Saskatchewan and COVID: Our Stories – Working on the front lines

March 12 marked one year since the first COVID-19 case was reported in Saskatchewan.

Over the next week, 980 CJME and 650 CKOM will bring you stories from across the province reflecting on the past year.

Today, we hear from Moose Jaw ICU nurse and current public health nurse Lindsay Stewart and Saskatoon family physician Dr. Carla Holinaty, who reflect on how COVID-19 has impacted their jobs and their relationships.

When Moose Jaw ICU nurse Lindsay Stewart first heard about the novel coronavirus — what we now call COVID-19 — in January of 2020, she remembers watching stories about it on the news and the impact it was having in countries like China and Italy.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh gosh, that’s really scary,’ ” she recalled.

As part of the COVID-19 planning committee for her hospital, Stewart was asked to help prepare her unit for possible cases. For her, it was fear of the unknown at the time.

“On TV, you see these people in their intensive cares wearing all of these spacesuits, really. We’re thinking, ‘Oh my goodness. What is this? What are we dealing with? What’s going to protect us? What is the risk of transferring this to our families or other patients or co-workers?’ There was a lot of unknowns,” she said.

Dr. Carla Holinaty said she and her colleagues weren’t too surprised; by early 2020, she felt it was inevitable that the virus would make its way to Canada eventually.

“We were just on the edges of our seats and holding our breath and waiting for the ‘when’ of it. By that point it wasn’t a question of ‘if’ anymore, we were just waiting for it to happen,” she remembered.

She too was nervous, just like Stewart. Holinaty said it wasn’t difficult to feel that way about a virus they knew little about or what potential impact it would have on Saskatchewan.

“It’s hard to feel prepared for something that you’ve got no idea what it’s actually going to be like,” she said.

Stewart said when it came time for her ICU unit to get prepared, she felt fortunate to be in Saskatchewan.

“We’re not a major centre,” she said. “We would see how other places were dealing with this; what was working, what wasn’t working. We adapted. We changed things very frequently. We had the ability to do that.”

For Holinaty, when the first case of COVID-19 was announced just before the JUNO Awards, the amount of information was almost overwhelming for doctors.

“Most of the early direction was coming to us through the (Saskatchewan Health Authority), and I think they were doing their best to share information out with people as quickly as they could,” she said. “But it was tricky because things were changing so quickly and so what we knew about the virus one day maybe by a few days later could be entirely different.

“There was a lot of emails about safety protocols, and screening protocols, who should be tested and who shouldn’t. And it was sort of overwhelming because it was a lot of information about something you previously knew nothing about, but also because it was changing so rapidly.”

First COVID-19 cases

Stewart vividly remembers one of the first COVID-19 patients who came through the doors of the Moose Jaw hospital. It was a man who was “not very unstable” and he wasn’t ventilated — but he needed oxygen. She felt bad for him.

“There was no visitation at that time. There was a lot of loneliness. We limited time in the room with the patient because of the risk of exposure, so we would enter when we had to — not necessarily to visit or to assist in other aspects,” she said.

The patient improved over a couple of days, but Stewart says there was a lot of fear even entering the room, wondering whether the proper precautions were being taken and constantly paying attention to every single step in the room.

While Holinaty did not work directly with COVID-19 patients, she has treated many who suffered with the disease, or those who needed to be tested.

“I have had lots of patients, that I am the family physician for, be swabbed and test positive for COVID. Some of them have had to be hospitalized … I’ve taken care of the ones who have been well enough to stay home as they travelled through their journey, and we’ve had some who have had COVID long-hauler symptoms,” she added.

Both Stewart and Holinaty say they took precautions so they didn’t bring the virus home to their families.

“Earlier on I was paranoid about my shoes and I had different shoes that I wore,” said Holinaty. “Initially when I was coming home I would put all my clothes into the washing machine and I would immediately go and fully shower and scrub down before I came into my house. So I used the basement bathroom for that — and it was off limits to everybody else in the house.”

She says since that time, she has remained very cautious, but has learned that perhaps the possible transfer of the virus from some surfaces isn’t as high as once thought.

Family life and concerns

Both Stewart and Holinaty have partners and children. Throughout the course of the year, both have said they’ve been exhausted and anxious at times, but their primary jobs as health-care workers is to help people.

“My patients are like part of my family,” said Holinaty. “I do genuinely love and care for them. If I don’t show up, then that’s 20 or 30 or 40 people who are going to not have access to the health care that they need.”

Stewart said she made plans to stay somewhere else if she was exposed to or infected with the virus, but added she had a duty to the community to help. Thankfully, she said, she didn’t have to isolate.

But that didn’t mean their partners and children weren’t constantly worried about them.

Holinaty recalled how her youngest child became obsessed with the daily COVID-19 case counts.

“She really used that as her way to judge if it was safe to go to work or not, which was really adorable but kind of heartbreaking at the same time,” Holinaty said.

Stewart said her son struggled with the fear of becoming sick.

“He wouldn’t want to go to school and it was difficult that way,” she said. “So I didn’t have a lot of control at home, either. So it really kind of threw me off my balance, my game. I really did struggle with that.”

Vaccines and hope

Stewart became increasingly anxious as the year went on, and said her co-workers helped point that out. She applied for and got another temporary position as a public health nurse, in part to ease that anxiety but also to be home more for her family. She now feels she’s on the other side of it and she loves her job.

“I really feel like the steps that I’ve made have definitely helped,” she said.

She and Holinaty have also received their first vaccine doses. Stewart was part of one of the first immunization clinics in Moose Jaw to get the Pfizer vaccine, while Holinaty received an extra dose while taking part in vaccinations in long-term care.

Both felt overwhelming joy after they received their vaccine.

“I feel hopeful. I feel rejuvenated,” said Stewart. “I feel like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Seeing the hope that people have, seeing the efficacy of these vaccines … I’m hopeful that this will build some sort of herd immunity and we can get back to some sense of normalcy.”

Holinaty echoed those sentiments. She actually had a colleague take a picture of her getting her shot.

“I think it was the most happy and relieved I’ve ever looked in any picture ever,” she said. “(It was) like a weight being lifted off your shoulders that you had this one extra layer of protection.”

They urge anyone who has a chance to get a vaccine to get it, for everyone’s benefit.

“I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet,” said Holinaty. “But I’m cautiously optimistic.”