Patient questions cancer agency mask policy
Woman ‘really shocked’ at number of visitors and staff without masks at West 10th Avenue clinic
A patient at the B.C. Cancer Agency said she was “shocked” that many of those she saw during a recent appointment, including staff members, weren’t wearing masks.
One person entering without a mask walked straight past the check-in desk in the lobby of the clinic on West 10th Avenue where visitors are asked routine COVID-19 screening questions, said Cheryl Carter.
The woman, who appeared to be a patient and not an employee, entered the lobby at the same time as Carter.
“There were people asking the COVID questions and she walked right past those people,” she said, adding that nobody said anything to the woman.
“I’m surprised they didn’t say she needed to put a mask on,” said Carter, who works in a medical clinic where she and all staff wear a mask at all times.
She said she and the unmasked woman rode the elevator together, along with an unmasked woman with an employee badge.
“They were both going to the sixth floor, where unfortunately I know from past experience that is where people go when they are really sick,” said Carter, a cancer survivor.
Carter was attending the clinic for a routine followup mammogram.
The woman who checked her in at the waiting room was masked, but “I saw other employees walking down the hall, not wearing masks.”
When Carter had to take her elderly mother to Richmond Hospital recently, “I wasn’t even allowed in the hospital.”
“So I was just really shocked” at what she saw at the cancer clinic, “where all the really sick people are.”
“There is no way I would even think of going into a clinic like that without wearing a mask,” said Carter.
She said she would like to see the clinic more closely monitoring who arrives in the lobby so they are required to check in for screening questions and be offered a mask when they arrive.
Andrea Visscher, a spokeswoman for the B.C. Cancer
Agency, said hat he clinic has decreased numbers in the building to maintain distancing and is ensuring staff who are providing direct patient care are masked.
As well, “we are actively screening anyone entering the building.”
She declined to comment
“on an individual case,” but said visitors are asked to screen once a day and signs explain the policy.
Visscher also said the clinic follows “recommendations and directions issued by our provincial health officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, and our health minister, Adrian Dix.”
Wearing a mask if you are healthy “remains a matter of personal choice as recommended” by Henry.
Wearing masks in British Columbia is not mandatory.
But Henry this week “strongly recommended” that people wear non-medical masks when in public indoor facilities, and she said the province could mandate masks in public if the number of cases rises.
This week, Toronto passed a bylaw mandating the wearing of masks, and Montreal is planning to do the same for its transit system.
Washington state also recently passed a law requiring the wearing of masks in public.
A Leger poll conducted online in June found that 48 per cent of respondents in B.C. said they wear masks while grocery shopping, but only 25 per cent do when riding transit.
The same survey noted that 52 per cent of respondents support mandatory masks in B.C.