Debbie Carrot, an Alberta ICU manager with 28 years in healthcare, opposes AHS’s vaccine mandate, citing misrepresented COVID data—like deaths from unrelated conditions—and ethical violations against patient autonomy. She notes systemic failures: EDs overwhelmed by non-urgent visits, 200 unused long-term care beds due to outdated outbreak criteria (one suspected case), and staffing shortages despite FTE incentives. Karna’s governing body warns of $656 license revocation fees with no refunds, while Carrot defies repercussions, backed by Rebel News and legal aid from fightvaccinepassports.com, exposing how mandates fracture healthcare trust and ignore operational realities. [Automatically generated summary]
Oh, hey rebels, it's me, Sheila Gunread, and you're listening to a free audio-only recording of my weekly Wednesday night show, The Gun Show.
However, this is the internet, so you can watch or listen whenever you feel like.
Now, tonight, my guest is somebody that you absolutely need to hear from.
Her name is Debbie Carrot.
You might recognize the last name because she is the wife of United We Roll founder Glenn Carrot, who's also running to be the mayor in Innisvale, Alberta.
She works as a manager for Alberta Health Services, and she is joining me today to explain to me what prompted her to write a letter to her superiors opposing the vaccine mandate for Alberta Health Services workers.
But also, in her letter, she broke down the failings of the pandemic response by Alberta Health Services, and she might know a thing or two about this as an ICU manager, but also as a former paramedic.
Now, if you like listening to the show, then I promise you're going to love watching it.
But in order to watch, you need to be a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's what we call our long-form TV style shows here on Rebel News.
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Just go to rebelnewsplus.com to become a member today.
And now please enjoy this very important free audio only version of my show.
An Alberta health services manager puts her career on the line to tell us why she opposes forced vaccinations for people who work within our health care system.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
You are about to meet one very brave woman who might lose her job just to tell you the truth about what she sees are problems within the healthcare system, problems regarding capacity issues, government mismanagement.
and forced inoculations.
She is a manager in healthcare who started off her career as a paramedic.
Actually, she is so credentialed that she forgot to mention some of them in our interview.
Besides being a former paramedic, a registered nurse, an intensive care manager, she also has an advanced nursing certificate in leadership and health system transformation and innovations for teaching and learning.
Her name is Debbie Carrot, and she works at the Red Deer Hospital.
And her personal integrity has led her to decide enough is enough.
This is her hilde die on.
If it means destroying the career that she loves and that she's worked so hard for to defend human rights, she's going to do it and she won't be silent.
Friends, this is a very long interview, but every single bit of it is important.
And I want to tell you before we get started that we at Rebel News will do everything we can to support Debbie legally in her fight against forced vaccinations for herself, but also for her fellow healthcare workers.
You can support our fight at fightvaccinepassports.com.
Unions have abandoned these people, but we are here to help, all of us together.
Okay, friends, settle in, take a listen.
So joining me now from her home in Innisfail is Debbie Carrot.
Debbie, let's get this out of the way right away.
You are Glenn Carrot's wife.
So I am.
Fighting government tyranny, fighting the lockdown, standing up for the rights of Albertans.
That's sort of the family business for you.
You know, it is.
Listening to the Experts00:14:01
And I wish that I could have done more and be more vocal up until this point, but I felt I was in a difficult position at work.
But with the most recent policy, I'm no longer holding my thoughts and my views, and I'm joining Glenn.
So just to be completely transparent, I've fully supported Glenn through everything that he's done so far.
Sure, you know, and we all have our issues, right?
Glenn's is oil and gas.
Glenn's was the lockdown.
Now you are standing up for the rights of healthcare workers.
Now, you're not just some, you know, and not to say that there's anything wrong with being a nurse or being someone who works in custodial in the hospital, but you have a you're like your entire career is in healthcare.
Give us, I mean, I read your sort of a synopsis of your CV, but give us a brief rundown of how long you've been in healthcare and the different positions that you've held.
Sure.
I've been healthcare-minded my entire life.
When I was five years old, I decided I wanted to be a needle nurse.
I'm not sure what a needle nurse is, but that's what I wanted to be.
So throughout my entire education through grade school, I knew I wanted to be a medical professional.
I narrowed that down when I was in grade nine to wanting to be a paramedic.
So that's what I did when I graduated from high school is there's different levels in EMS in the province.
When I started, there was two levels.
So there was an EMT and a paramedic, which is now called a primary care paramedic and an advanced care paramedic.
We now have an extra level, which is called an EMR, which didn't exist when I started.
So I was an EMT for seven years.
I've worked in various areas in our province, northern Alberta mostly.
And then I returned to school to become a paramedic, which I also worked for many years in and was registered in.
Loved my career.
I'm very proud to be a paramedic.
The time came when I felt like I needed to do something different for many reasons.
And so I went back to school to become a registered nurse.
And so I have my Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
And I've been a registered nurse for since 2011.
I graduated December 2011.
I've worked in the emergency department in the ICU, and I've been in a unit manager position for over four years now.
So you are one of those ICU nurses that Jason Kenney tells me is currently overwhelmed.
That prompts a question for me.
What was it like working in the ICU before the pandemic?
Was it always sort of a state of rationed care in there?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the ICU, I mean, there are certainly peaks and valleys of when we have more patients and when we don't have as many patients.
There seems to be themes on what types of patients we get.
