A registered practical nurse (RPN) who was inside the Roberta Place long-term care home during its 41 days in COVID-19 outbreak has released a book detailing her account of what happened and how bad it was.
Christie Beattie was an RPN at the south-end Barrie facility during the deadly outbreak, which lasted from Jan. 8 to Feb. 18, 2021 and claimed 71 lives.
Like many other nurses at the Essa Road long-term care home, Beattie says what she saw stayed with her long after her shifts ended.
“Honestly, it was like entering a war zone. There are really no words to describe what we saw and there will never be a way to put it on paper for others to understand,” Beattie tells BarrieToday. “The suffering was immeasurable. It was insane what these people went through. If you weren’t inside, you can’t possibly imagine.”
That's why Beattie decided to write the book Behind These Walls.
What originally started as some journaling for her mental health turned into the new book, which was released on Amazon last week - one year after the outbreak began.
“I would come home after each shift and pretty much cry. Then I would pull out my laptop and start typing everything I saw that shift,” Beattie says. “I would go back and read it often and wish that people could just see what we went through.
"I was just one nurse from one shift; there are so many other stories out there.”
It was at the suggestion of one of her nurse friends that Beattie decided to publish the account of what the subtitle of the book describes as ‘a look inside one of the deadliest COVID outbreaks in Canadian long-term care homes'.
Beattie says seeing people on social media deny or downplay the virus and its severity, and hear claims from some who blamed the Roberta Place tragedy on the staff, inspired her to get the book published.
“I couldn’t believe seeing on social media that some people were blaming us for the deaths of the people we loved. Some people who don’t believe in the virus were saying we were letting the residents die, that we were dehydrating them and they weren't dying of the virus. It was insane,” Beattie says. “I just felt like I should put this out there so people can see an account of what actually happened and what we all went through.”
During her career, Beattie says she has seen death up close, but nothing on this scale and she has long given up trying to convince the "disrespectful" conspiracy theorists.
“I used to try to make them understand what happens when the virus hit the facility, or what it could do to you if you got it, but it was no use,” she says. “It's disrespectful and incredibly frustrating to see people on Facebook denying the virus and its severity, because the same nurses that read and see that have to then treat them the same as you would someone who does take it seriously.”
Beattie recalls someone telling her to get a different job if she couldn’t handle the situation.
“It's just completely insensitive and I don’t understand when people lost compassion,” she says. “We sign up for nursing and know we’re going to see suffering and see death. This was a totally different ball park.”
Beattie was on the Home Area 1 floor. Before COVID-19 hit, she says there were 32 residents on her floor. At the end of the outbreak, there were 13 and the number continued to dwindle after that.
“After the outbreak, some of the people who survived weren’t the same because of the damage the virus did,” Beattie says. “We lost another two or three after the outbreak, just because of the after-effects and eventually reached nine on our floor as our lowest number.”
While the crisis was going on, the public and some politicians used that time to call out government action, or inaction.
Beattie admits there have been times during the pandemic when the provincial government has failed, but says during the Roberta Place outbreak, there wasn’t much that could be done.
“There is definitely more that could have been done, but I just don’t know if it was possible. They sent the Red Cross in, but they couldn't assist in the rooms, which is where the urgency was,” Beattie says. “It's great that someone tried to help by sending extra bodies to assist, but they couldn’t assist.
"I remember people demanding that army come in. Why? That wouldn’t have helped in any way. The people who were sick just needed to get medicated, they needed fluids and they needed to die comfortably. There was no saving them when they were at that point. We couldn’t bring them back from it.”
The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit declared the Roberta Place outbreak over on Feb. 18, 2021. And while one would think relief was the first emotion, Beattie says people at the facility were "mainly just sad.”
“There was just a realization of all these empty rooms now. It was very sombre,” Beattie says. “Yeah, we made it, but look at the cost. So many people died, a lot of our staff were off (sick). The home was forever changed and the whole feeling of going to work was forever changed.”
Roberta Place then started to receive new residents and rooms began to fill again, but Beattie says there was an uneasy feeling.
“It almost felt wrong, although I know that's what happens and needs to happen. But so many of our loved ones just died and we were moving on,” she says. “It just felt like we were stuck in this moment that just happened and yet we were having to keep going.”
Beattie left Roberta Place in April 2021. The 31-year-old engaged mother of two now works at Mill Creek Care Centre, which is currently in outbreak. But she says it's a far different situation than what happened at Roberta Place.
“It's not like the Roberta Place outbreak at all. Everyone is double vaxxed with a booster. They’re barely sick and no one has died,” Beattie says. “It shows just how well the vaccinations work. They’re not even as sick as they are if they get the flu. They might get a bit of a fever and a cough, but no one is gasping for air, no one is turning blue in front of us. That is only because of the vaccines.”
Although it has been almost one year since she worked at Roberta Place, Beattie says the ordeal hasn’t left her and likely never will.
“Sometimes I’ll get a resident who reminds me of someone I had from before and I just want to cry. But we can’t — (there's) no crying in nursing, of course,” she says. “We’ll never get over it. It will stay with us forever, because it was just so traumatic.”
Behind These Walls is available through Amazon by clicking here.
