'Be kind, be patient': Sask. health-care workers speak out about hostility

Early inthe pandemic, health-care workers around the world were regarded as heroes. Now some are facing abuse and hostility, online and off.

Hospitals in the province are already facing intense strain during the fourth wave of the pandemic, according to the medical community. On top of that, staff aresometimes being met with demeaning comments and verbal abuse from those accessing services.

"We see that across the country, but I think we're seeing it here in the province, too, where there are people that don't agree with the masking recommendations. They don't believe in the vaccine," Dr. Kevin Waskosaid in an interview on CBC Radio's Morning Edition.

Wasko is the physician executive for integrated rural health for the Saskatchewan Health Authority. He said that contact tracers and nursing colleagues often bear the brunt of the vitriol.

"We routinely ask people if they have received their vaccine when they come to the emergency department, for instance. And even that question will incite anger in some patients," he said.

Wasko said front-line health-care workers are whopeopleaccessing health care see first, and if someone is upset about COVID-19 decisions or measures, it's sometimes taken out on them.

As someone who uses social media to deliver information about the ongoing pandemic, Wasko said most of the hostility directed at him is online.

"That's where I'm faced with more anger at times, rudeness, insults and so on, because it's not the message that people want out there if they truly don't believe that COVID is real or that the vaccine is effective," he said.

Making it through the day

Megan Lavender is a nurse who works in emergency rooms in Saskatoon hospitals. She says she isexperiencinganger from hospital-goers.

"Patients and family members alike are obviously very frustrated and stressed. And when they have a family member laying on a stretcher in an emergency department for three or four days, they express that frustration to us," she said.

Lavender said that this, coupled with staffing shortages, is putting a lot of strain on her and her colleagues.

"You kind of just go into every shift hoping to make it through the day, essentially, which is not really a way for anybody to live and not really a way that I can see myself continuing in this career in the long term," she said.

Dr. Wasko described similar challenges. He said he wants people to know that the pandemic is far from over, but hopes in the meantime people will work with, notagainst, health-care workers

"We had pressure to keep many facilities open even before the fourth wave began, to staff units, to staff our emergency departments," he said.

"So please, when you do access care, be kind. Be patient. Be understanding. Our health-care workers really need it right now."