I don't know how that happens, but it does.
So I worked in Red Deer Hospital.
Red Deer Hospital has been over capacity for at least 10 years.
Every single day they announce overcapacity.
So our capacity issues are not new.
COVID is certainly adding to it.
I want to make it very clear that I wholeheartedly know that COVID is a very serious condition for some people.
I know that some people become very sick from it.
I know that there are some long-standing issues that occur afterwards, and I know some people die from it.
I also know other things that are being shared that I don't feel are true and that are very concerning.
So in the ICU, yes, we've had, we've had, I worked there when we were having H1N1-ish people with H1N1, influenza, where you're wearing N95 masks and it's certainly an infectious risk.
It's an intensive care unit.
People are very sick.
Now, what is the policy that came down from Alberta Health Services that prompted you to say, okay, I have to come forward.
I have to put a name to a face to the fight here.
What's that policy?
So that policy is when they mandated the vaccine for all healthcare workers, for all AHS employees, regardless if you work in a hospital or you even work with the public.
Every single person they have decided needs to have this vaccine, which is the only vaccine that you have to have to work in the hospital is Rubella.
They recommend many other vaccines, and I have been vaccinated.
I've been vaccinated for everything on their list, influenza, hep B, you know, everything up until this.
This vaccine will not go into my body.
And I am, well, I'm angry that they think they can make decisions for healthcare workers, for pregnant healthcare workers or pregnant Alberta Health Services employees, breastfeeding Alberta Health Services employees.
It blows my mind.
And up until the point that I received that email, I had said, no, they can't do that.
They won't do that.
And then I got an email.
And also to be very clear, I got that email the same time every other person who works for Alberta Health Services got it.
So as a unit manager, I had no support.
I had no heads up.
I got the email and then I had staff members who had a lot of questions and concerns.
I reached out to our human relations department.
I reached out to hire people above me.
And I said, what is it that I'm supposed to be saying to people who have these concerns?
I told them what I was telling them, that they should go to their unions, that they should write letters, that they should express their concerns.
And the response I got was that, yes, you can tell them that.
We have nothing further for you.
You know, and I'm hearing from healthcare workers, and the union actually released a statement, the public union here in Alberta.
They said, no, we're fine with this.
So they're siding with the employer over the dues paying union members.
And I've got my own issues with that.
But, you know, usually the union stands up for the worker.
At least that's what they tell me.
Not so in this case.
And I'm old enough to remember when the union stood up for the rights of healthcare workers to not be mandated to take the influenza vaccine.
And yet they are somehow just noticeably absent or in this case, siding with the employer when it comes to the COVID vaccine, which is a lot more experimental than the yearly influenza vaccine.
And I was, when I saw the email, I had a suspicion that the unions must be agreeing because the unions do control very much of what AHS does for their staff members.
I can't put a disciplinary letter or a letter of warning into a staff member's file without it being grieved, particularly from Yuna.
So I, and when I said to my staff members who are coming to me with concerns, go to your union, I was like, oh, good, because, you know, I've had concerns with the union when I feel that there's staff members who are not safe to practice.
Grieved.
I'm grieved when there's evidence that whatever discipline is coming forward is warranted and it's grieved and it's expensive and it's frustrating.
So I thought that that was good advice for the staff members, but apparently it's not because their unions are not standing up for them and I do not understand why.
Now, the unions aren't standing up for them, but you are.
You fired off a lengthy, well-written letter to your higher ups in the public health supply chain.
Let us know what that was all about.
I'm at a point where I feel like I don't feel like this is my choice any longer to advocate against this mandate.
I feel like it's the only thing that I can do and it's right.
I am not fearful of losing my job because I feel like I don't have a choice.
This is the only thing that I can do ethically, morally, to follow my values.
This is so wrong that I'm not quitting my job right now.
There's been days certainly when I want to.
I will see how this goes.
But quite honestly, I don't want to work for AHS.
I don't want to work for an organization that I no longer trust or respect.
And again, to make it very clear, right up until the day I got that email, I see things from multiple sides.
So I see AHS's point of view.
I see the government's point of view.
I see our taxpayer dollars.
I advocate for my staff members for their well-being and their safety and their mental health and what their work conditions are like.
My job is all-encompassing for needing to look at every area like that.
And now I don't feel like that any longer.
Our taxpayer dollars are wasted.
I see many, many systematic issues, which I put in my letter.
Of course, when I got the response from AHS, that none of that was addressed, nor is my concerns when I'm sending it up to senior leaders right now for the issues that are going on, that they're still doing nothing about all they're saying is COVID is overwhelming our system.
So right now, I am advocating for staff members.
I'm advocating for the safety and health of the people in our province because I am not fearful of COVID.
I am fearful for our healthcare system.
Now, let's touch on some of the things that you addressed in your letter.
Maybe if we could pull out three key points.
I know one of the things that you talked about in there was, you know, the sort of the ethics that you have to operate under and that have guided your career in healthcare.
So tell us a little bit about the nuts and bolts of your concerns in that letter.
Sure.
So the ethics part, you know, our job is to take care of people who come into the hospital and people who need us.
And we take care of all people regardless of your choices that you've made in your life.
So there are people who make healthy choices and they come to the hospital.
And there's some people who have made some unhealthy choices and come to the hospital.
My job as a healthcare professional is to take care of you with compassion and with empathy and with respect and with safety, regardless of why you're there.
