BARRIE, ONT. -- The past year living in a pandemic has been especially challenging for health-care and frontline workers. "This has been a gruelling, scary year during which our staff and physicians worried for their own safety and that of their families," says Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) President and CEO Janice Skot. The Barrie hospital's president recalls one year ago when the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic. "In those early days, directives and guidelines changed constantly as the world learned more about the novel coronavirus. It was uncharted territory, and hospitals had to shift direction on a dime. The uncertainty was overwhelming as we tried to imagine the pandemic's path," Skot says.