Staff at this Ontario hospital say going from heroes to anti-vaccine mandate targets is a heavy weight

Nicole Corry says she didn't become a personal support worker to be called a hero. But she never anticipated she would be villainized as she puts her health and family's welfare on the line to care for others amid a pandemic.

In the small industrial city of Sarnia in southwestern Ontario, Corry and her colleagues at Bluewater Health hospital are straining every nerve to see their community through the COVID-19 crisis, including those who target them with pandemic grievances.

This duty of care to every patient, regardless of views or vaccination status, has been a lodestar for hospital staff.

But the COVID-19 surge fuelled by the Omicron variant has put this resolve to the test as health workers contend with accumulated burnout, depleted resources and more staff out sick — compounded by the unsettling sense that some of their neighbours have turned against them.

Corry said her workload has doubled. She shuttles from room to room tending to patients' basic needs and providing the connection they miss from loved ones, often at the expense of spending time with her partner and child.

The vast majority of Sarnia's residents have stood by health workers throughout the pandemic. But Corry said all it takes is a few vocal detractors to dampen flickering morale.

Corry said she's seen social media posts denigrate the quality of care she and her colleagues provide. She's been hassled on the way to work over the hospital's vaccination mandates, then returned to her car to find a flyer calling the policy "garbage" fixed to her door.

"We went from being heroes last year to people literally standing outside the hospital yelling and screaming at us for something we never did," Corry said.

"If we have community support, it makes it a lot better to come to work. And we don't need to be thanked.... We just want to be respected and go on about doing our jobs."

Across Canada, the neighbourhood pots-and-pan symphonies that heralded hospital workers during the first COVID-19 wave have long fallen silent. But as the virus rages on, a new kind of clamour has erupted from a small segment of the population eager to scapegoat health workers for public health restrictions.

"The people who work in our hospitals are not the people who make the policies around vaccine mandates," said Dr. Katharine Smart, president of the Canadian Medical Association. "They're the people who are still showing up and caring for Canadians."

In recent months, health workers across the country have faced escalating levels of intimidation and harassment, including protests, personal threats and violent behaviour by patients in denial about having COVID-19, said Smart.

The Whitehorse pediatrician said these hostilities can be particularly potent in smaller communities where the ties that bind health workers and patients can make the divisions cut that much deeper.

"It's easier to brush off people who are anonymous to you," she said. "To see people you live with in your community treating you that way or being that negative is really hard, and I think it does hit closer to home."