{"id":26892,"date":"2020-07-02T19:24:49","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T23:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26892"},"modified":"2020-07-09T19:55:13","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T23:55:13","slug":"it-was-the-fight-of-our-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/it-was-the-fight-of-our-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"“It was the fight of our lives”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The call came just after 9 p.m. on April 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stacey MacKenzie and her coworkers sprang into action,\nknowing there would be a long ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This long evening, which the four staff members were\nalready braced for, turned into a 32-hour shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was, in Ms. MacKenzie\u2019s words, the start of \u201cthe fight\nof our lives\u201d and that 32 hours of non-stop work was just the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the phone rang that evening, it was to report that\nChartwell Aurora (formerly Resthaven) had its first positive case of COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They worked tirelessly to ensure separate entrances were\ndesignated for staff, and that residents were cohorted to prevent the spread of\ndisease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a Director of Care specializing in Infection Control,\nMs. MacKenzie knew what had to be done, but they didn\u2019t know just what they\nwere dealing with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we went through the six weeks of the virus, we\nrealized that every day was a new day and it changed us,\u201d she says. \u201cIt changed\nour way of thinking. It changed the way we approached things. It was just\nconstant change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staff assigned to the one unit experiencing an outbreak\nof the virus had no choice but to work double and triple shifts. They had to\nleave their homes, moving into hotels in order to protect their families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy shift never ended,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI was working 24\/7\nfor 49 days straight of COVID plus four days leading up to it and two days\nafter,\u201d says Ms. MacKenzie, a mom of five. \u201cMy days consisted of, at minimum,\ntwelve hours and up to eighteen hours. It was constant communication with\nPublic Health, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Health. All my families\n[I care for] had my personal cell phone number and they were able to call for\nupdates at any time of the day. It never ended. It was updating everyone on a\nregular basis but also being there for my staff and my residents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we started to lose residents, we realized the\ncomplexity of the virus and it took an emotional toll on all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A particularly trying time was the day Chartwell Aurora\nlost four residents to the virus over the course of 24 hours. As staff, it was\nincumbent on them to be there and support each other. That was a tall order.\nWhile being in the trenches made this close-knit group of staff even tighter,\nthey couldn\u2019t hug each other when the emotions became too much, nor could they\nprovide a comforting pat on the back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a new world for the duration of the outbreak and\nduring that time staff tried to maintain open communication with residents who\nmight have been left feeling distressed or even confused by measures put in\nplace to combat the pandemic. With masks, shields and other forms of personal\nprotective equipment obscuring once familiar faces, the staff printed out large\npictures of their faces to stick to their PPE so residents could identify who\nwas who.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these printed-out faces were among the few signs of\nwhat once was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany policies and procedures had to change in order to\nmaintain the virus on that one floor and protect the rest of the building and\neveryone came together,\u201d says Ms. MacKenzie. \u201cThe kindness, compassion,\ndedication, perseverance was absolutely unbelievable. It was really nice, too,\nto know we had support from our community partners and that was something that\non the days we didn\u2019t think we could get through\u2026kept us going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, after 48 days, they did indeed get through it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the Public Health Unit formally declared the\noutbreak over last month, staff were encouraged by the signs but once it was\nofficial, staff allowed themselves \u2013 and residents \u2013 time to celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe filled the elevator with balloons on all shifts and\nas we opened the elevators the balloons came out,\u201d Ms. MacKenzie recalls with a\nsmile. \u201cWe brought in champagne \u2013 fake, of course, because we were at work \u2013\nand we played \u2018We Are the Champions\u2019 through the whole speaker system. We\ncried, we laughed, and it was the fight of our lives. It was also great to\nfinally be at home, hug my husband, have real champagne at home, have a family\ndinner \u2013 it was incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while it was the fight of their lives, would she do\nit again if she had to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbsolutely, 100 per cent,\u201d she says without a moment\u2019s\nhesitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoing forward, even though we\u2019re out of COVID, we\u2019re\nstill in pandemic mode, so everyone (staff) can now go onto the third floor\nnow, which we couldn\u2019t do before, but there is still screening in and out,\nwe\u2019re still wearing our universal masking, we\u2019re still social distancing. We\nstill have amazing staff we have maintained, so we\u2019re above compliment. We are\nready again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey talk about the second wave. Do I want it to happen based on the last appearance? Definitely not. Are we ready? We are. We learned a lot through the last process, so we\u2019re ready. I hope it doesn\u2019t come, but, if it does, we\u2019ll tackle it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long-term care staff banded together to fight outbreak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/2020-07-02-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6ZK","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 08:27:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}