A FAMILY’S TRAGEDY
Health workers risk lives
More than 5,000 Quebecers have now died of COVID-19, and behind each of those numbers is a sad story.
But amid all the grief and loss, one family’s tragedy stands out as especially heartbreaking.
Radio-canada recounted the nightmare of Amoti Furaha Lusi. She found herself on the front lines of the pandemic working as a patient attendant at the Foyer Dorval nursing home.
As we know, Quebec’s longterm care facilities were left dangerously exposed to COVID -19, especially early on. Finite quantities of personal protective equipment were rationed for hospital workers or those in direct contact with sick patients. Some CHSLD staff members resorted to using rags or paper towels as face masks as they went about their rounds. But that didn’t stop the disease from spreading like wildfire.
Furaha Lusi was among the many Quebec patient attendants who fell ill with the coronavirus on the job. But she also brought this plague home to her husband and five children. While Furaha Lusi and her kids, ages two to 19, recovered, her husband’s health deteriorated.
Désiré Buna Ivara ended up in a coma at the Centre hospitalier l’université de Montréal. When he was in grave condition, Furaha Lusi was allowed to go to his bedside, where she begged her husband to recover because she was expecting their sixth child.
But Buna Ivara died of COVID-19 on May 20, at age 50, leaving behind a grieving and guilt-stricken widow, five children and a baby he will never get to meet.
He also passed away on the cusp of achieving the Canadian dream, according to his obituary.
An immigrant from war-ravaged Congo, Buna Ivara first came to Quebec alone in search of a more promising future before his wife and children eventually joined him. They settled in Deux-montagnes. He studied and got a job in the health-care bureaucracy. He was putting the finishing touches on his PHD, with hopes of becoming a professor. He left so much potential unfulfilled.
This family’s sacrifice in Quebec’s fight against COVID -19 is too much to bear.
Furaha Lusi’s union, the Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique, has rallied around her with a Gofundme campaign aimed at raising $100,000 to help the bereaved family — now and with the children’s educational expenses down the road.
“We know that the money won’t heal her pain, it won’t bring back her husband, but we hope it will help her concentrate on herself, on her children, and not have to worry about the future,” said Local 2881 president Jonathan Deschamps, who has helped spearhead the effort.
By Sunday, the campaign raised $96,338.
It’s impossible not to be moved by this family’s incalculable loss, but their ordeal resonates deeply for many reasons.
“This is a story that reminds us that everyone, all the workers in the health system, risk their lives every day and also risk the lives of their family members,” said Deschamps. “Everyone has been touched by this.”
This family’s calamity echoes that of Marcelin François, brought to light by La Presse columnist Yves Boisvert. François was a 40-year-old patient attendant, husband, father and asylum seeker from Haiti who died April 14. He contracted COVID -19 working at the Résidence La Rosière. He collapsed at home, leaving another family in mourning — and facing an uncertain future.
Some of the lowliest workers in the health system have paid the steepest price in Quebec’s battle to contain COVID-19. Long underpaid, undervalued and taken for granted, Quebecers and the government alike have only recently come to appreciate the important work that patient attendants in nursing homes do. When their ranks were decimated at the height of the crisis, it took the army to fill the breach.
These workers and their families have disproportionately borne the burden of Quebec’s unpreparedness during the initial round of the pandemic. We owe it to them to ensure everyone is better protected in the event of a second wave.
In the meantime, we must care for the caregivers.