And if you listen to people's life stories, which is when I worked in the ICU, it was amazing to me to have conversations when we extubated people so they were able to talk to us and find out their story on how they got to where they are.
So people who have addiction issues, it's not that they had this fantastic life.
I mean, there are people who had a great life and they made a decision to try an illicit drug and then started down a different pathway.
But they've got sad stories.
They've got childhood things that have happened to them that make me think, well, if that happened to me, I may choose to take illicit drugs as well, right?
And so we need to think about that.
We need to think of our patients of the story and their journey and where they got to and help them wherever they are.
And that's not what we're doing right now.
Right now we're judging people.
So as the Canadian Nurses Association Code of Ethics, we need to promote and respect informed decision making, which is we're not allowing people to do right now when we're mandating a vaccine.
I won't get into all of the reasons why I don't think this vaccine is necessary or should be forced upon people.
But we're not promoting, respecting, informed decision making.
We do that for every single patient who comes into the hospital, but we're not doing that for the people who work for Alberta Health Services.
Makes no sense to me whatsoever.
We need to maintain privacy and confidentiality.
Is my privacy and confidentiality assured when I go to a restaurant and they ask for my vaccine passport?
It's none of your business, my personal information.
We are sharing information, tidbits, tidbits of information with the entire world.
And then the entire world has their opinion and they start judging people and they're mistreating people and we have division.
There's lots of catchphrases like, I trust the science and the science is clear and I'm listening to the experts.
Okay, well, it's what they're doing right now is a marketing ploy.
So if you look at your shampoo bottle and it says, rated the best shampoo.
Okay, oh, good.
This is rated the best shampoo.
I'm going to choose this one.
Well, there's lots, it's marketing.
Who was it rated by and rated the best shampoo for what?
So that's what we're doing with COVID right now is people are, I'm listening to the experts.
Okay, well, I'm listening to the experts as well.
And I feel like I'm listening to an expert right now, by the way.
I just, you know, people are just taking these stances and they're firm and hard and they don't understand that we've had infectious diseases in our society forever, forever.
But what we're not doing is sharing with you all the stats.
Limiting Visits to the Hospital00:08:43
Like, do you know how many people have Staphylococcal aureus right now?
No, you don't.
Nor does anybody else in the world because we do not test millions of people over and over again and then tell you about it, right?
Staph A infections, very dangerous, you know.
Necrotizing fasciitis, it kills people.
You can lose limbs.
There's lots of bad things out there, C. diff, even norovirus.
But we don't, you know what?
When people are at home and they're vomiting, they have diarrhea for 24 to 48 hours.
We're not saying get to a testing center right away and let's see what that is.
So, people are in a heightened state for things that we shouldn't be telling.
You know what?
If it's a problem for hospitals, then tell us the hospital numbers.
If it's a problem in ICUs, then tell us that.
But you need to tell us all of the details.
And where are they getting these numbers from?
Because I have to fill out a report.
It's gone every day to weekly.
We're back to every day.
It's called a hotspot report, where I'm reporting the number of people who are in the hospital who have tested positive for COVID, the number of new people since I last reported, and the number of staff members.
That is the information.
So I'm telling you how many people have tested positive for COVID in the hospital.
Is this the stats they're using?
Because I will tell you, people are admitted into the hospitals for reasons other than COVID, even though they tested positive.
So a woman can go into labor, have signs and symptoms of COVID, test positive.
We don't know how long she's been positive because you can test positive for a long time after you have been infectious.
And that number would go on the report.
And she's not in hospital for COVID.
She's in hospital for labor, for baby.
That's right.
She's going to have her baby.
Whether she's COVID positive or not, she's in the hospital and have her baby.
We're seeing people who have heart attacks come to the hospital.
Sign and symptom of a heart attack is shortness of breath.
Shortness of breath is on the symptom list to get tested for COVID.
You test positive for COVID.
Now you're in the hospital because you had a heart attack.
But here, this is a statistic.
People who are terminal with cancer test positive for COVID.
They may die.
Did they die because they had COVID?
Did it contribute?
Possibly.
They have terminal cancer.
They were going to die.
I'm not trying to be insensitive.
I'm very compassionate for families.
I'm very passionate about end-of-life care, which is also part of why I'm advocating right now, which I'll get to in a minute.
But this is what we're seeing.
We're seeing people with urinary tract infections who come in who have tested positive for COVID.
They are in the hospital because they are on a urinary tract infection meeting IV antibiotics.
They are not in the hospital because of COVID.
So I don't know where they're getting their numbers from.
I can't say they're getting it from the reports I'm making.
All I know is that I'm reporting it and I'm reporting something without the necessary details.
I'm not reporting whether somebody's being vaccinated or not for COVID.
You know, they're telling us about people who are dying.
So if somebody has tested positive for COVID, dies of a stroke, is this considered part of their death toll for COVID?
And I haven't heard this anywhere.
Are people, they're not sharing this information.
They're not sharing the details, nor do I necessarily think they should for who's in the ICU and who's dying, for what comorbidities.
Do they have end stage organ disease?
Because people with end stage means you're going to die from that.
So, you know, we have outbreaks, we have outbreaks.
We had an outbreak in a hospice and people died.
The criteria to get into the hospice is that you were expected to die.
So we're putting fear into people, which is, it's so unhealthy.
We're not meant to be in this heightened state of fear.
