Anxieties among health care workers are growing as uncertainty over the supply chain of masks and other protective equipment increases and the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths continues to rise.
She had been putting it off for a while, but after enlisting to be on the front lines in the battle against coronavirus, Michelle Cohen says now it’s time to get her will done.
“That’s a discussion I had just this week with my husband — and it’s something we’ve all been thinking about,” she said in an interview with CBC News. “There’s been a lot of discussion about that with colleagues.”
Based in Brighton, Ont., Cohen is a family physician and mother of three. She works at a local family clinic and hasn’t yet been called for hospital duty but is on a list at Trenton Memorial Hospital of those who will be drafted as needed.
She and the more than 43,000 other members of the Ontario Medical Association received an email March 24 with tips and resources for updating wills or writing a first will. The association said it compiled the resources in response to queries from its members, who include physicians, medical students and retired physicians.
Cohen says there’s an ominous feeling among many of her colleagues already treating COVID-19 patients that they may run out of the equipment that protects them from contracting the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, such as masks.
“I’m pretty scared for myself and for my colleagues,” she said.
Canada has close to 16,000 cases of COVID-19 and at least 340 related deaths so far, and those numbers are growing every day.
1 mask per shift
On Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that delays in global shipments and restrictions at the U.S. border have “severely strained Ontario’s inventory” of masks and left Canada’s most populous province with “roughly a one-week supply” of critical personal protective equipment.
Cohen says she’s hearing concerns about protective equipment from colleagues not just in Ontario but across the country.
“That they don’t have enough at their hospital; that they’re being told to ration; that they’re worried about running out of protection or having to reuse dirty equipment.”
According to memos obtained by CBC News, some major Toronto hospitals are already rationing surgical masks — in some cases even urging nurses and other front-line staff to use just one mask for an entire shift. Similar conserving of PPE is being reported at hospitals in B.C.
At Vancouver Coastal Health, new guidelines issued just over a week ago instruct all staff who have direct contact with patients to wear a mask at the beginning of their shift but not to change that mask between patients — which is what is normally recommended to preserve the integrity of the mask and ensure full protection.
“Change your mask if it is visibly soiled, damp, damaged for safe use and immediately perform hand hygiene,” the healthy authority’s guidelines say.
Medical staff should change their masks during breaks and when leaving the patient care area, the authority said.
A recent memo sent to Hamilton Health Scie