On Monday, I had to take my wife to the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.
On arriving and checking in, I was told I could not go in with my wife. This by a woman with no mask on who made my wife put on a mask. She then left.
I talked to a nearby nurse and explained that I had been driving for 2 1/2 hours and would like to use the bathroom (which was about 25 feet away from where I was standing).
She told me to go ahead, and while I was sanitizing my hands, the first nurse came back shouting and telling me to get out. The rules wouldn’t let me be there.
I’m sure everyone knows the problem people travelling have finding an open washroom.
A short while later, my wife was taken over to the emergency department, where again, I was not allowed to go in with her, so I sat out in the parking lot.
I could clearly see through the windows, and for two hours, observed the routines in the emergency department.
During this time, I observed all the nursing staff wearing masks and gowns and observing the proper rules. Also, I observed at least seven different peace officers wandering around aimlessly inside the emergency department area.
None but one had on any personal protective equipment. At one point, four of these officers went out into the parking lot and went somewhere, only to return a few minutes later, again with no personal protective equipment. And all four were within a foot of each other.
They walked in to the emergency department and again wandered around wearing no personal protective equipment.
At one point, the one officer who had been wearing a mask went out to the parking lot, took off his mask and proceeded to visit with another officer in a patrol car, his elbow on the window of the car and his face about two feet from the driver.
He then walked back into the hospital with his mask off.
At about 9:30 p.m., my wife was released, so before heading home, we stopped at Tim Hortons on south Gaetz Avenue for some takeout food (having not eaten all day. While sitting in the parking lot eating, we started (at about 9:15) seeing cars full of young people pulling in and parking in the CIBC parking lot next door to Tim Hortons.
Over a period of about 10 minutes, around 50 cars pulled in and parked. These young people got out of their cars and started mingling with absolutely no social distancing and were obviously having a party.
No police showed up. Keep in mind this was on the main thoroughfare of Red Deer.
After a few minutes, I had had enough, so I called the local phone number for the RCMP. The call was answered by a machine stating the “office was closed.”
So much for proper policing and social distancing in Red Deer.
Edward Uhl, Consort