it made my knees weaken. but tuesday, her mother said, was better than monday, when her newborn needed suctioning every 20 minutes. hailey eventually stopped crying as i watched. i wondered if part of that was out of exhaustion.
it’s difficult asking a parent whose child is choking if you can take a photograph, but i did. cloutier readily agreed: “people need to know how terrible this is.”
priscilla cloutier, left, comforts her 11-week-old daughter, hailey o’grady, while cheo respiratory therapist jill kimber suctions hailey’s lungs. hailey and her twin brother, hunter, have rsv.
bruce deachman
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postmedia
critical care respiratory therapists like kimber have been among the most unsung heroes of the past three years. kimber’s shift on tuesday began at 7:30 p.m. she got her first break at 5 a.m.
“i have colleagues who cry before they come into work, and cry when they get into their car after their shift,” she said. “i have colleagues whose faces i haven’t seen yet. they haven’t taken their masks off.”
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nurse marc legault was watching over a two-month-old he’d nicknamed coconut.
coconut was on a ventilator, and so legault couldn’t leave the room unless there was someone to fill in for him. during his 12-hour shift the previous night, he was able to use the washroom once, and grab a bite to eat. tonight, he was able to get another nurse, lorna roy, to watch coconut while he showed me around.
the icu used to have 60 nurses, he said, but now it has about 45—a shortage predicted long ago, based on population growth and poor financial incentives for what remains a largely female occupation.