Holly Hilliard is an RPN from Headwater Health Care in Orangeville. She started her career in healthcare as a PSW and upgraded to the RPN program while caring for her youngest son. She is currently working towards her RN. Holly has a love for wound care and hopes that one day she can become an educator in wound healing.
Five years ago, she became a nurse steward and attended her first SEIU Healthcare Leadership Academy, where she met Nursing Division President Jackie Walker. She has grown and developed her leadership skills over the past few years, and at the 2019 SEIU Healthcare Convention, she was elected as the Hospital representative on the SEIU Healthcare Executive Board.
When COVID-19 hit Canada, she started planning ways to get out of the house. She needed to isolate herself from her husband, who is immunodeficient, and her boys to keep them safe, while she was still working at the hospital. Trisha Quinn, a friend of Holly who was also a nurse, invited her to stay in her RV. Holly discovered that it was provided to her friend free of cost to assist her for the duration of the pandemic. She reached out to Under the Stars RV and they informed her that they were also willing to lend her one to support her during this time.
Holly shares, “I wanted a space that would be big enough for some of my co-workers and myself. This trailer will be home, it is where I am going to live as long as I need to, to keep my family safe!”
Thankfully, Holly is still close to home and can see her family from afar; her husband brings her coffee every morning and drops off her dinner at the RV doors. She is happy to see that even through this tough time there is still great humanity around her. She is not the only healthcare worker making great sacrifices to keep not only their families safe but the public.
“Please stay at home! Please let this be over! I do not want to be away from my family and live in a trailer. We urge you to stop having COVID-19 parties or setting up meetings to see your friends. Those decisions are truly hurting the healthcare system. Those decisions are putting healthcare workers at risk,” Holly states.
She has seen so many young adults with Coronavirus enter the hospital, which has been extremely heart-wrenching. She explains how scary it has been to watch the virus worsen and how quickly it spreads.
“Like every facility, we do not have enough Personal Protective Equipment, we encourage the public to continue donating because that is what is going to keep our healthcare workers safe,” Holly describes.
SEIU Healthcare truly appreciates the courageous decisions workers have had to make during these unprecedented times. As they are making countless sacrifices for the public, we are asking that the public obliges with the laws and regulations the government has in place to support our healthcare professionals and help us flatten the curve.