Thousands of doctors, nurses answer call to help with COVID-19 effort
MONTREAL
A mother with two children at home, offering to work on evenings and weekends. A senior citizen, hoping to correct misinformation about COVID19. A newly retired nurse, calling up her hospital and offering to come back.
They are just three of the thousands of current and former nurses, doctors and other health-care workers from across the country who have answered their governments’ call, putting off retirements and possibly risking their own safety to join the fight against COVID-19.
As the number of cases rises rapidly, leading to fears of an overwhelmed health-care system, some provinces have begun reaching out to recently retired doctors and nurses to ask them to return to work if the pandemic worsens. The answer has been a resounding yes.
Quebec set up an email address over the weekend, inviting anyone with health care experience who wished to help with COVID-19 to contact them.
The enthusiastic response prompted an emotional Premier Francois Legault to declare himself “proud to be a Quebecer,” and by Tuesday he said 10,000 people had sent in resumes.
Meanwhile, the president of the province’s federation of medical specialists said Tuesday in a tweet that her cell phone was ringing off the hook with offers of help from members.
Next door in Ontario, the Registered Nurses’ Association asked for volunteers to help answer the phone lines for the Telehealth information line.
Over 3,000 licensed nurses stepped forward by Monday afternoon. CEO Doris Grinspun said some are recently retired, while others are teaching or working part-time.
Further west, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia emailed hundreds of physicians who left the job within the last two years asking them to renew their licences. Regional authorities are still processing the requests, a spokesman said Monday.
For Sylvie Geoffroy in Sherbrooke, Que., the decision to sign up was an easy one. The 59-year-old nurse left her job in November, hoping to take some down time before seeking a less stressful line of work. But over the weekend, she called up her former hospital and said she was ready to return.
“With the current situation, no, I won’t let them down,” she said in a phone interview. “If I can help, I will.”
Geoffroy said nurses understand better than anyone how quickly the virus can spread. She said it feels like the health system is preparing for battle.
“As I told my sisters, I said I’m resting before going to the front lines, because that’s how I feel,” she said.