The Saskatchewan NDP is calling for the Saskatchewan Government to provide mental health support for individuals who have been affected by the impacts of COVID-19.
In a meeting held via Zoom, the Saskatchewan NDP brought Matthew Cardinal, a 34-year-old who contracted COVID-19 and had to be placed in a medically induced coma with a ventilator to tell his story and share the importance of mental health support for those who have been impacted by the virus.
Cardinal was rushed to the hospital on March 22 after his condition grew worse.
“It’s a very scary virus. My condition deteriorated so fast that I had to call an ambulance because I couldn’t breathe and I ended up going to a unit in the hospital and my vitals kept crashing to the point where they told me that I needed to go to the ICU. They told me I had 10 minutes to get ready, text and call my family, post what I needed on FaceBook. The ICU was literal hell but I was in good hands there. It was traumatizing, it was scary. I didn’t know how long I was in there, the confusion, there were no windows to the outside. It was a plastic enclosure. Each time they would bring me out of my medically induced coma they would ask me what day it is, what time it was, and I would have no idea. I would freak out when I saw all the equipment attached to me like the ventilator. They would have to put me under several times, but eventually, when they removed the ventilator I knew that I would live. But now I have a long road of healing ahead of me to go through. Oxygen at home, physiotherapy, walking,” Cardinal said.
“The mental trauma though, that’s what I’m worried about. That’s why I’m glad that Ryan Meili and several NDP members and media reached out to me. This is a collective thing that we need to do.”
Cardinal is still recovering from the impact of the virus and will have to take blood thinners for three months as well as physiotherapy and concentrated oxygen.
Leader of the Saskatchewan NDP Ryan Meili echoed the importance of both the immunization of priority populations as well as mental health support for those that have been impacted by COVID-19, such as Cardinal.
“His story exposes some really important things for us. Number one is the risk that people are in with front line jobs like his. Matthew is a server at a restaurant and the exposure that is a result of being in contact with the public and the exposure that others those jobs and communities where in-person dining and bars are still open despite the high rates of variants being transmitted and the number of people who are in that front line work and haven’t been vaccinated and haven’t been prioritized in the vaccination schedule. The ongoing risk is a big part of this story. But there’s another part of this story as well. Matthew continues to struggle with his breathing, he’s also just like anybody who’s been through a traumatic experience like this, dealing with the trauma and the mental health challenges that follow. It really highlights for us that we have work to do to get past this third wave and get it under control and get everybody their vaccine. But it won’t end there. We need to be looking at the post-COVID world. We need to look at what we are doing to support people who have been traumatized in their mental health. People who have lost loved ones or have been sick themselves.”
The Saskatchewan NDP says they need to have further discussions with mental health experts in the field to develop a method of assisting individuals who have struggled with the mental impacts of COVID-19.
“We’re basically pointing to the fact that there will be long-term mental health effects and we need a strategy to address this,” said Communications Director with the Saskatchewan NDP, Thomas Linner.
The Saskatchewan NDP also called for added immunization measures for front line staff and priority populations in Saskatchewan.
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