Last updated: April 10, 2025

Content warnings: references to medical negligence, cancer, discrimination

As part of our calls for BC to keep and strengthen healthcare mask protections, we invited people across the province to share their experiences around healthcare safety. 

You can find their statements below. All individuals have given permission for their words to be published by the media. Several are also available for interviews, or to contribute to an op-ed. 

(Note that a number of these accounts were shared prior to the removal of existing mask rules on March 28, 2025.)

Download the previous media kit here. New kit coming soon.

Availability:

¹ available for remote interviews
² available for in-person interviews
³ available for op-eds

Contact DoNoHarmBC@gmail.com for media requests.

Bri* ^1,2,3
Healthcare worker – BC

“I’ve seen doctors going around all day, unknowingly covid positive or knowingly sick with something, unmasked”

I work in a clinic that serves many disabled and high risk youth. Not only have exposures been an issue for patients, but they have also become a notable workplace hazard. I’ve seen doctors going around all day, unknowingly covid positive or knowingly sick with something, unmasked, and in enclosed spaces with people with severe disabilities, pregnant people, and immunocompromised people (staff and clients). Most recently, colds and flu have been circulating amongst staff, leaving people sick for a week or two at a time. 

The result of not having mask mandates has been a marked decrease in the health of my coworkers, myself, and our clients. I’ve worked with many of my colleagues for 5 or 6 years, so it’s easy to see how they catch covid and then subsequently declined, developing chronic coughs, severe fatigue, cognitive issues, heart problems, and more. 

Disability like that, disability that is acquired from something preventable, is not a reasonable workplace hazard. It’s as simple as clean air and appropriate PPE, and instead we are choosing to make healthcare environments dangerous for workers and unsafe for service users. In a time where we need healthcare workers more than ever (crazy how a mass disabling event does that?!), workers need to be protected and healthcare needs to be as safe as possible for people to access. People are delaying seeking care because of this and their fears that cause them to do so are realized pretty much every time they take the risk to come in. 

* full name withheld due to concerns around employer reprisal. Private verification available to reporters

Grae Salisbury (they/them)  ^1,2,3
Local tattoo artist, primary caregiver for partner disabled by Long Covid – Victoria, BC

“No one should have to choose to not get a surgery because a day in a busy unmasked hospital is too high risk for our damaged systems, but that is what we are faced with”

My partner was disabled by Covid in 2020 and has been unable to work since. My health also became much worse after 2020 (probably also due to a Covid infection) and I was recently diagnosed with EDS. EDS is a genetic condition that affects connective tissues and makes me high risk for developing the same diagnoses and lifelong disabling conditions that Covid left my partner with. Now getting any virus could permanently worsen my partner’s health, and so we have to be very careful in public spaces. 

Mostly we can avoid high risk crowded places, but we can not avoid necessary medical appointments. The problem is that we have been. No one should have to choose to not get a surgery because a day in a busy unmasked hospital is too high risk for our damaged systems, but that is what we are faced with. I have chosen to wait on an Endometriosis surgery due to the complete lack of masks at Victoria General as the risk does not just affect me, but also my partner. We can not afford to become more disabled. 

The Victoria General Hospital’s staff’s disregard for simple protections ( like masking during a Mask Mandate ) that all patients and staff would benefit from is very sad. Drs take an oath to “do no harm”. Following the Mask Mandate is necessary in a post 2020 world if Drs and medical professionals seek to ‘do no harm’ and protect their patients, coworkers, and community. It is dangerous for people like my partner and I to enter crowded high traffic spaces. In places where we can not mask, like during and after surgery, the risk increases. Hospitals should not be dangerous places, but they are for many people including my partner and I. 

I was relieved to hear my surgery was scheduled during the current Mask Mandate, but when speaking beforehand with my care team I was met with resistance to masking. When I arrived for my surgery there were more masks on patients’ faces than staff, and my surgery ended up being canceled due to staff shortages. 

We are valuable, not disposable, and we deserve simple protections like having medical staff mask around us.

Rose* (she/her) ^1,2,3
Masking in VGH transplant clinic while staff did not – Vancouver, BC

“We’re more terrified of nosocomial infection than the [double lung] transplant and it shouldn’t be this way”

My loved one is starting the process for a double lung transplant and is on oxygen. When we attended the transplant clinic at VGH, staff were universally unmasked, but EVERY SINGLE patient and family member who came into the clinic was. My loved one is being forced to wear a mask even though it legitimately impedes their breathing and causes them to panic all because nobody else is. Doctors did put on masks for the exam room after seeing ours, but the doors were open to a busy hallway through which staff were all walking unmasked. 