You know, a lot of people have heard of fight or flight.
It's our body's mechanism to get through short time periods.
We're putting people in fight or flight for months and months.
It's making us unhealthy.
So it's just, it's awful.
When I was talking about how passionate I am about end-of-life care, it's end-of-life care, but it's also care for people who are in the hospital.
We're limiting who can see their loved ones in the hospital.
And I am, I, you know, when that first started, I'm like, okay, we're trying to keep less people out of the facility.
It's been 19 months.
And we have patients who come into our hospital and they want to die because they are so lonely and they have been isolated.
And then we're not letting people in.
And if you're considering end of life, if we're expecting you to live four to six months or four to six weeks, which is also a weird range.
I don't know why the four is in there.
Why aren't you just saying less than six weeks?
But so we do our best for that.
And then we still limit how many people can come in.
But up until that point, depending on what facility you are at, determines how many people can come in and see you.
So at our facility, we have been able to keep the two designated visitors in to see people.
Well, if you have three children, how are you determining which children?
What is it?
Your top two favorites?
And I know I'm being facetious, but it's true.
You know, like if Glenn were in the hospital, he's got me and he's got two daughters.
So who gets to come in and see Glenn?
You know, I think it's terrible.
People are dying in the hospital right now.
And if their loved one has, if they're unvaccinated and they've been in close contact, then they're not automatically allowed to come in and see them.
Or if they've got signs and symptoms, their loved one is dying in the hospital.
And their spouse, we need to get a special exemption, a special exemption to come in and be with your spouse.
It breaks my heart.
I think it's terrible.
I'm speechless, obviously.
You know what?
Just sorry to interrupt you, but I think we experienced this firsthand when our friend Haley was in the hospital recovering from her car accident.
I would drive down from the Edmonton area to Calgary, where she was in long-term care at the hospital.
She was there for months.
And the only way that I could visit her was if Glenn rolled her outside and we would visit each other in the parking garage while she recovered from a serious spinal cord injury.
And if she didn't have somebody like Glenn there while her husband was away working trying to pay the bills, she would not see anybody.
She wouldn't just, I mean, that would be it because she had to keep her one visitor or her two visitors.
She had to keep Glenn as one so that he could take her outside.
And she had to keep her husband as one because when he came home from working away, he needed to be able to see her.
So when I drove down, we had to visit in the parking garage in the cold while she recovered from a spinal cord injury.
I lived this policy.
We all did.
And people still are.
And there's facilities not allowing anybody in.
The foothills, you know, there's units that won't let anybody in.
The ICU wasn't letting people in to see their loved ones until they were going to die.
So they were in the hospital intubated for, you know, a month.
Their loved ones can't see them.
And then all of a sudden they're like, you know what?
Your loved one is not going to survive this.
So we need to consider taking away the ventilator and they're going to die.
And then that's when they let their loved ones in.
When we provide end-of-life care for people, we're not only providing end-of-life care for the person who is sick and dying.
We're providing end-of-life care for the family and their loved ones because that's who needs to continue living.
These are people who need to then go on and take care of their own families.
And we're damaging people.
We're harming them.
So in any code of ethics you look at, it says do no harm.
We are harming people.
We're harming them.
We're not promoting healing and health when we're not allowing people to see their loved ones in the hospital.
And it's not healing or healthy for the person in the hospital or the person who's at home wondering what's happening with their loved one.
People Misusing Emergency Departments00:06:28
Now, tell me about the response from a guest management at Alberta Health Services to your letter detailing all the ethics problems with what's happening with.
I mean, your letter detailed not only the ethics problems with mandating vaccinations for the entire healthcare system, including pregnant and breastfeeding nurses, but also the problems with the handling of the COVID crisis from the very beginning.
What was their response to you?
Well, their response basically, I'm pretty sure they just copied and pasted the same as what they sent me in my AHS email about how they are, oh, I wrote it down.
Health and safety of our workers, patients, and public are of the utmost importance.
Okay, except for the only thing that you are addressing is a vaccine that you're mandating into people, because you're not addressing all of the problems that have been happening for my entire healthcare professional life.
You haven't done anything about that, including that I'm being far more vocal than I was before, and I'm doing my best to do it in a professional and respectful manner.
But I am being very clear.
Our emergency departments have been overwhelmed and abused for what we're using them for for my 23 years I've been 28, sorry, 28 years I've been a healthcare professional.
Same thing has been happening.
People are using emergency departments as walk-in clinics.
You know, they didn't like what the last five doctors maybe told them about something, about a condition that they've had for months to years.
So they've decided to come to the emergency department.
An example, somebody will come in and say, I have back pain.
And the nurse will say, okay, how long have you had your back pain for?
And they'll say two years.
And the nurse will say, okay, can you tell me what's different about your back pain today that's brought you into our emergency department?
And they'll say, nothing.
I'm just tired of my back pain.
I definitely think you should have something done with your back pain.
Having chronic pain is very taxing on your brain and on your mental health.
And it can be very traumatizing and it can affect your entire life.
So I'm not minimizing the issue, but the emergency department isn't the place to come.
We're seeing people come now because they want swabs, because they're afraid, because they're watching the news and social media.
And so now they've got a sniffle or a sore throat and they're like, oh my gosh, what if I have COVID?
What if you have COVID?
What treatment is different because you went to the emergency department than if you stayed home?
Nothing.
