Celebrating Our Respiratory Therapy Team

As a Centre of Excellence for Respiratory and Thoracic Care, as well as a Level One Thoracic Surgery Centre, St. Mary’s Respiratory Therapists provide specialized inpatient, outpatient and outreach services across Waterloo-Wellington and surrounding areas. RTs work with patients to diagnose, treat and manage respiratory and cardiorespiratory conditions.

RTs are responsible for monitoring patients under sedation, providing oxygen therapy and medical gas administration, offering advanced airway management (e.g. securing breathing tubes), and operating and maintaining/optimizing mechanical ventilation (breathing machines). RTs also respond to codes within the hospital such as cardiac arrests and emergency breathing situations and assist with patient transfers, both within the building and to other hospitals. More recently, our RTs have taken on a role as anesthesia assistants working closely with our surgical teams and Anesthesiologists.

“I am so proud of this team, and how they have responded to the pandemic over the last three years,” says Danny Veniott, Program Manager Chest, Airway Clinic and Respiratory Therapy and Innovation Lead. “Things changed on a daily basis and we pivoted; they were always up for the challenge and exceeding expectations.”

Through St. Mary’s Airway Clinic, RTs provide education, rehabilitation, diagnostic, and community outreach services for non-admitted patients holding one of two roles within the clinic: diagnosing and referring patients for care, and respiratory educators. Some of the clinic’s main functions are testing for various types of lung conditions using breathing tests, diagnosing COPD/asthma, and helping qualify patients for home oxygen. As educators, they help patients understand and self-manage chronic lung diseases aiming at reducing ED visits and hospitalizations. In addition to their work in the clinic, these individuals also work within the community at six different locations to be closer to the patients, offering the same services within our Ontario Health Team (OHT) geography.

The COVID-19 pandemic shone a light on RTs and the importance of the work they do within the hospital and community. It also provided an opportunity to recognize and better utilize their scope of practice and skills.

In January of this year, many of our RTs from the Airway Clinic switched gears from their normal role as we opened the COVID-19 Assessment Centre. They assisted with swabbing patients, administering medications, screening, and providing general education for those that came into the assessment centre.

“The last couple of years have shown us how adaptive RTs can be. They go into everything with the ‘we can do it’ attitude instead of a ‘we can’t’, which truly makes a difference in providing high-quality, compassionate care,” says Danny.

Thank you to our Respiratory Therapists for providing care to our patients and community.