'We just want them to know that we love them': Giving ICU workers a pick-me-up

Community sends coffees to Edmonton ICU staff Locals are banding together to give health care workers a pick me up as they work on the frontline of the COVID-19 surge. Amanda Anderson reports.

EDMONTON — The mother of a child who spends a lot of time in hospital wants to give staff in Alberta’s overloaded intensive care units (ICUs) a coffee to help keep them going.

Alberta’s hospitals are in a critical state, according to healthcare officials.

The situation has parents of chronically ill children worried about what would happen if they needed to bring their kids to hospital.

“It’s scary to hear that there may not be a bed available for my child,” said Kaela Hendra, whose nine-year-old son had been in and out of hospital since he was born. “The conditions he has are lifelong, he does have chronic lung disease and a brain condition that, at any time he could need brain surgery.

“The thought that ICU beds are being taken up and hospital beds are being taken up and those may not be available to us was really concerning.”

According to a pediatric neurosurgery nurse, parents don’t need to worry about their children not being able to get care in hospitals.

“Whatever the situation is, if there’s kids that need urgent and emergent care, we will provide the absolute highest level quality of care that we always have,” said Wendy Beaudoin.

However, when Hendra was speaking to an ICU nurse, she realized how tired staff were.

“She just said how bad it is right now and that they needed help, it really sounded to me that they needed a little bit of hope,” said Hendra.

The idea came to start a GoFundMe page to raise $1,000 to get coffee for ICU staff. According to Hendra, they reached that fundraising goal in 45 minutes and raised the goal.

“Right now we’re at $6,000, which is just mind blowing to have the support and let people know that we really care about those folks in the hospital,” said Hendra.

“It just makes you smile and catch your breath and shed a tear all at the same time,” added Beaudoin. “And really makes you feel like you can get up and go to work the next day, which is probably the biggest thing right now.”

The fourth wave of the pandemic has been the hardest so far on healthcare workers, according to Beaudoin. She hopes people remember that front-line workers are people too.

“(They’re) trying to do everything they can for every Albertans and find some room in your heart to support that and set politics aside just let us get through the pandemic right now.”

Hendra is planning to start delivering gift cards to workers this week.

“This won’t be enough, it’ll never be enough, but we just want them to know that we love them and we’re so thankful for them and if they need something we’ll be here for it too,” said Hendra.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Amanda Anderson