Meet Sean.
He works downtown at the city’s busiest hospital.
Fuelled by adrenaline, he’s always been a member of the ER. It’s intense, constant and at times, violent.
One minute he’s restraining a patient, the next he’s swabbing a potentially positive COVID case. He thinks on his feet, lives on coffee. Unlike his colleagues, he’s not deflated, he’s on the warpath.
He knows his union is fighting for equality, fighting for top up, fighting for safety on the frontline, but he also knows the government is playing games. Putting up legislation like walls to keep the public sector out.
It creates division, it is optics at best, it leaves nurses vulnerable, in a constant state of unrest.They are forced to work overtime, handcuffed to an out-of-date contract, and gag ordered not to speak out.
He’s furious, he’s fed up, he’s thinking about walking off the job. A job he once lived for. But he’s unwilling to leave his colleagues behind, especially the ready-to-retire or new nurses. He can’t stand to think about them being pushed around.
He used to live for his family, for his wife. She keeps telling him he never used to be so harsh, so jaded. What she doesn’t know is that this is the only way.
Without a tough exterior, this job would eat him alive.
Behind the mask, it is eating him alive.
