“I’m a Health Care Worker in the community social services sector. We take care of residents with special needs, administering medication, preparing food, feeding them, and supporting them physically, mentally and socially. Under normal circumstances, this is a pretty good job. But because of the clients I work with, the job can sometimes involve aggressiveness or verbal and physical abuse from the residents, through no fault of their own.
COVID-19 has been challenging because the nature of my job is that I can’t keep six feet from my clients. Most of the time, I need to be close to them. And if we wear masks or any protective equipment, the residents get scared or angry. They often don’t know what is happening, and someone approaching them with a mask can seem very threatening. So, it’s a good thing that we don’t currently have any COVID-19 outbreaks at our site.
Sometimes, it’s hard for people in the public to understand this about our job. One day, I was taking a resident for a walk in a quiet area because we’re no longer able to take clients on social outings. A gentleman approached me to tell me that I should be standing six feet from the resident. I didn’t feel like explaining my whole job, and didn’t respond to him. About 10 minutes later, he came running back and apologized to me because he understood afterward that I was a health care worker.
But I’m feeling hopeful because it seems like we’re making progress in tackling this pandemic, especially in B.C. People are hand-washing more, and we’re taking care to clean our work site more often. This will really be helpful. I mostly want the public to understand that we’re also health care workers.”
- Amy, Health Care Worker – Community Social Services, part of the health care team