Dr. Christopher De Bono is Executive Director of Mission, Values and Spiritual Care for Unity Health Toronto. A practical theologian, a clinical and organizational ethicist, and a certified Spiritual Care chaplain, Christopher earned his BA and PhD at St. Michael’s and his MDiv at Regis.
No Shame in Testing Positive for Covid
“No one wakes up dreaming of working through a pandemic!” a good friend once told me, but this latest Omicron wave, with its significant transmissibility and ubiquitous presence, has become a challenge for so many of us health care workers.
Health care workers have the “real world” experience of caring for patients who have tested positive for Covid, while following each and every precaution, including getting vaccinated against COVID-19—the most important action we can take to protect each other and prevent severe disease. We have also been among those testing positive or have been among those exposed through the community.
Hospitals have strong supports in place for staff members who are exposed or who are experiencing symptoms so that they can get tested quickly and stay home in order to keep themselves and our patients safe.
As a senior executive in health care, I know this pandemic is having a toll on our staff, physicians, learners, and volunteers. Health care workers across the province are feeling burnt out, and while we are working to increase mental health supports, I’ve also noticed some people feeling shame in getting Covid even though they’ve followed precautions and are vaccinated. Why?
Almost all of us health care workers do what we do because we care. Wanting to serve and help is in our DNA, part of the age-old culture of being a healer. That is why we might think getting Covid as health care staff means we are letting people down—our teams, our patients.
I admit that when I am waiting for a test result, I sometimes have a fear of “what if”? And if I am honest, somewhere in my head is not only a worry of how badly I’ll get it, how I might not be able to actively work, but a little voice saying “What will people say?” as I believe I have been so careful.
As we all know, voices like that are flags for negative thinking—and not only should we spot negative thinking, we should stop negative thinking—and then think and act differently. At times like this I have had to say to myself, “Christopher, there would be no shame in getting Covid if the test comes back positive.”
There’s another reason not to succumb to shame in getting Covid when you do everything in your power to protect yourself and others. There is no shame in getting Covid because there ought not to be a stigma attached to a virus or an illness. Our history teaches us the harm that stigmatization of any illness can do. Think for example about stigma in HIV/AIDS or in mental health. Shame about getting Covid is an awful burden for healing professionals to have to carry themselves. And so, let me say again: “There is no shame in getting Covid.”
Looking forward, I sincerely hope that today’s modelling and data prove to be true. Trending suggests that this wave has mostly plateaued locally, and we hope that new infections fall as quickly as they spiked.
If you know a health care worker, especially one who has tested positive in spite of every precaution, please thank them for their ongoing service.
We’re all dreaming of waking up to work in a post-pandemic world.
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