They're going to tell you to go home and rest and have fluids and get some fresh air and eat healthy.
They're not necessarily going to tell you some other things that you should do, like take vitamin D, right?
So if what you're going to get from the emergency department is no different than what you can do at home, please don't come to the emergency department.
When you come to the emergency department and you have any signs and symptoms of COVID, we have to put you into an isolation room.
The hospital I work at has nine rooms in our emergency department.
And we have patients who come in for things other than COVID, but we're not able to care for everybody because we put people in isolation, which takes time of nurses to put on their isolation PPE to go in.
We're running out of the PPE because we're using it so often.
Our environmental service staff members can't keep up with the cleaning because then we have to do a terminal clean in that room because somebody, you know, may or may not have an infectious disease that's been in that room.
It's just so I've asked, I've sent, I've sent emails.
I'm like, what is overwhelming our emergency department is people non-urgent complaints.
We do infusions in our emergence in rural emergency departments that shouldn't be done in emergency departments.
We have people coming in because they can't get in with their family doctor.
Yeah.
Sometimes it's because they phone and their family physician office will ask, Do you have signs and symptoms?
And if they say yes, then their family physicians won't see them.
So then they come to the emergency department.
Although I've got a family member who phoned his doctor, didn't tell them at all why he was trying to get in.
And that physician office told him to go to the emergency department.
And this is happening and this has happened for years.
So have we taken care of this problem?
No.
I've sent an email two weeks ago.
Has anything come out?
What I've been told is that they're working with the communications department so that they can, you know, encourage people not to come to emergency departments to get swabbed right now.
Has this come out?
It came out when COVID very first in March and April, we sent out messaging to the public that please don't come to the emergency department if you don't have an urgent health concern.
And I want people to come to the emergency department if they have a health concern.
If you have chest pain, please come to the emergency department.
Phone EMS.
If you have stroke-like symptoms, please phone EMS and come to the emergency department.
If you have a sniffle, please stay home.
Please don't come to the emergency department.
So we shared this messaging with the public when COVID first came about in Alberta.
And the public was respectful and we had less visits in our emergency department so we could take care of the people who needed our care.
And so why is it taking weeks to come out with this messaging when it did come out already?
I don't understand.
So my concerns with this mandate is because I've got so many questions that nobody is giving me answers to.
So give me, and the response from AHS, that email that they responded with, they responded with their QA sheet that they have.
That doesn't answer any of the questions that I have.
I've read all of your stuff.
I've read it all because I've been in a leadership position in our hospital since this has all started.
So I've read everything that you've put out over and over, and I'm reading your COVID information and trying to get it all sorted and things that are changing.
I'm staying on top of it, but you are still not answering my questions.
And your email, no, that didn't answer any of my questions.
Properly Utilizing Hospital Beds00:05:43
You know, it's a placebo.
It's to placate you and shut you up and make you go away.
But I don't think you're the kind of lady to do that kind of thing.
What would you do differently?
If you were able to change one, two, or three things immediately in the healthcare system, what would Debbie Carrot, manager in AHS, do?
You know, it's a hard question to answer because there's so many things.
What I have seen as an issue for a lot of times and which I've advocated for and which I volunteered to go on committees for is that we need to have people in appropriate places.
So if you are acutely ill, then you should be in an acute care bed or an acute care unit.
If you require a long-term care bed, then you should be in a long-term care unit, not on an acute care bed.
The hospital that I work at, we've had consistently a third of the people who are on our unit needing an alternate level of care.
So, either a supportive living, generally level four or 4D, which is for people who have dementia, or a long-term care.
So, there's many reasons why people stay on our unit this for this reason, and none of which I think is reasonable.
So, we need to do that.
If the Alberta province is telling us, whether it's AHS or the government, that we need beds, that's how we're going to get beds.
So, Verna, you said there's 200 long-term care beds all of a sudden available.
Well, great.
Where are they?
My unit's still the same people on my unit right now, so they haven't gotten those beds.
When places are on outbreaks, we're not moving people in there.
Well, every place is on outbreak right now because their criteria for an outbreak is one person, not necessarily one positive person, one person who has signs and symptoms now that they suspect that it could be an outbreak.
They're on outbreak.
So, we're not moving people any longer.
With influenza or with norovirus, before we had to have three positive people, and that's that's not three positives.
So, if somebody's admitted to the acute care with positive for COVID or norovirus or influenza, which norovirus and influenza apparently have gone away, by the way.
Miraculous.
I know COVID has solved all these problems.
Then we needed three positive cases from people who are already on the unit.
That's how we declared an outbreak.
When we got five people with positive swabs, we stopped testing.
But that's not what we're doing with COVID.
Not only are we like continually testing, we're doing prevalence testing.
People who are in long-term care are having swabs shoved up their nose every three days for prevalence.
We are damaging people.
It is awful.
Tell me, who, when you are in a long-term care, wants this?
You know?
Sorry, I realize I digressed from your question.
One is if they're telling us that we need beds, then we need to have people in appropriate beds.
And we haven't been doing that.
And we haven't been doing that for my entire career.
We need to properly utilize emergency departments.
Also has not been done.
If we properly utilized emergency departments, we would also then be able to free up emergency medical service staff members because we are also not using emergency medical services properly.
People are fleeing ambulances for reasons that they shouldn't necessarily be.
We are overwhelming that system.
