The rise in coronavirus cases has pushed the Canadian province of Alberta’s health system on the brink of collapse, as health workers fight rising exhaustion and the growth of the vaccine movement in the region.
The province warned this week that its ICU capacity was reduced, with more people in need of intensive care than at any other point during the pandemic, almost all unvaccinated.
“It’s not easy to go to work every day and see people in their thirties die,” an Edmonton ICU nurse told The Guardian. “Having to help a family say goodbye and then go through the actions that are required at the end of someone’s life is worse than anyone can imagine.”
Alberta has long boasted of its coronavirus restrictions, including advertising in previous months as the “best summer in history,” as it withdrew those few restrictions. It has also been the place where the highest case loads in North America are recorded.
In a province with a long history of skepticism about the government, the pandemic has become fertile ground for anti-vaccine protests and rhetoric, including elected officials, firefighters and police. During the ongoing federal election, the People’s Party of Canada, a marginal right-wing party that has been opposed to public health measures, has seen its largest support base in rural Alberta.
This skepticism about masks and vaccines has cost a lot, according to front-line workers.
On Monday, more than 60 doctors with infectious diseases wrote a letter to Prime Minister Jason Kenney, warning of a catastrophic outcome if the province did not address escalating cases.
“Our healthcare system is really on the brink of collapse,” the doctors wrote. “Hospitals and ICUs across the province are under enormous stress and have reached a point where it is unclear whether, or for how long, we can provide safe care for Albertans.”
The province has canceled elective surgeries as resources and space are allocated to Covid patients. The ICU beds, meanwhile, are ready.
“As soon as these airways come out, we’re expelling people from the ICU to make room for someone else,” another nurse said. “It simply came to our notice then. It’s hard to see. “
Medical staff in Edmonton, the provincial capital, warned that incoming patients should soon be chosen to determine who could receive rescue care.
Kenney, who has not made a public appearance in weeks, held emergency meetings with senior government officials on Tuesday. The province announced a vaccine test card, with plans to release a QR code in the coming weeks.
Nearly 79% of eligible Alberta residents over the age of 12 have received at least one dose of vaccine and 71% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated, one of the lowest rates in the country. An average of 78% of eligible Canadians are fully vaccinated.
Although these rates are higher than in the United States, the relentless spread of the Delta variant shows how catastrophic outbreaks can occur if even a small fraction of the population resists public health measures.
According to the provincial health chief, about 90% of ICU people are not vaccinated or partially vaccinated.
“No one can ever understand what it’s like to make a Zoom call with a family member whose patient is dying. No one will ever understand, ”said a third nurse. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. And I think we’re all changing a little bit from that very intense sadness to that anger, because that really feels preventable. “
Joe Vipond, an emergency physician in Calgary and a government vocal critic, called the wave “intentionally cruel.”
“This was always part of the plan: to allow younger, low-risk people to become infected to build immunity in the herd. I just think they didn’t realize the amount of disease that would result. “
He says growing pressure from a skeptical voter base on public health restrictions led officials to declare Alberta “open for the summer” on July 1 and removed many of the mitigation measures they had in place. march. The government also said it would no longer require people who tested positive for Covid-19 to be isolated, a plan it quickly rejected.
“The vast majority of Albertans are good citizens who believe in collective action, who believe in governments. Unfortunately, the political base of the ruling party cannot be described as such, ”he said.
One nurse pointed out the bitter irony that the most skeptical of public health measures are the ones most affected by the current wave.
“All of these government decisions are clearly to satisfy their voter base,” he said. “But what a lack of information to see that it is their base that is dying and that makes us turn to battlefield medicine.”
In recent weeks, several vaccine protests have been held across the country, including those in front of Calgary and Edmonton hospitals, exacerbating the exhaustion and frustration of front-line health workers.
“I no longer have the energy to make sense of it,” the nurse said. “I’m just working as it is, because we’re pulling the cup that has a hole. We never get to fill it ”.
Instead, nurses say they let themselves be asked of a narrow minority of the public that is increasingly ending up in the hospital.
“We just ask them to trust us once again; we need them so that our entire health care system doesn’t collapse,” he said. “And I’m worried, because I don’t know how to reach these people.”