Wall of Hope

Lamenting COVID-19 in a Regional Health Care Setting in Nova Scotia

by Rev. Dr. Debra Orton

“I don’t know what else to do for my staff,” was the cry of one nursing manager as the stress related to COVID-19 began to build. At the Valley Regional Hospital in Kentville, NS, we were aware of the seriousness of the pandemic through media and social media reports coming from Asia and Europe. However, when it arrived in Canada in March 2020, it brought a new reality to the soberness of the pandemic, with health workers wearing masks for entire shifts, training for donning and doffing, and working with potential COVID-19 patients.

When Team Lavender, a new peer-topeer support team at the Hospital, heard the cry for help, we put a plan together to support the emotional, spiritual, and psychological well-being of health care workers. Although formal debriefs were scheduled for staff and physicians, we soon realized how difficult it was for them to come to the hospital for selfcare on days off. That is when the ’Wall of Hope’ was created.

On a blank wall in the hospital chapel, two clinical nurse educators drew a huge heart and painted their hands in it. They invited health care workers to paint their hands in and around the heart, as well, and soon a lineup formed from the chapel all the way down the hallway.

The Wall of Hope became a place for health care workers to lament as well as to celebrate one another and their family members. Some health care workers whose life partners work at the hospital painted their hands side by side. Others painted their hands on the wall alongside their colleagues. While others painted each of their hands in a different colour; one representing them and the other representing their children.

By the Wall of Hope in the chapel, staff could freely and safely shed their tears and express their emotional and spiritual pain, grief, despair, fear, and uncertainty. They could share their stories and comfort one another and, as the realities of the pandemic forced many to reflect deeply on their own mortality, it became a place to let their working partners know how much they meant and how much they were appreciated.

Sadly, Nova Scotia faced more than the pandemic in the Spring of 2020. A mass shooting took the lives of 22 Nova Scotians, including two Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) staff, and members from our community partners: policing, volunteer fire fighters, and correctional officers. Further, a military helicopter crash killed several military personnel, including three Nova Scotians. their national Operation Inspiration tour, Canada’s Snowbirds flew over our hospital in Kentville to make sure our health workers were honoured. Two weeks later, one of the Snowbirds crashed while touring in British Columbia, taking the life of yet another Nova Scotian.

The grief from these tragedies and sense of helplessness was overwhelming.

Many had connections to those who had lost their lives and others have loved ones who work in the military, policing, correctional services, volunteer fire departments, and community nursing. Carrying all this pain in their hearts, health care workers asked if we could incorporate our community partners into the Wall of Hope.

As a result, the nurses who created the Wall of Hope painted a fire hat, a red maple leaf for our RCMP Officer, two gold leaves for our correctional officers and two blue and white birds for our VON nursing staff. Staff then came to paint hands around these symbols, expressing their appreciation for the work and dedication of their community partners who had lost their lives and to show that they will never be forgotten.

The Wall of Hope has become a place where health care workers gather in silence and find solace; even a place to eat their meals in peace. It is a place where tender hearts can find healing, new strength, and courage to continue serving those in need regardless of the challenges or risks to their own health. It is a place where our pain and suffering can freely be released, where we can embrace in our wholeness as a human being and where the goodness of our common humanity shines like a bright light in the middle of the night.

Rev. Dr. Debra Orton, a Doctor of Ministry graduate of Acadia Divinity College, is the Coordinating Chaplain at the Valley Regional Hospital, Nova Scotia Health, in Kentville, NS.