ICU doc sick with COVID opens up

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This article was published 03/11/2020 (1416 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dr. Owen Mooney has been on the front lines of the pandemic for months, working long hours in intensive care to help people with COVID-19 fight for their lives.

Now, Mooney himself is ill with the novel coronavirus.

The doctor, who works in intensive care at Health Sciences Centre, St. Boniface Hospital and Grace Hospital, began feeling sick within a half-hour of arriving for his Sunday morning shift at St. B. He immediately left; within an hour, he had full-blown symptoms.

Mooney received a rapid test at 1:30 p.m.; by the evening, he received the news he had tested positive.

Since then, he has been isolating in the basement of his family home. His wife and two teenage children were given nasal swab tests Monday and are still awaiting the results.

“I tell people it is like I’ve been run over by a truck,” Mooney said by telephone Tuesday.

“It is definitely something my body hasn’t seen before. I feel a little bit of energy today. The last two days, it takes a concerted effort to walk to the bathroom and get back and not want to pass out… but what will I be like in two days? There is fear of the unknown,” he said.

“When I get back to work, I will definitely have insight into how (patients) are feeling.”

Mooney said, based on his experience, he has a mild case. “For me, it has sapped all the energy from me and I have a relatively bad cough.”

Meanwhile, Susan Krepart said she doesn’t see much of her husband — literally.

“I put food on the floor outside the basement door, and I see an arm sweep out and get it,” she said.

“I’m sure he will recover and that I will be fine and the kids will be fine, but who I am worried about is my mom and my grandmother who is 97. Seeing how sick this makes you, I can see how people with underlying issues can really get hit by this.”

Mooney got sick on the same day an open letter to Premier Brian Pallister signed by about 200 doctors (including Mooney) was released to the public and media, asking for the province to do more to get spiralling COVID-19 numbers under control.

“I know it is an impossible situation the province has been put in, the balance between economic cost and the cost of life,” he said. “To shut down so no lives are lost, is that reasonable for a province? Probably not, but I would say things need to be tougher and the time to act is now.”

Dr. Anand Kumar, an intensive care physician with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and professor of medicine at the University of Manitoba, works with Mooney, and calls him “a good doctor.”

“He is a great guy and incredibly good with his patients… It is hard because we now lose him, but all the people he may have had significant exposure with, the doctors and nurses, will also have to self-isolate.”

Kumar, who had publicly argued for a full lockdown before the province placed further restrictions on Winnipeggers this week, said even more needs to be done.

“That’s one of the issues on the demand side,” he said. “When numbers of cases go up, the numbers explode even faster with health-care workers.”

Meanwhile, Krepart is urging Winnipeggers to stay home to reduce the number of cases in the community. She said public health hasn’t called her family yet about her husband, so they are calling the few people they have had contact with.

“Just pop your bubble and stay home,” she said. “Then you won’t have to make the calls to people. I tell you, it is not a good call to have to make.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca