Editor:
A well-broadcasted provincial mandate for mask use in hospitals, long-term care and assisted living facilities, outpatient clinics, and ambulatory care settings went into effect on Jan. 6. The mandate is for all staff, patients, visitors, contractors, and volunteers –– essentially anyone who visits the Sechelt Hospital. I am not a healthcare worker, but as a person who lives with lung cancer, and who is currently being treated for a pneumonia infection at the Sechelt Hospital, I am both frustrated and saddened to see the lack of mask use at our community hospital.
We are not being asked to wear masks in other public settings, however our hospital –– an integral healthcare facility where seniors, newborns, people with chronic diseases, immunocompromised people, and other vulnerable populations go to receive life-saving care and support –– is a setting where we must do a better job of keeping each other safe and one easy way to do that is by simply wearing a mask (which are provided at entrances, albeit with minimal signage) and sanitizing your hands when you enter the hospital. These straightforward actions could save someone in your community, and the healthcare workers we depend on, a lengthy illness or other complication.
Wearing a mask at the Sechelt Hospital is not a political issue, or a reason for individual thinking, it is a commitment to collective community care, something that Coasters are known for and take pride in, and right now, we can do better.
Kayla Blok
Halfmoon Bay
