cheerful background on the mission and values of elder care. The goal is to create a welcoming environment that feels like a home rather than an institution. Because of this, residents don’t wear ID bracelets. This might make it hard to identify them, especially now that many have changed rooms, so you should ask someone on site. Will there for sure be regular staff on site? Yes. Well, no. There will be people who have been there longer than you. A couple of days, at least. Most of us are deployed as “PAB assistants.” Tasks include feeding, changing and bathing residents. Including those with COVID-19? Yes. Will we be with someone else for these ...

Just got the official call informing me that as of tomorrow I am redeployed full-time to a CHSLD, aka ground zero of the COVID-19 outbreak in Quebec. I am not a doctor or a nurse; I am a pediatric speech-language pathologist. I have no training or experience with this population. I don’t know yet what I’ll be doing, but I’ve been assured it is unrelated to my profession. You’ll hear a lot in the next days and weeks about reinforcements from doctors and nurses, but it is much more than doctors and nurses. You’ll hear about brave volunteers, but we did not volunteer. You’ll hear that we are going because we care, and this is true, but we’re also going because our contracts will be terminated if we refuse. So anyway, if you were wondering how bad the situation is. It’s this bad. Day 1 (Part 1)