Real CANADIAN Heroes

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Cynthia RennieFaubert screens patients every day for COVID-19.

She Helps Care for COVID-19 Patients

CYNTHIA RENNIE-FAUBERT, 48, CORNWALL, ONT.

The speed of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan worried Cynthia Rennie- Faubert. As an emergency room nurse in Cornwall, she’d seen her share of outbreaks, including SARS and H1N1, but nothing like this. She knew it was only a matter of time before this new virus arrived in her community.

A month later, it did. On February 21, the federal government sent 129 Canadians from the Diamond Princess, an infected cruise ship, for a 14-day quarantine at a Cornwall hotel and conference facility that’s often used in emergency situations. Rennie- Faubert, who works at Cornwall Community Hospital, would help treat any passengers who fell ill. Some were seniors—a population at higher risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes, increasing the chance of medical complications.

The hospital staff jumped into action, increasing isolation measures and stocking storerooms with infectious disease supplies. Thankfully, all of the quarantined passengers soon passed with a clean bill of health. But the virus proved unavoidable when, in March, the region confirmed its first positive case of COVID-19.

Screening potential cases was complicated, not least because it’s possible for asymptomatic people to spread the virus. “We don’t have the luxury of getting it wrong,” Rennie- Faubert says. “We must assume anyone could have the virus.” On any given day, her ER sees a wide range of cases, from car crash victims to heart attack patients, and if a patient is unresponsive, for example, she can’t ask about their history. She can’t know if they’re infected.