Richmond Hill, Vaughan, King residents invited to say 'thank you' to coronavirus workers

Mackenzie Health provides posters in this week's newspapers

Yorkregion.com
April 16, 2020
Kim Zarzour

When your local newspaper arrives this week, it will come with the latest news of course, and some flyers, but also something different: a special pullout thank-you poster.

Mackenzie Health has come up with a way for residents of Richmond Hill, Vaughan and King to show their gratitude and appreciation to workers on the front line of their local hospital.

The April 16 Richmond Hill Liberal, Vaughan Citizen and King Connection will contain a poster that you can display in your window for front-line workers in your neighbourhood to see.

The poster will convey the message: "Always together. Even when apart".

"We wanted to find a tangible way to showcase that we’re all in this together," said Mackenzie Health’s president and CEO, Altaf Stationwala.

"Our front-line staff at Mackenzie Health have been at the forefront of our fight against COVID-19, working tirelessly and unselfishly to protect and care for our community," he said.

The community has rallied behind health-care workers "every step of the way", Stationwala said, and their words of encouragement and gratitude help lift workers' spirits.

"Community support like this is a vote of confidence for all our health-care workers and is motivation to keep doing all they can to fight this pandemic."

The posters are in addition to a new COVID-19 Response Fund on the hospital’s website.

Hospital spokesperson Christina Cindric said Mackenzie Health is investigating wider distribution of the posters at a later date.

"We hope that by seeing a positive message in a neighbour’s window, it can help everyone in our community feel a little more connected during this challenging time," Stationwala said

As of Apr. 15, Mackenzie Health had 30 patients who tested COVID-19 positive being cared for in hospital.

Seven of those patients were in intensive care and five, on ventilators.

The hospital reported 47 in-patients currently under investigation for the novel coronavirus.