My loved one has also been referred to a rehab hospital to prepare for their transplant, but after seeing virtually no masks during our visit to VGH at all during a mask order we are terrified. We are also terrified about the transplant and the hospitalization for up to a year afterwards. We’re more terrified of nosocomial infection than the transplant and it shouldn’t be this way, ESPECIALLY when there’s a mask order. 

Our regional hospitals on Vancouver Island are just as bad. We had to attend a heart and lung clinic and patients walked in, saw our masks, asked staff if they needed to wear a mask too and staff flat out told them that they didn’t need to unless they were sick. DURING A MASK ORDER. I don’t know what to do anymore this is driving me mad having to do all of the risk calculations and running around and asking to wait outside etc. 

I have their explicit consent to share. I also have a child with cancer and it’s happening in those spaces too which I’ve also shared about. 

* pseudonym to protect patient identity

Eva (she/her)
Toddler mom and healthcare worker – Vancouver, BC

“I’ve sadly experienced name calling and discrimination from other healthcare workers for wearing a mask”

I work in the hospital and I’m trying to reduce the frequency of infections for me and my family. I have chronic illness and I easily catch a cold/flu even when others are asymptomatic. I’m the only person in my department who wears an N95 mask and I’ve sadly experienced name calling and discrimination from other healthcare workers for wearing a mask. My toddler also gets sick every 1-2 months from daycare germs and I’m just trying to break the cycle of getting sick.

Beth Campbell Duke (she/her) ^1,3
Family care partner & course facilitator at Navigating Healthcare Canada – Victoria, BC

“We know of other lung transplant recipients who have contracted COVID during routine appointments…we are truly abandoned and betrayed”

I am a family care partner and live with my elderly parents and my immunosuppressed husband (lung transplant among other issues). As the COVID pandemic continues, healthcare settings are about the only places we go into. While we are all vulnerable to airborne viruses, some of us are more vulnerable than others.

COVID claims with WorkSafe BC are the highest for those in healthcare. We know that hospitals are a significant source of COVID spread and yet masking to control airborne spread is still stigmatized within healthcare settings.

Again today (March 26, 2025) we were in Royal Jubilee Hospital and walked in past a sign saying that masks are required. With the exception of 2 staff members, no staff was wearing them. A few patients were, but how are we to expect patients and visitors to wear masks when there is no leadership on the part of staff?

I was taking my 87 YO mom in to get imaging. We tried to distance ourselves from a couple of unmasked patients who were coughing from within their chests. We were told by the MoA at reception that we HAD to sit in the small waiting room with them as it is ‘policy’. I pushed back and we waited in the hallway apart from those who were clearly sick.

While we were waiting, a patient on a gurney was left in the hallway to wait for imaging. This patient wasn’t masked and yet staff and visitors were also walking by unmasked. How the hallways aren’t considered to be ‘patient care’ areas is beyond me. That patient was put at risk due to the non-mandate ‘mandate’.

I have been in touch with Patient ‘Care’ recently about mask mandates as my husband has had to cancel spirometry at RJH due to safety concerns. In this environment he is expected to remove his N95 for testing. We know of other lung transplant recipients who have contracted COVID during routine appointments thanks to a failure of medical ‘professionals’ to take airborne precautions.

Patient Care has told us that they can only deal with specific departments even though I asked for our concerns to be escalated to leadership levels. I was told that ‘policy’ is the responsibility of the Ministry of Health. This buck passing continues because there is seemingly no legal responsibility that can be enforced.

So that’s where we’re at. Patient Care has washed their hands of this. I left a voice mail with the Ministry of Health today. I have posted our recent experience on Blue Sky. I have emailed BC Cancer to cancel my mammography outlining my concerns. We have cancelled other testing in the past because of this, and my husband who now also has cancer will only do phone appointments with his oncologist. I go in to the BC Cancer building to get his medications.

I have written a ‘COVID Protection Policy’ for my website (https://NavigatingHealthcare.ca/covid-protection-policy) and we are using the Canadian COVID Society’s ‘Request for Accommodation’ letter. Our Nurse Practitioner’s office has not responded, and as I wrote above, Island Health is just ignoring us.

I honestly don’t know where to go with this. It’s not OK. I’m not OK. I don’t know how to escalate this. I have been in touch with the Human Rights Commissioners legal clinic and that wasn’t too hopeful. I was hopeful that there would be some legal remedy for individual healthcare providers, but that is dashed now as well. We are truly abandoned and betrayed.

