TORONTO -- After spending more than two months in hospital, an 82-year-old Toronto woman has recovered from COVID-19 and now her family is giving back to her health-care heroes.
Surujdai Sawh was wheeled out of Scarborough Health Network’s Centenary Hospital on Friday to be reunited with her loved ones.
“It was very exciting – you could see the big smile on her face,” her son, Terry Sawh, told CTV News Toronto after their reunion.
Surujdai Sawh had been in the hospital since early May after being diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. Her family does not know how she contracted the illness.
During that time, she spent 21 days on a ventilator in the intensive care unit.
“We went through a very difficult time, but thanks to the incredible work of the hospital, we are here,” Terry Sawh said. “What they have done was nothing short of a miracle.”
Before she was reunited with her family, she was wheeled through the three units of the hospital that helped make her recovery possible.
Her journey through the hospital ended at the Margaret Birch Wing entrance. There, she was met with a celebration alongside her family and health-care workers.
As a way of saying thank you to those who helped his mother recover from COVID-19, Terry Sawh organized a meal donation. Every staff member in the three units of the hospital was treated to lunch courtesy of the Sawh family and received a pocket-sized hand sanitizer and non-medical mask.
“That is the least we can do,” he said. “It is something to reflect our culture of giving. We care a lot about the community and so do they. We are very appreciative for their hard work.”
“As a community, we should appreciate what our health institutions stand for in the community like in Scarborough and we should try to help as much as we can so they can provide the most they can, the care that we so desperately need.”
Terry Sawh said his mother was very happy to return home and aside from mobility issues, she is doing much better.
“She wanted to come home so badly. She’s always been very independent and energetic and she will get back to that.”
He said their family wishes no other family has to go through this sort of painful experience, but if they do “courage, faith and inspiration” are the most important things to have.
Fatal cases of COVID-19 have been the most common in people 80 years of age and older in Ontario. More than 1,800 people in that age category have lost their lives to the disease – 31.5 per cent of Ontario’s cumulative death toll.
Nearly 6,000 people in Ontario who are 80 years of age and older have been diagnosed with COVID-19.
Currently in the province, there are 108 patients in hospital with the novel coronavirus and 30 of those patients are in the intensive care unit.
