Alberta ICU staff face impossible task as system demand increases and patients call workers 'killers'

With Alberta’s health care system now the focus of a military mission, the people who work within it are reaching a breaking point as stress compounds with negative patient interactions.

With Alberta’s health-care system now the focus of a military mission, the people who work within it say they're reaching a breaking point as stress compounds with negative patient interactions.

Dr. Erika MacIntyre, a critical care physician working in Edmonton’s Misericordia hospital ICU shared with CTV News Edmonton how some patients – who usually are not vaccinated – are verbally abusing health-care staff.

“There has been some individuals who have accused us of giving them COVID,” MacIntyre said. “That’s always a bit of an added stress because that is not the case.”

She recalled another time where one ICU patient, whose condition had improved enough to be able to leave the ICU, offered harmful remarks to the very staff helping them recover.

“On the way out of the ICU, this individual called us killers,” MacIntyre said.

“Despite people’s vaccination status, despite their health, we do the best that we can to treat the individual,” MacIntyre added.

She said the worst stress on health-care workers, however, is the fact that no one knows when the situation in hospitals will improve.