We aren't able to transfer people out for things like CAT scans because EMS is busy standing in hallways because there's no hospital beds to move their patients into, because they are being diverted to all over the province.
So they're leaving their home communities.
They're being used for transfers that are unnecessary because somebody doesn't have a ride.
You know, we're also leaving people in the hospital who don't need to be in the hospital.
It's not only people who are waiting for an alternate level of care placement.
We leave people in the hospital because it's faster to get diagnostic testing if you're in the hospital than if you're at home.
So I was at a meeting six years ago and this was brought to the attention.
This has not changed.
So it's a huge flaw in the system.
I don't want to tag people against each other, but we have physicians who won't discharge their patients from the hospital when the rest of the multidisciplinary team has deemed that that person no longer requires acute care services.
But sometimes people don't want to leave.
They feel safe in the hospital.
They're fed in the hospital, you know.
So, there's lots of things that we can do for people in their homes that we're not.
The extra health care workers that Severna Yu thinks is going to solve and keep people at home.
I'm not sure if she knows what happens in the home care system.
Does she know what health care workers or sorry, healthcare aides do for people when they're at home?
They help bathe them.
They can help them with their medication.
If it's bubble packed, they can pop it out of the package and into a cup so that person can take their medication.
You know, it's very limited.
They can help them get dressed.
The people that I have in the hospital right now on the acute care waiting for long-term care, that's not going to help them.
I can't send them home.
Contract Workers' Challenges00:15:36
Oh, it's okay.
We're going to help some, we're going to get you dressed in the morning.
So now you can stay at home.
It's much more complex.
Now, getting back to, I mean, you should be the health minister, but anyway, getting back to-instead of the lawyer.
Oh, Sheila, come on.
I know, I know.
Who keeps doing the same wrong thing over and over and over again and expecting some sort of different miraculous result.
Anyway, getting back to the reason I wanted to have you on because you're so brave.
You spoke out against the forced inoculation of the entire healthcare system here in Alberta.
How many you've told me from the inside, both from being a paramedic and seeing the problems with the emergency system, but also in ICU and in management.
How many nurses can this healthcare system stand to lose if they don't go along to get along with the forced inoculation with the COVID vaccine?
You know, this is the other thing that just blows my mind.
Right now, I feel very fortunate at the site that I work at.
Up until a few months ago, we've had a multitude of people apply for our positions.
We've got a very good reputation for having great teamwork, of being welcoming to new staff members and to students.
Students also really like to come to the site that I work at.
And now I'm having positions that nobody's applying for.
And this has happened to lots of other sites, and it occurred to them before it occurred to us, started occurring or current.
I don't know if that's the right word.
And I've had positions that I've had to post five times because I am not getting applicants to our end positions that is open.
We are hanging on by a thread and the staff members are exhausted.
Staff members have been working extra hours.
The province came out with an uplift program a few months ago, which gave people the opportunity to increase their FTE.
So when we implemented that, I'm fortunate.
I think I got the equivalent of 2.13 FTE for that.
And I was really excited and said to my staff, you know, this is great.
We're giving people the opportunity to work at a higher FTE.
I feel like this is going to give us a bit of a break.
So you can, you know, we can focus on some of the other things that we need to look at on how we can improve the care that we're providing for people.
We don't even know.
You can't even tell that we've got people working at a higher FTE right now because we still have so many openings that there's some sick calls.
There's not as many as I would expect when considering that as soon as somebody has a sign and symptom of COVID, which has a long list of signs and symptoms.
So there is some sick calls, but it's just like we are not, we're not managing.
And I don't just mean my site, I mean many other sites.
There's been bed closures because of staffing.
I have never seen this where there's so many sites with bed closures, which they just opened up.
By the way, they opened up these beds and that's what was reported is we opened up beds.
Yeah, I'm sure you did open up the beds, but is that because now you have the staff members to safely care for people?
Or did you open up beds because people are saying we need more beds?
Having a room open doesn't safely care for people.
Having proper staffing levels does.
We do not have proper staffing levels right now.
So I'm not sure if AHS thinks that by coercing and bullying people to get a vaccine that they don't want to get, that that's the solution, we are going to lose people.
And we're not only going to lose healthcare workers, we're going to lose people who work in other departments.
We need everybody in our system to work.
We need environmental services, we need maintenance workers, we need health information record management people.
We need everybody to be at work and that's not going to happen.
So I'm not sure how they say that the health and safety of our workers, patients, and public are of the utmost importance when they're driving people away.
I don't get it.
They're driving people away and I know this because they are driving me away.
And I know of hundreds of other nurses who are ends who feel the same way.
And so they're not listening.
I don't know who they think is going to be taking care of people.
And this is where, you know, the public who thinks that people who are unvaccinated are being selfish and it's the unvaccinated people's fault.
You need to, you're not going to have people taking care of you.
So it's very, I don't know what's going to happen.
I've heard in Quebec too that they say, well, we're going to have contract workers.
Well, where are these contract workers?
Do you think that there's a bunch of RNs and LPNs and healthcare aides?
You think there's all these people sitting around waiting to go for their contract work?
Because the ones you're going to lose, they can't be contract workers because they still won't be able to step foot in your facility.
So where are these contract workers coming from?
I have theories that are these contract workers going to be coming from other countries.
So I'm opposed to that, of course, when you've got willing and people who are ready to work right here in our province who you're saying can't come to work because they're not taking a vaccine that you've chosen for our bodies.