Laura Floyd (she/her) ^1,2,3
Cancer patient and advocate – Victoria, BC

“I don’t understand how people can work in cancer care, and not want to take this simple step to protect patients”

At 39, I received a shocking lung cancer diagnosis. This was during the height of Covid. I went to my chemo and radiation appointments alone. I was screened every day for symptoms. Everyone wore masks. I moved back in with my parents so that my child could go to school while I was severely immunocompromised. 

After the mask mandates were lifted, I was shocked by how few people were masking at the cancer centre. Some patients, but hardly any workers. I don’t understand how people can work in cancer care, and not want to take this simple step to protect patients. 

No one masks at the schools anymore. Pneumonia, RSV, even Covid is still going around. We partially homeschool to limit our family’s exposure. I only have one good lung. Some of my cancer friends have spent weeks in hospital with infections and collapsed lungs. 

Today, a woman laughed at me for wearing a mask. Laughed in my face for protecting myself. How has it come to this?

Kelli (she/they) ^1,2
Immunocompromised queer public servant – Victoria, BC

“I don’t feel safe seeking healthcare”

As a person with multiple invisible disabilities and who is on multiple immunosuppressant medications for Crohn’s disease, I have avoided going to the doctor or the hospital unless absolutely necessary because I don’t feel safe seeking healthcare with our current mask mandate, especially given that it is not upheld in the hospitals in Victoria. I am in my early thirties and constantly fearful that I will become even more permanently disabled than I already am because I cannot trust the public to adequately prevent the spread of airborne illnesses. I feel as though our media, local news, radio, etc. are failing to address the ongoing public health issue that is COVID-19, and that this lack of coverage is making it so that people don’t take me seriously when I ask them to wear masks or to avoid large indoor events before they see me because I am so at risk.

Madeline Taylor (they/them)  ¹
Queer arts worker living with Long COVID – Vancouver, BC

“Removing mask mandates makes [healthcare settings] unnecessarily unsafe and inaccessible to the people who need them most”

I was recently diagnosed with Long COVID after contracting COVID for the 4th time in mid January despite near constant masking in public. I am unable to work, or live my life the way I had been before I got sick. I spend most days at home, doing basic things and resting. I am bored, and grieving the life I used to have. I don’t know if healing is possible, but I do know that a 5th infection would be catastrophic to what exists of my health. 

To this point, I have gotten off easy with long COVID. I am not bed ridden. I do not have a heart condition. But health is not a given, something I thought I understood, but am living in a devastating way I could have never anticipated now. I don’t wish long COVID on anyone, and I wish that our government would do more to protect us all from the impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

Healthcare settings are now more essential to people like me living with compromised immune systems than ever. Removing mask mandates makes them unnecessarily unsafe and inaccessible to the people who need them most. 

Eryn (they/them)
Immunocompromised and queer community organizer – Victoria, BC

“I, and SO MANY of my loved ones, can’t access healthcare without the risk of getting even more sick due to medical negligence”

I haven’t been in a single healthcare facility in Victoria in the past year where any staff has worn a mask, and recently at lifelabs, my phlebotomist was alarmed and concerned by my wearing a mask to begin with. I get treated as though I’m more dangerous than anyone not masking for having the audacity to take care of my own health and others. These are healthcare settings where health has to take precedent over personal convenience and not having required masks is absolutely absurd given that it’s the bare minimum. How can I trust my practitioners to treat illness if they can’t do the number one thing to prevent illness? I, and SO MANY of my loved ones, can’t access healthcare without the risk of getting even more sick due to medical negligence.

Lee
Cancer patient – BC

“Why is [an X-ray tech] not required to be in an N95 when she’s literally in a cancer patient’s face?”

As a cancer patient, I need to get scans/xrays. My last two xrays had me (in my N95) in a room with no windows and an xray tech in no mask. She was very close to me, touching me and moving my body into various positions. Why is she not required to be in an N95 when she’s literally in a cancer patient’s face? My mask isn’t 100% effective, but if she also had an N95, the risk would be greatly reduced for me, her, and all the patients coming in after me.

Sharon (she/her)
Retired senior – Burnaby, BC

“The highest-risk activity I undertake for getting COVID is seeking health care”

developed Graves’ disease after my first COVID infection. I am 65 and doing all I can to retain my health, but the highest-risk activity I undertake for getting COVID is seeking healthcare. I recently went into Burnaby Hospital lab for bloodwork when masks were still mandatory. One lab assistant masked when I asked, but another was wearing the mask under her nose. I asked her to please put her mask on. During the interaction I advised that I had gotten COVID on the day that I had last gone to the lab.

