Ronald V. David, a cleaner at the Brampton Civic Hospital died on April 9. (Photo: The Philippine Reporter)

Canada

Dalawang Pinoy naman ang namatay

Teodoro ‘Ted’ Alcuitas

Two more deaths in the Filipino-Canadian community has brought the total to four due to the coronavirus in Canada.

 

Victoria Salvan

On April 17, Victoria Salvan was the first patient attendant to die in Quebec but unfortunately she will not be the last, says a colleague.

Her last shift was on April 10 and  was told to go home early that day because she had a fever. On April 14, she was tested for COVID-19. The results came back positive the next day.

Her son told CBC News that health officials told his mom  to stay home and said her symptoms — a fever and cough — would last about two weeks.

She died at home two days later. She was 64, just weeks away from retiring,  according to one colleague.

She spent her whole career for Grace Dart long-term care home in Montreal working there for 25 years.

Salvan worked long, gruelling hours, doing so much overtime she simply slept at work according to reports.

Yet even the outbreak at Grace Dart didn’t deter Salvan from caring for her patients, said her son, who asked not to be named in an interview with CBC News.

“Our mother was always devoted to her work. She was selfless like that,” he said. 

 

Ronald V. David

The first known Ontario health-care worker to die of Covid-19, Ronald V. David was a cleaner at the Brampton Civic Hospital. He died on April 9.

Although his name was not initially released at the request of the family, the Toronto-based Philippine Reporter reported the story in its April 2020 issue.

The 58-year-old came to work on March 18 and 19. 

But after he fell ill on March 20, experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, he went to an assessment centre to be tested. He then went home and self isolated.

A week later, he became so ill he went to his hospital’s emergency department, where he was admitted into the intensive care unit.

During his time in the intensive care unit, doctors and nurses sought to keep the lines of communication open with his family, as they have done with all other critically ill patients who cannot be visited by their relatives, reports say.

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