TORONTO On the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 becoming a pandemic, families across Canada are reflecting on the loved ones they have lost. On March 9, 2020, B.C. s top provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced that an elderly man who lived at the Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver had died after contracting the novel coronavirus. The death triggered what would become a nationwide cascade of virus-related deaths over the next year. Ten days after Canada s first fatality, 94-year-old Isabelle Mikhail took her final breath in a room on the second floor of the same long-term care facility.
3 Canadians remember loved ones lost to COVID-19, one year after Canada s first related death
The first COVID-19-related death in Canada was on March 8, 2020. Since then, more than 22,000 Canadians have lost their lives to the virus, leaving loved ones to grieve in difficult circumstances.
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Keith and Katy Saunders. Keith died from COVID-19 in March 2020.(Submitted by Katy Saunders)
TORONTO A few months into the pandemic, a registered nurse in a Toronto-area long-term care facility told her son that they were âoverworked and understaffedâ at her job, and that she believed change was needed. He recorded the conversation, but itâs difficult for him to listen back to her voice now â his mother, 57-year-old Maureen Ambersley, died this week after contracting COVID-19. In Canada, some 30 health-care workers have died since the pandemic began. Ambersley, who worked at a care facility owned by Extendicare, told her son, Floyd, in May that working conditions were difficult. COVID-19 had changed the nature of her job âin a way that impacts the whole workforce,â she said in an audio recording provided to CTV News.
TORONTO A few months into the pandemic, a registered nurse in a Toronto-area long-term care facility told her son that they were âoverworked and understaffedâ at her job, and that she believed change was needed. He recorded the conversation, but itâs difficult for him to listen back to her voice now â his mother, 57-year-old Maureen Ambersley, died this week after contracting COVID-19. In Canada, some 30 health-care workers have died since the pandemic began. Ambersley, who worked at a care facility owned by Extendicare, told her son, Floyd, in May that working conditions were difficult. COVID-19 had changed the nature of her job âin a way that impacts the whole workforce,â she said in an audio recording provided to CTV News.
I don t know what more they could have done. This is a deadly disease, she said.
Floyd Ambersley said he will miss the presence of his mother. My mom, she was such a warm person. When I come home and see my mom, she would always be like: Oh, come say hi.
Floyd Ambersley, left, and Ashley Ambersley, right, say Ontario residents need to take COVID-19 restrictions and the novel coronavirus itself seriously.(CBC)
Follow public health rules, nurse s children say
Both said Ontario residents need to take COVID-19 restrictions and the novel coronavirus itself seriously. It s not something to joke about. You won t really know the hurt of it affecting your life until it hits someone that you love or even hits yourself. We should all just make an effort not to pass this around. COVID is not a joke, Floyd Ambersley said.