Great song. Great lyrics. Really top notch production. You guys get a great sound going. Very sweet sounding. Kudos for another great effort, to the lot of you. You yourself have a fine talent for making very sweet melodies. This is a lot like the better Tom Petty tunes, but I like the twang for it better. I mean, every single song I hear, I love. Thank you for doing this. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: In this video nurse Vonnie Allen gives testimony under oath before the Canadian National Citizens Inquiry, a national, independent, citizen-led inquiry into Canada's response to covid-19. https://nationalcitizensinquiry.ca
TRANSCRIPT -TWO EXCERPTS
0:12
VONNIE ALLEN: My name is Vonnie Allen. I was born and raised in Amherst, Nova Scotia. I left Amherst and moved to Moncton in New Brunswick only long enough to get my RN diploma and begin my nursing career. In April of 1987 I moved back to Amherst with my then husband and began working at Highland View Regional Hospital. In February of 88, upon returning from my two and a half month maternity leave, I was given casual employment on the maternity unit. Little did I know that maternity is where I was meant to be and that I would develop a passion for it that would last Almost 34 years until I was unceremoniously put on unpaid leave on December the 1st 2021 for standing up for my rights and declining to take an experimental medication.
[clapping]
I am the proud mother of four adult children and the blessed nanny of three little boys. Only one of my children has been awake and supportive of me throughout this three-year ordeal. Unfortunately the oldest three have believed the mainstream media and the government and have been made unreasonably fearful like so many others. Two of them have forbidden me to speak of anything related to covid and the mandates. I have been muzzled and disallowed to talk of the impacts that the covid mandates have had on my life, the loss of my career, the loss of my income, the loss of respect from much of my community, the refusal of EI to give back any of what I paid in for over 35 years, the seven months I lived with no income except what I could borrow from friends and family and an RRSP* I was forced to cash in, the inability to step foot in my local bowling alley for five months, a place I called my second home for over 40 years, and the denial of entrance to my own local hospital when my youngest daughter had a grand mal seizure last year and had to be rushed in by ambulance. She didn't know her own name, she couldn't speak, she was totally incapable of advocating for herself, she was terrified and I, her mother, a formerly respected veteran nurse of that very hospital, a hero just two years earlier, was not allowed past the front door because I was not vaccinated with an unproven experimental drug.
I was married to my children's father for 29 years, spent 36 and a half years with him total. He was emotionally abusive, an angry man and he worked when he felt like it. So for all the two years of our marriage I was the major breadwinner. For two years he worked up north in Baker Lake Nunavut and made great money, but then he quit and felt that because he had missed so much while he'd spent many months away, he was entitled to a year off, so the bills piled up. I tell you this because for my entire marriage I lived paycheck to paycheck, robbing Peter to pay Paul, which credit card should I put money toward this pay. When I left him in 2016 I took on all of our accumulated debt 55,000 dollars in return for him not demanding spousal support. I got a consumer proposal and I paid off our debt as well as my vehicle. Times were still tough for me for a few years, but then they were both paid off and for the first time in my life I had money. I could buy groceries without worrying, I could give money to my kids when they needed it, I could give them each two or three hundred dollars at Christmas time to help them out, I could go on vacation or rent a cottage in the summer and I could actually save money. Life was good.
Fast forward to 2021. I started to hear grumblings that I might lose my job if I didn't comply with the vaccine mandate. My unit was so short-staffed that overtime was readily available, so I started picking up overtime shifts in an effort to build a nest egg just in case I should lose my job. But I didn't really believe that was going to happen. Surely to goodness during the worst nursing shortage in history someone would come to their senses and the most senior, most knowledgeable, most experienced nurse in the obstetrical department would not be put off work. But that is exactly what happened.
I went to work on December the 1st and was told by director of Health Services Lisa Lynch that I had to leave. And being denied E.I., my little nest egg didn't last long. My employer told E.I. that I left voluntarily with no just cause. It didn't seem too voluntary to me. In March of 2022 I was forced to put in for retirement and I'd had no intention of retiring in the immediate future. I loved my job. I didn't receive a check until June. Fortunately for me they backdated my retirement to December the 1st. Unfortunately my ex-husband got 45 percent of my pension, so once again after paying back all the people I owed, I was soon back to living paycheck to paycheck. And through no fault of my own. I had done nothing wrong. In 35 years I had never been disciplined or reprimanded, I had only stood up for my rights and not in a hateful malicious way, I had simply declined to put into my body what I felt was not a safe or necessary chemical. And anyone who really knows me knows that I have avoided chemicals as much as possible for many years. So this wasn't a new radical stance for me, it was totally in keeping with my natural lifestyle.
I was devastated to lose my job. I loved nursing. My dad used to tell me that when I was a little girl I always wanted to be a nurse and a mother, so I was a happy woman. Caring for obstetrical patients in labor and delivery, teaching breastfeeding to countless women, caring for them postpartum was my passion. And I was damned good at it. Just ask the women of Cumberland County and surrounding areas who have delivered a child in Amherst since February of 1988 and they will confirm that. To this day I meet women of all ages in all settings who tell me that I was there when they had their child and that they have never forgotten me. Obstetrical nurses have a huge impact on women's lives as well as their family's lives, and I was very fortunate because our unit looked after off-service patients and pediatric patients as well.
