COVID-19 hospital protests “a moral blow” to exhausted healthcare workers in Canada | The Canadian News

More than a year after pots and pans rattled to honor Canadian healthcare workers amid the fight against COVID-19, anti-vaccine crowds are now protesting vaccine passports at their workplaces.

As a result, the demonstrations have taken patients through crowds of anti-vaccines and, at times, have challenged paramedics to find a safe passage to transport them.

“As a front-line ER doctor practicing at three hospitals, this is downright disgusting,” said Toronto-based ER Physician Dr. Raghu Venugopal.

The protests have occurred across the country and are set to reoccur Monday afternoon with hospitals in 10 provinces listed as potential protest sites. For Venugopal, the demonstrations are a disturbing trend.

“Seeing people outside the hospital gates protesting, harassing and intimidating staff is a moral blow, it is reprehensible and frankly our political leaders in Toronto, Ontario and Canada have not done enough to stop this,” he told Global News.

“It is a contamination of the place where people receive medical attention.”

The most recent protests are being organized by a group called the Canadian Frontline Nurses in an effort to confront “tyrannical measures and government overreach” of the latest public health measures.

The most controversial aspect of the new measures is a vaccine passport, which some provinces, such as British Columbia and Ontario, are going to introduce, while others already have a working version.

The protests are having an increasingly adverse effect on nurses, according to Venugopal. He said it is mentally affecting his colleagues, many of whom are already overwhelmed 19 months after the pandemic.

“I have seen experienced nurses crying in the emergency department because they have no idea how they are going to care for human souls with the nurses on duty,” he said.

“We are making our nurses cry.”

Venugopal’s concern echoes what Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, has been hearing for the past few weeks. Silas said she is frustrated by people who once wore a pair of scrubs handing them over to put up a picket sign at these protests.

“It pisses me off… they go against all the sciences, all the occupational health and safety measures that we have been trying to push for the last 18 months,” he said.

In recent weeks, Silas said he received notes from nurses who fear working in the hospital or walking through protests to enter the building.

While nurse unions have overwhelmingly supported vaccine mandates for their employees, Silas believes healthcare workers have been targeted by the mob for their overwhelming support for the science behind the closures and vaccines.

“These people are not responsible to anyone. It’s just a group that decided to feed off the frustration and exhaustion of healthcare workers, ”Silas said.

To some extent, Silas understands and respects the frustration behind the protests, but said those on the picket lines could be using their voices to reach out to lawmakers.

“People have the right to be angry, the health system is a total disaster…. We need to be a single voice for the government to solve this, ”he said.

Toronto hospice physician and health advocate Dr. Amit Arya told Global News that the protests are distracting health workers from managing care.

“Unfortunately, I feel like this noisy group of anti-vaccines who are showing up to protest outside of hospitals is taking away what we should be doing right now, which is actually focusing on continuing to increase our vaccination rates,” he said . .

“So we have to watch the ball here in the middle of the fourth wave where the modelers have even predicted that by October, our ICU capacity could approach what it was during the third wave, which was a humanitarian catastrophe. “

Despite this, Arya adds that healthcare workers know that most Canadians support them.

“The danger behind these protests is that we think that all the people who are not vaccinated are these violent anti-vaccines that show up outside hospitals when that is not the case at all,” he said.

“There are a lot of people… who are struggling to get a date and are literally falling behind. We have to do everything we can to counter this misinformation that’s out there. “

Condemnation for the planned protests has spread across the country.

Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford, who has previously called anti-lockdown protesters “yahoos,” has criticized those planning to protest in hospitals. Ford called them “selfish, cowardly and reckless” in a tweet Sunday.

Ford’s comments have been echoed by Toronto Mayor John Tory, who said he supports police action against the protesters. A statement released to Global News by University Health Network, where some of the protests are planned, said they expect to see something akin to police intervention to protect healthcare workers.

“We hope that Toronto Police Services will do everything in their power to ensure safe access for patients and staff during the protest,” the statement wrote.

The Nova Scotia Nurses Union has also joined in the growing criticism and disapproval.

“This group has attracted anti-science, mask, vaccine and public health supporters whose beliefs align with theirs,” the Nova Scotia Nurses Union (NSNU) said in a statement.

“Throughout the pandemic, NSNU has sided with science. We have advocated for evidence-based public health measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, such as social distancing, masking, and vaccination. “

Earlier this month in British Columbia, Prime Minister John Horgan said protesters marching outside hospitals were unwelcome.

“Healthcare workers have been true heroes during the COVID-19 pandemic, working long hours in difficult conditions to care for ourselves, our loved ones and keep our communities safe,” he said in the statement.

“While everyone has the right to protest peacefully, attacks and harassment of health workers in health centers today.”

Comments from federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh were in line with Tory’s, saying he would amend the Penal Code to discourage protests near a hospital.

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has been the target of anti-vax mobs and has previously condemned protests in hospitals. Conservative leader Erin O’Toole reiterated Singh’s message on Monday, calling the protests “totally unacceptable.”

“These protests, this harassment of our front-line nurses and doctors is completely unacceptable,” O’Toole said. “We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to our front lines…. I appreciate and respect them, so this type of harassment and protests in front of hospitals is completely unacceptable ”.

Venugopal said the protesters do not “speak for the majority of Canadians,” noting vaccination rates.

“The great minority of people who are a radical fringe is today outside our hospitals throughout this country,” he said. “I don’t think they reflect the people I see in the ER on a daily basis, who are grateful, who are kind … these are two completely different populations.”

While political leaders have condemned the protests, that is not enough for Venugopal, who says authority figures have failed to live up to their responsibility to healthcare workers.

“I think the message Canadians need (is) must be that we have to protect these institutions and our political leaders have failed us and are failing us today,” he said.

“We must enact municipal, provincial and federal laws by law to protect these institutions.”

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