Meet Sarah.
This isn't her real name.
She doesn’t want to be identified for fear of jeopardizing her job, for being targeted for speaking up. She’s afraid of breaking down or opening her mouth and letting the truth spill out.
Sarah has been a nurse for 17 years now, but for the first time in her career, she’s second guessing her profession. She doesn’t feel able to provide the quality of patient care she’s accustomed to. She feels like she’s letting everyone, herself included, down.
When she comes home after a 12- or 16-hour shift, in the middle of night or when her family is just waking up, she struggles silently. She puts on a brave face to protect her family from her trauma, to shield them from her pain.
When she is lucky enough to be home with them at bedtime, to be able to tuck her children in, she feels flooded with sorrow. She thinks about all of the little ones growing up in a province that pays lip service to the frontlines. She thinks about the elders in her care and feels like a fraud, like she’s let down those who fought so hard for a nation that seems to be forgetting about them. People whose families assumed end-of-life care would be up to Canadian standards.
Daily, Sarah struggles with her own psychological well-being. With a pandemic that has been nothing short of horrific. The things Sarah has seen she cannot undo. The grief, the loss, the erosion of a job she once loved. She rarely eats a meal anymore. Her adrenaline supply is short, her feelings of disrespect high.
And so for now, she is safe, behind the mask, hiding her pain. But at what cost?
