MONTREAL -- For the last year CTV News has been broadcasting and posting a wide variety of pandemic-related images: from quiet streets and locked down businesses, to COVID-19 testing centres, and many, many people wearing masks.
Notably absent from the local Quebec pandemic portrait however, or at least rare were photos and video taken inside hospital COVID-19 units, even though we asked for access early on.
In our emails to the CIUSSS’ communication departments, we made the case that it’s important for the public to see the impact of the disease, in this case, images of critically-ill patients filling the beds, but to no avail.
Instead, we were left to imagine what it was like on the inside from scenes that emerged out of Europe, China, Iran and the United States, among other countries, showing doctors and nurses toiling to save lives.
In January, 19 media outlets, including CTV News, signed a letter that was sent to the Quebec government and public health authorities. It called on them to open the doors of public health institutions to journalists because “the battle being waged is one that affects all Quebecers.”
It seems the government was swayed. A short time later, Quebec’s Health Ministry approved a plan and, slowly but surely, over the last few weeks journalists have been invited into the inner sanctum, to observe the ravages of COVID-19, the work conditions and the cascade of consequences for the province’s health care workers.
CTV News was among them, and was the first camera to get a look inside the ICU and a COVID-unit at the Jewish General Hospital (JGH), the first hospital to admit patients last March.
The news report, posted above, features candid interviews with doctors, nurses, a respiratory therapist and the daughter of a 57-year-old woman who had to be placed on a ventilator.
A SAFE ICU EXPERIENCE
Before stepping foot in the ICU corridors, we were ushered into a small conference room for a lengthy training session with a member of the hospital’s infection control department.
CTV News cameraman Christophe Terrade and I were shown how to meticulously put on and take off gloves, gowns and face shields that had to be worn over masks if we were to ever enter a hot zone.
If not done properly, you could accidentally contaminate exposed skin and clothing.
In the ICU and on any COVID-19 unit in the JGH, the corridors are considered to be more neutral territory. The enclosed patient rooms are hot zones where all the workers have to wear fresh personal protective equipment each time they enter.
We were also fitted for an N95 mask, a kind of respirator that filters out both large and small particles. We were to wear it if we got permission to go into a patient’s room.
The fit test is somewhat involved. Marc-Andre Fournelle from the hospital’s occupational health and safety department put us through our paces.
First, I was asked to take off the surgical mask I was wearing and put a large plastic helmet over my head.
The little hole in the front that allowed me to get some air was also there to help Fournelle learn whether or not I’m sensitive to a bitter substance he sprayed inside the hood.
The product, called Bitrex, has been described by Guinness World Records as “the most bitter substance in the world,” and is a critical part of the fit test.
While Fournelle said some people are immune to the strong taste, I reacted to it right away.
That later helped him determine whether he’d chosen an N95 mask that fit me properly and was protective.
I was asked to move my head in various positions and count to 30 to see if the mask moved or stayed in place, allowing the bitter taste to sneak in.
Since I wasn’t able to taste the spray once I had the N95 on, it meant the mask was airtight and Fournelle had chosen well.
During the first wave in Quebec, there was a shortage of PPE. Fournelle said that now that the province has identified new suppliers, some of them located in Montreal, the hospital is well-stocked.
