Inoculation frustration: Compassion of doctors, nurses tested treating Alberta's unvaccinated COVID-19 patients
Months after COVID-19 vaccinations became available to all eligible Albertans, many people are still refusing to get them and subsequently ending up in hospital.
That's wearing on the medical professionals who end up caring for them.
"There is an underlying frustration that you feel personally," said Dr. Yael Moussadji, an emergency physician in Calgary. "However, when you practice medicine...you have to provide compassionate care to your patients, not matter what choices they've made in their lives...it is certainly testing the bank of compassion we carry with us on a daily basis."
Alberta is leading the country in new, daily COVID-19 cases and trailing the national average in vaccinations.
The vast majority of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Alberta have either only one dose of vaccine or none at all.
Dr. Moussadji said it appears that most people who refuse to get shots think they are protecting themselves.
Dr. Yael Moussadji, an emergency physician in Calgary.
MISINFORMATION, NOT IDEOLOGY
"This isn't about ideology," she says, "The number of patients that I have seen who are truly anti-vaccination is quite small. Most of the people I encounter who are unvaccinated are for various reasons due to misinformation."
Dr. Moussadji said many of those patients fear vaccine side-effects that don't actually exist or have found other incorrect information online.
Alberta's nurses said the vaccine hesitancy is the fault of the provincial authorities.
"What we are mostly mad about is the way the Kenney government has consistently downplayed the pandemic and not done a really good job of promoting vaccines," said Cam Westhead with the United Nurses of Alberta, "It's very demoralizing to have been warning the premier and health minster and Dr. Hinshaw about the capacity of the system...and to have been ignored this entire time."
Dr. Moussadji said she feels sorry for people fighting COVID-19 who thought they were being safe by refusing a vaccination.
"We certainly do feel compassion for these patients," she says, "because they now find themselves in a scenario where they do have COVID-19.
"Some of them are quite ill," she said, "and in some cases this could've been avoided or prevented."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
Deaths of 4 people on Sask. farm confirmed as murder-suicide
The deaths of four people on a farm near the Saskatchewan village of Neudorf have been confirmed a murder-suicide.
CRA no longer requiring 'bare trust' reporting in 2023 tax return
The Canada Revenue Agency announced Thursday it will not require 'bare trust' reporting from Canadians that it introduced for the 2024 tax season, just four days before the April 2 deadline.
Full parole granted to man convicted in notorious 'McDonald's murders' in Cape Breton
The Parole Board of Canada has granted full parole to one of three men convicted in the brutal murders of three McDonald's restaurant workers in Cape Breton more than 30 years ago.
Incident on Calgary's Reconciliation Bridge comes to safe resolution
Nearly 20 hours after a man climbed and remained perched on top of the Reconciliation Bridge in downtown Calgary, the situation came to a peaceful resolution.
Sunshine list: These were the Ontario public sector's highest earners in 2023
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.
George Washington family secrets revealed by DNA from unmarked 19th century graves
Genetic analysis has shed light on a long-standing mystery surrounding the fates of U.S. President George Washington's younger brother Samuel and his kin.
'We won't forget': How some Muslims view Poilievre's stance on Israel-Hamas war
A spokesman for a regional Muslim advocacy group says Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's stance on the Israel-Hamas war could complicate his party's relationship with Muslim Canadians.
Why some Christians are angry about Trump's 'God Bless the USA' Bible
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is officially selling a copy of the Bible themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, 'God Bless the USA.' But the concept of a Bible covered in the American flag has raised concern among religious circles.