Mother, nurse describes terrifying ordeal trying to get young daughter through protest outside KGH

A Kelowna mother and nurse who had to take her daughter to an appointment at Kelowna General Hospital in the midst of Wednesday's protest says she was verbally abused by the crowd, which terrified her nine year old.

"We parked and that was when we had to walk from this area over to here," Tanya Miles explained. "My daughter was of course like 'mommy, mommy I can’t do that' and I was like 'we can do this we have to do this.'"

"As we got closer ... one woman grabbed my mask and tried to take it off. People are yelling at us saying inappropriate things. I end up picking up my daughter and putting her on my back and piggyback her so that we could get through.”

Miles, a nurse at the B.C. Cancer Clinic, said some of her colleagues were spat on as they tried to enter the hospital, others were forced to miss chemotherapy appointments.

Her daughter was left shaken.

“She was sobbing, crying, terrified. Even putting her to sleep at night it came all back again and we had to talk about it," she said.

Miles says she understands everyone has the right to protest, but the location was what she called "disheartening."

“Nobody here makes the rules. Everybody here is just trying to do their best. They have missed time with their families. Nobody in here cares whether you have a vaccine or no vaccine ... nobody cares when you come through those doors, they will take care of you. So to come here was like a kick in the kneecap. It is almost like our workplace was assaulted.”

The protest, one of many across Canada, was first promoted by a group calling themselves Canadian Frontline Nurses. The group was founded by two Ontario nurses who were fired after travelling to Washington D.C. to speak at an anti-lockdown rally. Since then, they have been travelling the country making conspiratorial and unsubstantiated claims about the pandemic. The group has no apparent ties to Kelowna and none of the licensed members of the group appeared to be in attendance.

“It bothers me, that concept or the thought process that this was put on by a bunch of nurses. Legally, we can’t call ourselves nurses unless we carry an actual licence," Miles said.

There were a few people in attendance at Wednesday's protest wearing scrubs, but they were unable to answer questions about what kind of nursing they practice, provide a name, or any way to verify they held a nursing license. Meanwhile, Castanet has been inundated with messages and calls from outraged healthcare workers eager to speak on the record about how upset the protest made them.

B.C.’s vaccine passport system rolls out on Sept. 13 and will require proof of at least one dose of the vaccine to enter a wide variety of non-essential businesses.