‘I’m just exhausted’: Inside a Toronto hospital during the Omicron wave of COVID-19

The Canadian Press spent 12 hours inside the hospital, talking to dozens of nurses, doctors and respiratory therapists about how the latest wave is impacting them.

TORONTO — Paula Abramcyzk sighs at the unknown her day will bring. Odds are, in the heart of the Omicron wave, someone will die in the intensive care unit at Humber River Hospital in Toronto.

The ICU social worker is exhausted. It’s 9:37 a.m. on a Tuesday in January.

The 48-bed ICU on the sixth floor is quiet at the moment. Most of the patients are in induced comas; many are intubated. More than half have COVID-19.

Abramcyzk’s job is to support families once a loved one gets into the ICU. She guides them through the complex medical journey, including death.

“If you’re here, you’re dying. Very few people survive from COVID once they’re here,” she says quietly.

“My role has not changed (in the pandemic), just the intensity is ten-fold. The opinions from family members are much stronger — people can accept dying of cancer, people can’t accept dying of COVID.”

Numerous families have asked her to help them convince doctors to alter death certificates so that it doesn’t say COVID-19, she says.

“They want autopsies because they don’t believe in COVID,” Abramcyzk says, shaking her head.