Her: “I have it on.”
Me:  “It’s under your nose. Please put your mask on.”
The lab assistant (after pulling the mask under her chin): “I have my mask on.”
Me: “Your mask is under your chin. Please put your mask on.”
Her: “It’s on.”

I asked for her name so I could file a complaint. She ignored my request. It’s appalling to have a medical lab assistant play games saying she is wearing a mask when her nose is exposed, then purposely pulling the mask under her chin. Burnaby Hospital Lab has several staff who have shown a poor understanding of and compliance with infection control measures. Although I have done as much as is humanly possible to keep myself from getting COVID, I’ve still had COVID twice.

Red Cottrell (they/them)
Disabled person with immunocompromised family members – Vancouver, BC

“I got infected with Covid for the first time at Lifelabs”

I’m a disabled person living with immunocompromised family. My family and I have had trouble safely accessing healthcare due to airborne infection risks and have had to delay certain care as a result. Currently, there is a mask policy in some public health settings, but it often gets dropped during the warmer months, even though viruses like covid are not seasonal! In fact, a more reliable mask policy should be implemented year-round, with respirator usage for fuller coverage and better protection against airborne spread (like covid)! 

I got infected with covid for the first time at a Lifelabs while getting bloodwork during the summer of 2022. Only surgical masks were used by staff and patients alike, and it was not protective enough to keep me safe, especially in the poorly ventilated space. That infection left me with severe chronic headaches and memory issues. 

Nobody should have to risk getting new or worsened lifelong conditions while trying to seek healthcare! Whether it be at a doctor’s office, a specialist’s, emergency departments, during surgeries, dental care, eye care, or getting bloodwork, year-round airborne protection is essential for accessibility and could save lives!

Scout (she/her)
Disabled artist – Vancouver, BC

“We are living through a period of mass disablement of people, ecologies and global systems”

The Covid-19 pandemic helped make information about how viruses spread mainstream knowledge- so why are we ignoring it? The use of kn-95 masks is effective at keeping everyone, especially immunocompromised people, safe. The mandatory year-round requirement of wearing masks in healthcare settings in BC makes sense because that’s exactly where our sick and elderly folks need to go to access care. 

Everyone should feel SAFE when entering a healthcare setting in our province. The burden should not be on chronically ill individuals like myself to request that my healthcare worker mask up when providing me care. Masking IS care. Masking is an accessible solution. Encouraging the continued widespread use of masks helps reduce the collective risk of Covid infection in our communities. 

Covid is NOT the flu. Covid has long-term disabling neurological impacts that are not yet fully understood, diagnosable, or treatable. Your risk of becoming chronically ill and disabled from Covid increases with each re-infection. 

We are living through a period of mass disablement of people, ecologies and global systems – our public policies need to reflect this and adapt accordingly. Let’s be leaders in a movement against a hyper-individualistic politic that lacks empathy towards our most vulnerable, and disregards the notion of caring for our collective wellbeing as a society. 

At the beginning of the pandemic, I found masks uncomfortable and hard to adjust to. Now, 5 years later and living with long covid symptoms, I feel safe and secure and empowered each time I wear my mask in a social setting. Masking enables me to continue participating in society. If I catch a virus or flu, or Covid again, the health impacts are serious and long-term. Each day I am forced to assess these risks when I leave my door: please help make healthcare settings places where I don’t have to do that. 

Melissa Ellsworth (she/her)^1,2
Immunocompromised first responder – Nova Scotia

“I picked up Covid… while getting a colonoscopy”

Thanks to WCB neglect and years of corticosteroid treatment I picked up Covid at the QE2 in Halifax while getting a colonoscopy to investigate GI issues in Feb 2020. I had bubbled myself since Dec as I knew what was coming. How do I know I caught it from the nurse? She and a few coworkers had just returned from Vegas and were sick while working in recovery. 

Fast forward 2025, I now need weekly infusions for quality of life. Some staff mask, some don’t. Those who do remove them as soon as they are 6 feet away from us, while there are 3 fans blowing constantly in the room. I wear my N95 everywhere despite it sending me into a pain flareup. Most wear the blue masks provided but take them off once treatment starts or drop them under their chin so they can talk to each other. 

I fought too hard with PTSD to stay here, then covid to be taken out by ignorance and/or inconvenience. I’m thinking about stopping my infusions for quality of life to keep myself safe. At 56, it’s quite the predicament when my only other option is MAID.