Heart attack patients from ICU awaiting cardiac catheterizations, surgical patients medical patients, gynecological patients, palliative patients, we got them all and I was always thankful for that because it kept me learning and enabled me to keep my hand in all aspects of nursing to some degree. And it allowed me the privilege of caring for men and women of all ages.
So nursing was my passion and though I had done nothing wrong I was no longer allowed to do it. And that brings me to my co-workers, how I loved my co-workers and I can safely say that the majority of them loved me and they depended on me. They looked to me to answer their questions and show them how to do things. They came to me to start IVs because I was the expert. They came to me for my advice because I was the only one on my unit with 35 years of knowledge and experience. I hadn't seen it all but I had seen and been involved in most of it.
Labor and delivery nursing involves looking after two patients, and one of them can't be seen. It's an art, a talent, a gut feeling, a skill. And it's not a skill that one develops overnight it requires knowledge but it also requires experience you can read about all the obstetrical emergencies in a book and take a course and ace the exam but nothing can replace living through those emergencies firsthand and learning how to deal with them to come out on the other side with a live mother and a live baby who are both fully functional. And sometimes regardless of what you do, you lose a baby. I have experienced that firsthand with my first pregnancy culminating in a stillbirth, so I was always drawn to those mothers who suffered a similar loss. I felt I had something to share with them, and Lord knows that no one else was jumping up and down to look after them.
In my almost 34 years in obstetrics I had dealt with most obstetrical emergencies both as a patient and as a nurse, so I was not just a valued and loved co-worker, I was their mentor, their only mentor. The next person in line to me had about five years experience. One co-worker had worked In Obstetrics with me many years before but had actually left nursing all together for several years so upon returning she had forgotten a lot of what she had known and had also lost her confidence. And confidence is important, knowing what you know, not being cocky but confident. It is knowledge and confidence that allows you to stand up, to stand up for your patience and be their advocate, to stand up to the doctors when you don't agree with their approach or treatment, to stand up for yourself and your co-workers when management is putting you and them into unsafe working situations. And I did that for my patients and my co-workers, I stood up for them. And I stood up for myself which is why I don't have a career anymore.
Great song. Great lyrics. Really top notch production. You guys get a great sound going. Very sweet sounding. Kudos for another great effort, to the lot of you. You yourself have a fine talent for making very sweet melodies. This is a lot like the better Tom Petty tunes, but I like the twang for it better. I mean, every single song I hear, I love. Thank you for doing this. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
When do we rise up and sweep these criminals from office?
Song is well done, but what they did to her and her community is atrocious.
Vonnie Allen RN Testimony at NCI (March 16, 2023 - Truro, Nova Scotia)
March 16, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6UZ2-k3E8M&t=26s
source: https://www.youtube.com/@citizensinquiry/videos
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: In this video nurse Vonnie Allen gives testimony under oath before the Canadian National Citizens Inquiry, a national, independent, citizen-led inquiry into Canada's response to covid-19. https://nationalcitizensinquiry.ca
TRANSCRIPT -TWO EXCERPTS
0:12
VONNIE ALLEN: My name is Vonnie Allen. I was born and raised in Amherst, Nova Scotia. I left Amherst and moved to Moncton in New Brunswick only long enough to get my RN diploma and begin my nursing career. In April of 1987 I moved back to Amherst with my then husband and began working at Highland View Regional Hospital. In February of 88, upon returning from my two and a half month maternity leave, I was given casual employment on the maternity unit. Little did I know that maternity is where I was meant to be and that I would develop a passion for it that would last Almost 34 years until I was unceremoniously put on unpaid leave on December the 1st 2021 for standing up for my rights and declining to take an experimental medication.
[clapping]
I am the proud mother of four adult children and the blessed nanny of three little boys. Only one of my children has been awake and supportive of me throughout this three-year ordeal. Unfortunately the oldest three have believed the mainstream media and the government and have been made unreasonably fearful like so many others. Two of them have forbidden me to speak of anything related to covid and the mandates. I have been muzzled and disallowed to talk of the impacts that the covid mandates have had on my life, the loss of my career, the loss of my income, the loss of respect from much of my community, the refusal of EI to give back any of what I paid in for over 35 years, the seven months I lived with no income except what I could borrow from friends and family and an RRSP* I was forced to cash in, the inability to step foot in my local bowling alley for five months, a place I called my second home for over 40 years, and the denial of entrance to my own local hospital when my youngest daughter had a grand mal seizure last year and had to be rushed in by ambulance. She didn't know her own name, she couldn't speak, she was totally incapable of advocating for herself, she was terrified and I, her mother, a formerly respected veteran nurse of that very hospital, a hero just two years earlier, was not allowed past the front door because I was not vaccinated with an unproven experimental drug.
