Meet Liz.
She’s a Public Health Nurse. She’s wise, intuitive.
She’s worked more than three decades in the community. She travels to homes to see how patients are recovering from surgeries. She’s the lifeline to schools. She believes in prevention, about keeping people safe. She checks in on new moms and their babies. As she chats, she looks for clues of postpartum, wounds not healing, struggles.
Liz is a steady presence. She soothes insecurity and fear. She fields all questions that comes to her from her ‘regular’ workload, plus now with the pandemic she’s flooded with asks. She’s trying to be in two places at once. In the community and at the pop-up clinics. Glued to the phone and calling Manitobans to let them know they’ve tested positive for the virus. To begin tracing.
But those calls are dreadful.
They suck the life out of her. With each one, she spends more time trying to reassure the person on the other end of the phone that everything will be okay. She tells them not to worry. But honestly, she’s extremely worried.
There’s talk of taking job action, like back in the 90’s when nurses were horribly disrespected. She doesn’t want to do that again. She doesn’t want to walk. It goes against a nurse’s nature, but she knows if she doesn’t, everything she’s spent her life work doing will be lost.
For some, it’s already gone.
The moral injury is just too high. She sees less new grads, hears of fewer young people wanting to become a nurse. She understands. Who would want to spend their life fighting for patients, fighting bureaucracy, fighting to be heard? She wants to scream at the law makers, she wants to shake up this government and ask them why? Why has she always bragged about our health care? Why has she always respected politicians? Why did she tell so many patients it would be okay?
By mistreating nurses, Liz knows, the system is also abusing the moms and babies, the shut ins, the marginalized and the public’s health.
By eroding the frontline, this government is eroding the very thing we as Canadians are known for – our compassion, our dedication to those in need.
Each day she delivers the news, she gives up a little more of what once was.
Behind these masks are people who believe in good. Believe that respect is earned not given simply by a title. Believe that public health is not an afterthought, it’s the first step.
Behind Liz’ mask she knows they’ve come too far to settle. There’s too much on the line. The frontline, that is. Please have the couRAGE to stay strong and stay home.
