When help was needed in Ontario Intensive Care Units (ICUs), Brita Jensen stepped forward.
The nurse from Vancouver temporarily put her life on hold to come to Toronto to relieve front-line staff battling the third wave of COVID-19.
Jensen and three other Red Cross nurses started in May at Toronto’s Humber River Hospital, the first Red Cross team on the ground in Ontario’s ICUs.
Their selfless decision to help support other health care heroes came with personal sacrifices.
“It’s probably the hardest on my 6-year old,” Jensen told radio station 640 Toronto. She also has children aged two and four back in Vancouver. Jensen ended her maternity leave early in 2020 in order to help the Red Cross fight the second wave of COVID-19 in BC.
Over the past several months, she has worked in Ontario long-term care homes, supported testing at land borders, and worked as an advisor for epidemic prevention and control. She answered the call again when the third wave hit in Ontario, flying across Canada to offer relief to exhausted ICU staff tirelessly battling COVID-19.
“There’s definitely a need,” Jensen told radio station NEWSTALK 1010. “Everybody is just stretched to the max. Nurses are having to take on more than they are used to while trying to stay within safe limits.”
At the end of April, the Federal government announced that it was sending in the Canadian Red Cross to provide support to Ontario’s hospitals. The Red Cross will send teams to hospitals as requested by the Ontario government. The Canadian Red Cross teams of nurses and physicians will augment or relieve existing hospital staff in the Greater Toronto area. The nurses have received a warm welcome from the hospital staff.
“It’s just the busiest I could ever imagine,” said Nickey Desi, Toronto native and another member of the Red Cross team at Humber River, who recently spoke to CTV. “These nurses have been doing it for so long.”
Gelsa De Oliveira was on the verge of retirement after 21 years working in ICUs. She spent time on the front lines during the SARS outbreak and the H1N1 pandemic.
De Olivera put her retirement on hold to fight COVID-19.
“I needed to help my colleagues. I needed to help the public,” De Oliveira said on Global News. “I will go until the end to help. I will go until the end.”
Jensen, Desi, and De Oliveira are three of more than a dozen nurses and physicians from the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, and across Ontario who have put their names forward to join the effort.
The teams could be on the ground for up to six weeks.
“They’re just really grateful,” Red Cross Health in Emergencies Director in Saskatchewan, Briana Mullock told Global News. “They’ve been welcomed with open arms and can nurse alongside these other staff members who really are giving their all.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic the Canadian Red Cross has been working closely with government and community partners to address emerging needs in response to COVID-19. To learn more about the Red Cross response to COVID-19, please visit redcross.ca/covid19