Season Foremsky used to add shocks of colour – think hot pink and purple – to her long brown hair, to make people smile. She loved watching kids’ movies with her two little girls, and taking them to the park. Her favourite song Metallica's Fade to Black.
Foremsky was an ER and ICU nurse, caring for COVID-19 patients in Calgary. She died at home this week, in an apparent drug overdose. In the days and months prior, she detailed the trauma and abuse health care professionals face in hospitals amid COVID-19.
“I’m tired. I cry before my shifts. I have severe anxiety but I still give the best care I can,” she wrote on Facebook on Sept. 17. Earlier that week, demonstrators protested outside hospitals against masks, vaccines and vaccine passports.
Foremsky, as with other nurses in Alberta, had been working extra shifts, including hours mandated by AHS. Her boyfriend, Christian Moniz, could sense her stress building as overtime hours mounted and abuse from patients ballooned.
“Our front-line physicians and nurses are under extreme stress and pressure,” Dr. Yiu said. “The pandemic is impacting individuals and our teams both physically and mentally.”
For people on Campobello, where fishing and tourism are the biggest drivers of employment, the Canada-U.S. border closure has led to economic pain and renewed calls to finally get a permanent transportation link to the rest of Canada.
During the first wave of #COVID19, one of the biggest news stories was the carnage inside long-term care homes. Seniors were among the most vulnerable groups to COVID-19, and pre-vaccine, thousands died as outbreaks occurred in facilities across Canada.
The situation was made more devastating by the horrific details about how these residents were treated. Over the last several months, a coroner's inquest has looked into 7 LTC homes in Quebec, where things got so bad that the military was called in.
#BREAKING: In split 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upholds the Ontario law that slashed the size of Toronto’s city council nearly in half during the last municipal election.
The Supreme Court of Canada found the change imposed by Ontario Premier @fordnation did not violate the free-expression rights of candidates or voters.
Merck & Co. said Friday that its experimental #COVID19 pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths by half in people recently infected with the coronavirus and that it would soon ask health officials in the U.S. and around the world to authorize its use.
Merck and its partner said early results showed patients who received the drug, called molnupiravir, within 5 days of COVID-19 symptoms had about half the rate of hospitalization and death as patients who received a dummy pill.
More than 4,000 care home residents have died in Quebec during the pandemic, but not all were directly due to COVID-19. Some were left to languish – without food, water or basic sanitary care – during the first wave and essentially died of neglect.
The most infamous example was a home called Résidence Herron, where 47 of the 139 residents passed away after the home’s staff disappeared once the novel coronavirus struck.
🎧 @starzyklab, principal investigator on the project, and @rymoran, a collaborator, join #TheDecibel to help explain what exactly the project is measuring, and how this gauge can be used to inform the conversation around reconciliation.