The voices of HealthLine 811: Answering our calls for help

By Kathy Sherling, Clinical Nurse Educator at COVID 811 Screening Site

“Thank you for calling COVID 811. My name is Kathy.

Or Sarah.

Kara.

Chichi.

Honey.

Barb.

And I am a Registered Nurse.”

More than 200 different Registered Nurses (RNs) have helped answer calls from scared, sick, frustrated Saskatchewan people over the past two years through the COVID-19 Screening Site at HealthLine 811.

In March of 2020, nurses from HealthLine and other areas including Primary Health Care, pitched in and scrambled to come up with the first COVID-19 protocol of what to ask callers regarding travel and symptoms. They worked long hours and long days to help answer the frantic calls that came at the beginning. 

The call volume was so high that the HealthLine phone system crashed. The nurses hand-wrote the initial referrals and “runners” picked up stacks of papers to be sorted and faxed to the COVID-19 Testing Sites around the province.

Then the COVID 811 Screening Site was developed – a clinical, technology-based, ever-changing and ever-growing provincial program. HealthLine nurses started the adventure of working from home with all of the challenges and benefits that came with it, like keeping kids quiet and increased internet usage.

HealthLine’s COVID-19 RNs have worked to support the initial roll-out of the vaccine program and spent endless hours in March 2021 calling individuals to book them in for their vaccine appointments before the inbound phone number for SaskVax was in place. They even stayed for weeks following to assist with the call volume. These nurses were also deployed to help with vaccine administration in the summer, when the big push was on to make sure everyone was fully vaccinated. And they have worked endless hours to try and answer and provide much-needed guidance to those calling with questions.

They have worked through lock-downs and home schooling, through themselves or their children being close contacts, through their children being diagnosed with COVID-19, and even while they themselves were fighting this virus.

The HealthLine COVID-19 nurses have been told many tales about loved ones testing positive, about the disappointment that others have put them in the situation they find themselves in, that a little grandpa thought his elderly wife was doing a pregnancy test when she was doing a self-test. 

“But mostly we found out how kind Saskatchewan people are to talk to and how they are genuinely interested in doing what will keep their community safe,” said Kathy Sherling, Clinical Nurse Educator at a COVID-19 HealthLine 811 Screening Site.

The province has referred to HealthLine as “the Gatekeepers.” Its nurses say they are just like everyone else in Saskatchewan.

Tired.

Confused.

Ready for the pandemic to be over. 

“But we are here, for the people, with a smile in our voice ready to answer the next call that comes in to continue to help those in need,” said Sherling.