But when you bring people in, even from other zones within Alberta, it takes extra orientation because we've got policies and procedures we have to follow and we do things differently.
So bringing nurses from other provinces and other countries is problematic.
And the orientation and who do you think is orientating them?
Because the nurses who are working right now are done.
They are exhausted.
They are physically exhausted, mentally exhausted.
So now we're going to ask them, oh, here, can you please orientate people who know nothing about our healthcare system or how we work?
I feel like honestly, HS is playing a game of Russian roulette.
And it's not going to be good for the people in our province.
Yeah, I hadn't considered some of the points that you're making there.
I just naturally thought, okay, well, there will be this mass exodus of nurses, or at least a substantial exodus of nurses and healthcare workers and people who work in the healthcare system who just aren't going to get vaccinated.
But the vaccine mandate, as you point out, is also causing problems with filling existing positions that no one's applying for.
And then you're going to have overworked nurses saying, you know what?
It's not for me.
I'll go back to school or I'll go do something else or I'll stay home with my kids, whatever.
The world is your oyster, but you don't have to work yourself to death in the healthcare system.
So I guess the problems that will manifest are sort of threefold there with staffing.
Now, I would really hate for the healthcare system to lose someone like you, but that could be one of the consequences for you speaking out.
What are the professional ramifications you might face for even just sitting down with me in this interview where you talk about your personal experience in the healthcare system?
Well, I'm a union exempt employee.
And so I feel that it's easier.
And Alberta Health Services has terminated employees who are union exempt for their own reasons.
And you know what?
If that's what happens, then that's, I mean, I'll fight it, obviously, but that's fine with me right now because me standing up for what I believe in and what I believe is right for patients and staff members far outweighs that consequence.
I'm also concerned about my governing body, which is Karna.
You know, there's some, there's different ways that people can look at, you know, the code of ethics or speaking out and things like that.
So I'm not sure if our governing body is going to be taking on this mandate as well.
I have asked them that question.
I emailed it and I received a response and they said, well, can you please call me?
And I said, well, I'd prefer if you can please give it to me in writing.
So I haven't heard back yet.
And the reason I asked that question, I've already renewed my license for this year, but there are staff members who haven't.
And they're like, if AHS isn't going to let me work or if Karna is going to mandate this, then we should know before we register.
So it costs $656 to register.
And if the day after you pay your money, you decide that you don't want to be registered any longer, you don't get any of your money back.
So, I mean, it's an extra financial burden on people who are looking at not getting paid from their employer.
So, I mean, that's a concern as well, but not one that's going to stop me from advocating for patients and the public and for staff members and for myself and for my grandchildren and for everybody else.
My last question.
If Tyler Chandro, the lawyer turned health minister, were watching right now, what's the one thing that you would say to him?
I would say to him and Jason Kinney and Bernie Yu and lots of others that you need to start talking to the people who are working on the floor.
I know that there are RNs and LPNs, healthcare workers, paramedics, police officers, firefighters who are for this mandate.
So you need to talk to people.
But that's what I had in my letter as well.
When did you talk to us?
You're not talking to us.
You're not listening.
I am supportive of the staff that I work with who choose to be vaccinated.
I'm supportive of the staff I work with who choose not to be vaccinated.
This division needs to stop.
It is disgusting.
It's very troubling.
People have taken polar opposites, and we are saying the most, I say we, it's not me, unethical statements that are so disheartening for people who are compassionate and who want to take care of their patients.
So I'm hearing things like from physicians and from nurses saying that if you're unvaccinated, you shouldn't be treated in the hospital.
Okay, but we have been treating people who smoke and who drink and illicit drug use and doing all sorts of things.
But if you're unvaccinated, you shouldn't be treated.
That's troubling.
They're saying these in open areas, such as the emergency department, where anybody can hear you, saying that people should have to pay.
If you get COVID and you're unvaccinated, you should have to pay for your health care.
Well, first of all, we all pay for our healthcare.
It's called our taxes.
And why?
How can you pick and choose people for that?
It's just awful.
There was a Facebook posting of a physician, and his page is open.
And I will be reporting to the CMA and to Alberta Health Services because his statement is just terrible.
And I'm just, I'm going to open it up on my phone here.
I took a picture of it.
So, well, it's about time someone said it.
But if at this point you remain unvaccinated, then you are just plain stupid.
He carries on, blah, blah, blah.
And then he says, your Google searches, healthy diet, lifestyle choices, and supplements won't cut it.
You have no clue.
Literally, zero idea.
Hmm.
Well, Mr. Doctor, I do have a clue and I do have an idea.
And because I have an alternate perspective than you do, does not make me stupid.
And I need to question: how are you treating your patients?
So are you treating your patients who have chosen not to be vaccinated differently?
Because you just made this a public post.
Yeah.
Public.
I don't like to call names, but I'm not sure that the unvaccinated people are the ones who are not the wisest.
If you look at like the CMA code of ethics, he's gone against so many of them.
People have the right to their own opinions and they have the right to choose what they're going to put into their body.
And they should have the right to choose who's going to come see them when they are sick in the hospital.
So you can't just look at one area and then say a blanket statement for people.
That's not the way things go.
So I am, and I've heard this from multiple people that this is what they're hearing in their workplace.
AHS says that we don't tolerate that.
Well, don't we?
Because it sure seems like we do.
