Belleville nurses support Fort McMurray peers

ICU nurses at Belleville General Hospital revealed the $5,000 cheque over Skype to the Northern Lights Health Foundation team and nurses. Photo courtesy of Belleville General Hospital

By Nick Ogden

BELLEVILLE – Nurses at Belleville General Hospital didn’t let provincial borders stop them from donating $5,000 to nurses in Alberta.

Last week, a group of intensive-care unit nurses from BGH made a major contribution to the Northern Lights Health Foundation in Fort McMurray, Alta. During the wildfires this year, nurses at the Northern Lights Regional Hospital worked to evacuate patients to save them from further harm.

“They jumped in and did what they had to do for those patients,” said Charlene Quinn, ICU team leader at BGH. “They didn’t even know where their own families were, or what their own situations were. They just went to work for that group of people and those patients, and got them to safety, without giving their own lives a care, and they did it for 12 hours, 24 hours or longer.”

Charlene Quinn says that no matter how busy the ICU gets, her team is always ready to help those in need. Photo by Nick Ogden, QNet News

Quinn said the idea to help came from a conversation in the break room.

“We were so impressed that they evacuated that hospital in such a short time that we decided we have to do something. We have to recognize them somehow. The whole country is fundraising for Fort McMurray, we decided to see what we could do.”

After raising nearly $1,200 with a Father’s Day raffle in June, Quinn said they were encouraged to see how much more they could raise.

In August, the staff at Belleville General hosted a raffle, barbecue, bake sale and yard sale to raise even more money for the Alberta organization.

“One of our corporate values is ‘Imagine it’s you,’ so that’s exactly what we did,” said Quinn.

Usually, BGH only raises money for the hospital itself, or the United Way. Quinn submitted a request to fundraise for the nurses in Fort McMurray, and she said everyone was on board with supporting the cause, “The minute you mention Fort McMurray everybody jumped on it.”

Northern Lights Health Foundation executive director Cindy Amerongen said that when she heard of what the nurses in Belleville were trying to do, she was happy to help in any way.

“When we see the nurses in Belleville reaching out and wanting to give something to the nurses here, we were really happy to facilitate that.”

The Northern Lights Regional Health Centre serves the entire municipality of Wood Buffalo, one of the largest municipalities in Canada.

During the wildfires, people were fleeing north out of Fort MacMurray towards Edmonton. “There was limited access out of Fort McMurray. People were on the one highway out of town driving 12-16 hours to get to Edmonton,” said Amerongen.

“They were running out of gas. Good samaritans would come up the highway and bring gas and food trying to keep people moving.”

Amerongen also said that the nurses were very happy to hear of the donation coming their way.

“The nurses were surprised that somebody would think about them individually.”

Quinn said that a few thousand kilometres separating Belleville and Fort McMurray didn’t stop the desire to help fellow nurses.

“You recognize the need and you help. It’s as simple as that. Nurses are nurses, we’re all teammates in this big scheme of life.”

Both teams of nurses in Belleville and Fort McMurray decided that the money would be going towards clinical education.

“The stipulation with the money from our end was that we wanted the nurses to decide what to do with the money … So we decided between them and ourselves, that it would go to nursing education, so everybody in nursing could benefit from that,” said Quinn.

Amerongen said that at the time of the wildfires, no one thought about the recognition they would receive.

“For everybody here, you just did what you needed to do… People just didn’t think twice about loading patients into their cars and driving them north to the clinics. So when they get recognized, they’re a little bit astounded because they’re also thinking in terms of being community members. They’re not really seeing themselves as the heroes of this story.”

The two groups of nurses met for the first time when they revealed the cheque via Skype on Oct. 14.