Photo: Canadian Frontline Nurses/Facebook
The Canadian Frontline Nurses web site was created shortly after the January 6 Capitol riots in Washington, D.C.
An group claiming to characterize Canadian nurses which spreads harmful misinformation in regards to the coronavirus (COVID-19) have been just lately condemned by the nationwide voice for healthcare employees.
Online, it might be straightforward to see the Canadian Frontline Nurses’ (CFN) title and emblem and are available beneath the impression that there actually is a big subset of nurses combating in opposition to the phrases and insurance policies laid out by Canada’s prime well being officers.
The group’s white nurse cap emblem with its vivid crimson maple leaf has been seen on posters and flyers selling anti-vaccine rallies for the reason that begin of 2021. The group’s most up-to-date work contains the anti-vaccine/anti-government/freedom rally held outdoors hospitals across the country.
However, in talking with the Canadian Nurses Association which has represented nurses throughout Canada for practically 100 years, Vancouver Is Awesome has discovered using the phrase “nurse” within the bios of CFN’s founders and the group’s title itself lends a misplaced impression of credibility.
Glacier Media has additionally discovered that the group is comparatively new, made up of some fired nurses, and represents a small minority of Canada’s healthcare employees. It has additionally been extensively denounced by these working with COVID-19 sufferers throughout the nation.
Who are Canadian Frontline Nurses?
Canadian Frontline Nurses is an offshoot of Global Frontline Nurses, which predates CFN by one 12 months. The foundations for CFN have been constructed primarily on social media by ladies like Kristen Nagle, a neonatal ICU nurse and Sarah Choujounian, a registered sensible nurse each from Ontario.
Before the pandemic, Kristen Nagle’s Instagram was crammed with images of her youngsters, wholesome recipe concepts and weight-reduction plan ideas. But on Aug. 10, 2020, Nagle made one in every of her first posts in regards to the pandemic, through which she likened the use of masks and social distancing to Munchhausens, arguing the mentality created by these measures was making extra folks sick than the virus was.
Over the subsequent few months, she spoke at city council meetings spreading misinformation about masks and went on to attend, organize and speak at anti-mask rallies in Ontario. For these actions, Nagle was ultimately fired from her job, according to the CBC.
Still, her protests continued into the beginning of 2021, when she and Sarah Choujounian met at Pearson Airport awaiting a flight to Washington, D.C.
Three months earlier than that flight, Choujounian made the primary put up to the Instagram account nursesagainstlockdowns which merged with the Canadian Frontline Nurses Instagram account in May of this 12 months. During that point she too attended and spoke at anti-mask and anti-vaccine rallies in Ontario. Nagle just lately claimed that you simply “cannot catch a virus” and that polio and Spanish flu weren’t attributable to viruses.
The pair, like-minded of their trigger, was headed to Washington to unite with the Global Frontline Nurses (GFN) and partake in a Freedom Health Summit on Jan. 6.
The January 6 Capitol Riot
Nagle and Choujounian, together with different members of the GFN motion, met on the steps of Capitol Hill hours earlier than 1000’s of supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump broke into the Capitol to attempt to cease the presidential electoral vote rely.
In the aftermath, the College of Nurses of Ontario confirmed to the Canadian Press that each Nagle and Choujounian have been already beneath investigation for talking at anti-mask rallies.
Neither girl is reported to have been a part of the pro-Donald Trump mob that stormed the Capitol.
Four days after the Capitol riots, the CFN Facebook web page was created, sharing an identical emblem to that of the Global Frontline Nurses. Around the identical time, a website for CFN was additionally created, itemizing Choujounian as one of many group’s founding members.
According to Choujounian’s bio she, like Nagle, was fired from each her nursing jobs at care properties in Ontario.
According to the web site, three extra are listed as members of the group. Kristal Pitter, a RN who remains to be entitled to observe with no restrictions however is not employed as a nurse, based on the College of Nurses of Ontario. Jessica Faraone, a RN from Quebec can be entitled to observe however is no longer doing so. Finally, there’s Nordia German, one other RN from Quebec who based on the Order of Nurses of Quebec remains to be entitled to practice till 2022.
A loud minority
Michael Villeneuve is the CEO of the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) and talking from his Ontario dwelling on Friday (Sept. 10), he laid out precisely why Canadian Frontline Nurses represents a small however loud minority.
Villeneuve defined the CNA has been protecting tabs on CFN as a result of the group does not characterize the values of nursing.
“It’s harmful to place that title on the market, which means a nurse title, which clearly carries which means for the general public after which misrepresents reality or science,” Villeneuve mentioned.
With protests held by CFN at healthcare centres throughout the nation in current weeks, the CNA launched a scathing letter directed to the protest’s contributors and organizers titled “Enough is enough.”
“The reckless views of a handful of discredited individuals who determine as nurses have aligned in some instances with indignant crowds who’re placing public well being and security in danger. They have drawn in anti-science, anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-public well being followers whose beliefs align with theirs. For some purpose they’d have us consider that tens of millions of the most effective educated well being scientists, public well being specialists, physicians and nurses globally have all missed one thing they haven’t. Their outlandish assertions about science can be laughable have been they not so harmful.”
‘I’ve by no means seen nurses and medical doctors so drained’
The letter goes on to say anti-public well being disinformation threatens to confuse a drained and bewildered public by misrepresenting private ideology as details, and science as conspiracy. The letter additionally makes an attempt to guarantee Canadians the overwhelming majority of Canada’s nurses are duty-bound to make use of science and proof to guage the care they offer.
Villeneuve says in any group, together with the lots of of 1000’s of nurses throughout Canada, there are sure to be a couple of folks that do not agree with the remainder.
“The drawback is when the group is 448,000, half a p.c remains to be a pair thousand folks, and so they may very well be very vocal utilizing social media,” he explains.
In Villeneuve’s 40-plus years within the healthcare trade, he mentioned he has by no means seen the general public’s vitriol take such a toll on healthcare employees.
“I’ve by no means seen nurses and medical doctors so drained,” he mentioned. “So shaken, and shocked by fellow Canadians lining up and yelling at them.”
To sum up, Villeneuve says this about those that declare to characterize Canada’s nurses whereas additionally spreading misinformation a couple of international pandemic.
“They characterize every little thing that we do not.”
Photo: Canadian Frontline Nurses/Facebook
Nordia German, Kristen Nagle, Sarah Choujounian and Kristal Pitter talking at a anti-vaccine rally.
