Thread by @ChadOhman

I really haven't talked about this at length but I feel like it needs sharing. It lives within me in a way I don't want it to.
I'm just an IT guy. This IT guy ends up in areas of all kinds of areas of the hospital - heck I was dressed up to enter an OR just last week.

I witnessed a heart transplant and subsequently a lung transplant at the Mazankowski. This was pre-pandemic and significantly different.

What struck me was that that heart came in a beer cooler, something I found humourous despite the significance of the dear organ.

The moral injury of healthcare workers these past years is immense. I've heard the stories of redeployed public health nurses in High Prairie. I've heard the stories of nurses in Edmonton forced into ICU care from L&D.

I bear these stories in a way I feel indebted to share.

Jason Kenney sewed the seeds of these stories. Danielle Smith perpetuates them in lies beyond what I could ever imagine.

I will never forget the sounds of the Royal Alex ICU at midnight. The emotionless clicks of ventilators as nurses tried to give their best.

The healthcare sector is tired, worn out, and exhausted. I hear this when I've been in Central, Edmonton, and Calgary Zone. They're doing their damned best.

The UCP has failed them. Dumping EMS patients at ERs has compounded stress for ER staff. There just isn't enough room.

I remember being in the L&D in Grande Prairie after the grand opening of GPRH and nurses having to strip because the crash team had to get into the OR to care for a crashing baby or mother.

There were no other clean scrubs available from the private company K-Bro.

I just need to go back to the ICU. The sounds and sights haunt me to this day. I tried to keep my eyes forward. Patients double-bunked in rooms in a way that provoked "Whose Line is it Anyway?"

That damage lives on today.

I really can't express what I experienced. My gratitude goes to the RAH ICU nurses that endured this and supported their patients. I could tag a few here but I won't.

Low lights.

*click* *hiss* *hiss* *click* *slience* *click* *hiss*

Let alone interfacing with loved ones.

I don't blame nurses and docs leaving us. What they were subjected to was beyond military.

We deserve a better government. #ableg #abelxn

Nurses volunteer these stories to me.

I wear them morally in a way I really can't manage.

These stories keep me up at night.

These stories shouldn't have happened.

There are nights I cry for these patients and nurses.

I've been as far north as High Level and as far south as Vulcan.

Tonight is one of those nights.