How The Housing Partnership Between Trent & PRHC Is Welcome Relief For Nurses

Trent University was the first university in Ontario to have opened on-campus residence spaces to frontline workers, and it has had a great impact on many.

That includes Anna Harris, a registered nurse (RN) at Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) who was assigned as one of the charge nurses on the designated COVID-19 inpatient unit in April. As a mother to three young children, it is her biggest fear to bring the virus home to her family.

Harris was looking into options that would allow her to isolate from her family, and when the partnership between PRHC and Trent University making residence rooms available for healthcare workers during the pandemic was announced, she says the news came as “a huge relief.” She was one of the first PRHC employees to move into Gzowski College.

Photo of Anna Harris at Gzowski College courtesy PRHC

“Making the decision to leave my house and move into Trent was not easy,” says Harris. “It’s an uncertain time. Everyone has their own decision to make, but with so many unknowns, I felt like moving into the university residence was the best decision for me and my family. The decision to self-isolate became the one thing I could control during this time.”

“I want to thank PRHC and Trent for making the transition to living away from home as easy as it could be,” adds Harris. “All the little things—the signage to guide us to the right parking lot, the visible security guards and amazing housekeeping staff, the welcome sign and even supplying laundry detergent for us—have made a big difference.”

Photo courtesy Trent University

Nicole Glover is an RN in the Emergency Department at PRHC, and an alumna from the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing. She has been taking advantage of the housing partnership to support herself and her family in a different way.

With two young kids at home, working night shifts can be difficult. Rather than staying at Trent full-time, Nicole has been using the residence as a place to rest when she’s working night shifts.

Photo of Nicole Glover courtesy PRHC

“The constant changes that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought at work, as well as to my personal life, have absolutely taken a physical, mental and emotional toll,” says Nicole. “Knowing that I can get a sound sleep at Trent when I’m working night shifts, and that there is a place for me to go if anything changes and I feel like my kids or family are at risk, is reassuring.”

As an alumna, this isn’t the first time that Nicole has found support as part of the Trent community. “I graduated from the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing in 2011 and had a great experience with the program,” she says. “The nursing faculty members were amazing and very approachable, and the program offered very applicable clinical experience. I was fortunate enough to get a job at PRHC right out of school with a temporary licence and was hired on full-time once I wrote my licensing exam.”

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