Langley Memorial doctor soldiers on
Personal battles can't keep health professional on COVID sidelines
Dr. Carolyn Rosenczweig barely blinked before she was on her way from Montreal, where she was a senior resident, to New York to volunteer at Ground Zero on 9/11.
All the front-line workers at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack were observed for symptoms from the poisons that burned or turned to dust, and Rosenczweig's oncologist believes the cancer she survived in 2012 can be traced back to that.
Cancer, diabetes, asthma, they all put Rosenczweig at high risk of dying from COVID-19 as she reports to the emergency ward at Langley Memorial Hospital where she is now an attending physician.
“She is at high risk of becoming seriously ill, or dying, if she contracts it,” Emma Kocbogan said in nominating Rosenczweig as a COVID-19 hero. “She has two amazing sons, who are both on the autism spectrum and need extra care and financial support. They would be lost without her. Yet she goes to work without complaint, to serve the sick and injured and provide for her family, all while putting herself at risk.”
Kocbogan was the boys' nanny for a couple of years — when the now-five- and six-year-olds were babies — and she has remained friends with the family.
When contacted, Rosenczweig immediately deflected any praise to the whole team at the hospital's ER (she asked that a photo include as much of the team as possible, but Fraser Health wouldn't grant permission because of distancing and privacy protocols).
“I'm blown away,” she said.
“It has been really difficult (in the ER).”
For one, it's cramped; a new, bigger and modern emergency department is slated to open in May.
For another, there's the organized chaos of general emergency room work even without a pandemic.
And because patients aren't allowed visits from family or friends, hospital staff have had the roles of counsellor and psychiatrist thrust upon them, roles for which they have no training or experience.
“I've never before experienced nerves while driving into work,” Rosenczweig said. “Ever. I find that's happened this year and I'm
not alone, when I talk to my colleagues they kind of feel the same way.”
And then there are the hoaxclaimers, the deniers who think that by wearing a mask and considering others they're somehow succumbing to a vast conspiracy. Their ilk dismay everyone on the front lines of health care.
“They are simple rules: Have a mask on, social distance, wash your hands,” Rosenczweig said.
They've been meticulous about following the rules in the Langley ER, Rosenczweig said, and unusually for such a setting there has only been one case of COVID-19 confirmed among ER workers.
“It's remarkable,” Rosenczweig said. “They've recovered and no one is even sure if that nurse got it from the ER. I think it's a testament that Dr. Bonnie Henry's measures work.”
Rosenczweig became a doctor for the same reason she rushed to help at Ground Zero: She felt she needed to do something. But she finds COVID-19 even harder to deal with than Ground Zero was, she said, and she is exhausted.
“She just gives so much to others, I can't think of a more deserving person to be recognized as a hero,” Kocbogan said.