And this is also what I sent to the senior leaders of my portfolio.
I'm like, this is awful.
This can't carry on.
This has gone beyond us putting up a poster saying that we don't tolerate abuse in the workplace.
The response to that also was just about the AHS verbiage.
We don't tolerate this.
Really?
But you are.
And it's awful.
And we are, there's people who don't want to come to the hospital because they're being treated this way.
That is not our job.
Our job is to take care of people.
We're not taking care of people.
And when the government is spreading this fear and you listen to Jason Kinney, for the love of God, get vaccinated.
For the love of God, listen to what people are telling you.
You know, it's not like one person who's against this.
There's many people.
We need to look at everybody's perspectives.
We need to respect people.
I am just, I think the division is terrible.
There's people who won't even look at me because they've asked somebody if I believe the same things as Glenn has, has said publicly.
Masked Conversations Matter00:05:17
They've asked somebody else if I'm vaccinated or not, and then they will not look me in the eye.
You know, if you would like to know why I make choices for myself, then, you know, maybe I'll share some of it.
I won't, you know, some things are private.
It's really none of your business.
But if you really want to know what my perspective is, then have a conversation with me.
And I would like to have a conversation with you and find out why you feel the way that you do.
But we are lacking that.
Right now, we're making a judgment and we're using derogatory remarks such as anti-vax and anti-mask.
That's derogatory, just like anything else.
I'm not anti-vax.
I choose not to be vaccinated for COVID-19, but I've been vaccinated for everything else.
So why are we able to stereotype people for this issue when we're told not to do that for anything else?
You know, we're told that if somebody looks differently than us, we should not say, well, where are you from?
What country are you from?
Because we have the assumption that they are not Canadian, that they were not born in Canada.
So why are we making assumptions about somebody who doesn't want to put a mask on their face or somebody who chooses not to receive this vaccination?
I think we've lost our humanity.
I don't even like to go to the grocery store because, first of all, having a mask on my face, I like to smile at people.
I like to interact with people.
I put a mask on my face.
I want to put my head down.
I don't want to look at people.
And then now when I look around, I'm like, well, what are they saying?
Because people are being so cruel to each other.
Yeah.
Now, Debbie, I know I said one final question, but I have one more.
Do you have any advice for healthcare workers like yourself who are opposed to forced inoculations as a condition of your employment?
What do you have to say to them?
Because you are willing to be the public face of all of this.
But what do you have to say to them as they try to navigate a workplace where they are being treated like lepers and they could lose their job?
I would say this is what I'm going to tell you that I see to start with.
I am a supportive manager.
I don't know, I haven't spoken to other managers who are taking the same stance as I have been.
I'm hearing from a lot of people across our province, healthcare workers who are feeling like they are being bullied by their manager or they're just being given the blanket statement by their manager.
Just report your vaccination.
Just fill out this form, just whatever.
I've never managed that way.
So I am supportive of staff members, like I said before, whether you've chosen to be vaccinated or not.
What I'm hearing from people is that people who have a stance where they think this mandate is good or that they're vaccinated and that they then feel like they're superior to others are speaking their voice in the workplace.
They're speaking, saying whatever they feel like they want to say, which isn't appropriate regardless of what the topic is.
When we're in the workplace, we're there to do a job and to stand up with our ethics and to be professionals.
The people who have concerns with this vaccination, or even people who have been vaccinated, but they're against this mandate, feel like they can't say anything.
They don't want to have the conflict in the workplace.
They don't feel like they can voice their perspective on things because the other people are being so loud or so firm on what they're saying.
So that's a problem.
And my recommendation to people isn't necessarily to be sane, to standing up and voicing that in the workplace.
Nobody should, we don't need to talk about it in the workplace.
But we do need to open conversations.
So saying things like, you know, I have an alternate perspective.
If you'd like to have a conversation about this sometime, I would be happy to do that away from work.
So doing that, not being fearful of speaking your voice or your opinion.
And it's hard because people are being so cruel.
And, you know, this isn't the only thing going on in people's lives.
We still have our other, we had lots of challenges in our life before this came about, and we still have those challenges.
So we need to be kind and empathetic and compassionate to each other.
I do encourage other managers to advocate with your staff or to have conversations with your staff members.
Yeah, and just, I think we need to hold tight and question what rights, even if you believe that this mandate is right, what rights are you willing to give up?
Thanking Brave Advocates00:01:39
And what do you think is coming next?
Debbie, I want to thank you so much for being so brave to advocate for your fellow healthcare workers.
I know that this puts you in some employment jeopardy.
And if any ill treatment should befall you, Rebel News has your back.
Don't you worry.
Thank you, Sheila.
Thanks, Debbie.
We'll check in again very, very soon.
And if, like I said, if any sort of consequences come your way for speaking out, speaking to me, even supporting Glenn, I guess, please let me know.
You bet.
Have a great day.
You too.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Debbie's an ICU nurse.
The Alberta government has not yet redeployed her to ICU rooms that they tell us are collapsing.
Again, just another instance of government mismanagement of the pandemic.
And I want to reiterate that if Debbie needs any legal support, we're here to provide it.
And we're going to do that through your donations to fightvaccinepassports.com in partnership with the Democracy Fund, a registered Canadian charity that works to advance civil liberties in Canada for all Canadians.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much to Debbie Carrot.
Thank you so much to you at home for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next weekend.