Healthcare Hero: Jahaan’ara Kanji

Healthcare Hero Jahaan’ara Kanji is a Registered Nurse at the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta. In her role, she supports the surgical and trauma units where she collaborates with families to help provide the best care possible to paediatric patients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jahaan’ara and her team made necessary adjustments to their regular protocols and practices in order to protect their patients and support infection control. She saw, first-hand, the impact of these required protocols on children and families, including how restrictions on the number of visitors made it difficult for families to provide their loved ones with comfort and support. As a nurse, Jahaan’ara did her best to make up this loss of connection and bonding for patients and families despite the high caseloads in the hospital. The greatest lesson Jahaan’ara has learned from this time has been: not to take the people in her life for granted. She looks forward to safely reunite with her loved ones and share experiences that weren’t possible in the last year with her friends and family.

One of Jahaan’ara’s greatest challenges during this time has been supporting her mental health. Like many healthcare workers during the pandemic, Jahaan’ara has worked extensively, and keeping up morale in the workplace has been difficult due to the stresses of COVID-19. However, Jahaan’ara has been supported by her incredible team and together they created healthy habits to prevent team burnout. Her advice to the Jamat is the importance of getting vaccinated if possible, to help us get through this difficult time. In the past, outside of her work, Jahaan’ara has supported the Ismaili community as an IVC Captain, IVC Team Lead and has also been a counsellor for both Camp Discovery and Camp Mosaic, a Program Manager and even a Camp Nurse.

In her spare time, Jahaan’ara enjoys reading and online spin classes She also values the importance of participating in prayers and personal reflection.

As part of the Healthcare Heroes initiative, we will be featuring healthcare workers in the Jamat until Sunday, July 11. Stay tuned for more!