I was married to my children's father for 29 years, spent 36 and a half years with him total. He was emotionally abusive, an angry man and he worked when he felt like it. So for all the two years of our marriage I was the major breadwinner. For two years he worked up north in Baker Lake Nunavut and made great money, but then he quit and felt that because he had missed so much while he'd spent many months away, he was entitled to a year off, so the bills piled up. I tell you this because for my entire marriage I lived paycheck to paycheck, robbing Peter to pay Paul, which credit card should I put money toward this pay. When I left him in 2016 I took on all of our accumulated debt 55,000 dollars in return for him not demanding spousal support. I got a consumer proposal and I paid off our debt as well as my vehicle. Times were still tough for me for a few years, but then they were both paid off and for the first time in my life I had money. I could buy groceries without worrying, I could give money to my kids when they needed it, I could give them each two or three hundred dollars at Christmas time to help them out, I could go on vacation or rent a cottage in the summer and I could actually save money. Life was good.
Fast forward to 2021. I started to hear grumblings that I might lose my job if I didn't comply with the vaccine mandate. My unit was so short-staffed that overtime was readily available, so I started picking up overtime shifts in an effort to build a nest egg just in case I should lose my job. But I didn't really believe that was going to happen. Surely to goodness during the worst nursing shortage in history someone would come to their senses and the most senior, most knowledgeable, most experienced nurse in the obstetrical department would not be put off work. But that is exactly what happened.
I went to work on December the 1st and was told by director of Health Services Lisa Lynch that I had to leave. And being denied E.I., my little nest egg didn't last long. My employer told E.I. that I left voluntarily with no just cause. It didn't seem too voluntary to me. In March of 2022 I was forced to put in for retirement and I'd had no intention of retiring in the immediate future. I loved my job. I didn't receive a check until June. Fortunately for me they backdated my retirement to December the 1st. Unfortunately my ex-husband got 45 percent of my pension, so once again after paying back all the people I owed, I was soon back to living paycheck to paycheck. And through no fault of my own. I had done nothing wrong. In 35 years I had never been disciplined or reprimanded, I had only stood up for my rights and not in a hateful malicious way, I had simply declined to put into my body what I felt was not a safe or necessary chemical. And anyone who really knows me knows that I have avoided chemicals as much as possible for many years. So this wasn't a new radical stance for me, it was totally in keeping with my natural lifestyle.
I was devastated to lose my job. I loved nursing. My dad used to tell me that when I was a little girl I always wanted to be a nurse and a mother, so I was a happy woman. Caring for obstetrical patients in labor and delivery, teaching breastfeeding to countless women, caring for them postpartum was my passion. And I was damned good at it. Just ask the women of Cumberland County and surrounding areas who have delivered a child in Amherst since February of 1988 and they will confirm that. To this day I meet women of all ages in all settings who tell me that I was there when they had their child and that they have never forgotten me. Obstetrical nurses have a huge impact on women's lives as well as their family's lives, and I was very fortunate because our unit looked after off-service patients and pediatric patients as well.
Heart attack patients from ICU awaiting cardiac catheterizations, surgical patients medical patients, gynecological patients, palliative patients, we got them all and I was always thankful for that because it kept me learning and enabled me to keep my hand in all aspects of nursing to some degree. And it allowed me the privilege of caring for men and women of all ages.
So nursing was my passion and though I had done nothing wrong I was no longer allowed to do it. And that brings me to my co-workers, how I loved my co-workers and I can safely say that the majority of them loved me and they depended on me. They looked to me to answer their questions and show them how to do things. They came to me to start IVs because I was the expert. They came to me for my advice because I was the only one on my unit with 35 years of knowledge and experience. I hadn't seen it all but I had seen and been involved in most of it.
Labor and delivery nursing involves looking after two patients, and one of them can't be seen. It's an art, a talent, a gut feeling, a skill. And it's not a skill that one develops overnight it requires knowledge but it also requires experience you can read about all the obstetrical emergencies in a book and take a course and ace the exam but nothing can replace living through those emergencies firsthand and learning how to deal with them to come out on the other side with a live mother and a live baby who are both fully functional. And sometimes regardless of what you do, you lose a baby. I have experienced that firsthand with my first pregnancy culminating in a stillbirth, so I was always drawn to those mothers who suffered a similar loss. I felt I had something to share with them, and Lord knows that no one else was jumping up and down to look after them.
In my almost 34 years in obstetrics I had dealt with most obstetrical emergencies both as a patient and as a nurse, so I was not just a valued and loved co-worker, I was their mentor, their only mentor. The next person in line to me had about five years experience. One co-worker had worked In Obstetrics with me many years before but had actually left nursing all together for several years so upon returning she had forgotten a lot of what she had known and had also lost her confidence. And confidence is important, knowing what you know, not being cocky but confident. It is knowledge and confidence that allows you to stand up, to stand up for your patience and be their advocate, to stand up to the doctors when you don't agree with their approach or treatment, to stand up for yourself and your co-workers when management is putting you and them into unsafe working situations. And I did that for my patients and my co-workers, I stood up for them. And I stood up for myself which is why I don't have a career anymore.
[clapping]
11:20
END OF FIRST EXCERPT
Excellent. Hope u get radio time!!