Janice Soranno doesn’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but hopes those who are planning to thank front-line health-care workers with parades will reconsider the impact of the noisy events.
“It was quite alarming,” the 51-year-old West Kelowna woman told Global News of the first time she heard one.
Soranno had a front-row seat to several days’ worth of “thankful parades” as she lay on a hospital bed in the COVID-19 ward at Kelowna General Hospital between Apr. 9-14.
The Okanagan woman said she admitted herself to hospital after weeks of being very sick with high fevers and coughing that led to a lung infection.
After testing negative on her only test for COVID-19, Soranno said her doctor told her there was a very good possibility that she still has the virus.
The COVID-19 ward at KGH is a collection of private rooms to help keep patients isolated, she said.
On her first night, she awoke to the sounds of vehicles honking and sirens blaring outside.
“There were police sirens, fire truck sirens and just a whole lot of racket.”
The parades would sometimes happen multiple times a day, even at 10:30 p.m., she said.
“I asked a couple of the nurses what they thought of it and I got the same answer: ‘It’s embarrassing and it prevents the patients from resting.'”
Soranno said she did not receive a reply to emails she wrote to Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran and council members, leaving her disappointed.
WATCH BELOW: Okanagan residents thank hospital workers
She asks that those who are organizing parades consider the gravity of what’s happening inside the hospital and change their method or location.
“What about the people that are with a dying patient or it’s the first time they have been able to fall asleep because of the pain?” she said.
“That is what happened to me. So much pain. It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
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