The painful, impersonal reality of Saskatchewan's COVID-19 transfers to Ontario
CBC
For one of at least 22 intensive care patients moved to Ontario from Saskatchewan to alleviate COVID-19 pressure, the abrupt transfer was a brutal reminder of his traumatic past.
Ken Roth, 66, is a retired fire chief from La Loche, Sask., more than 500 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon.
The unvaccinated man contracted COVID-19 in early July. He was intubated on July 28 and spent weeks in a coma.
Until recently, he was receiving care in the ICU at St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon.
The Metis man says his wife and daughter had been visiting him at the hospital every day.
But in a flash that changed.
"The way they treated me in Saskatoon..." he said in an interview between bouts of coughing.
"They just came there and said 'you're leaving for Ottawa!'"
He attempted to protest, he said, but was moved so quickly that he didn't even have time to make a phone call to say good-bye. He cried on the plane ride to Ontario.
Roth said the experience was a a traumatic reminder of how he was ripped away from his mother at the age of six.
He was then sent to a residential school.
"Just like when I was a kid, they did the same thing. They just hurt me so much," he told CBC News.
Roth isn't upset that he was sent to Ontario to receive care — he's unhappy with how they moved him.
Roth is one of 22 people who, as of Friday morning, had been transferred to Ontario to ease the burden in Saskatchewan hospitals and protect standards of care.
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