While the COVID-19 vaccine has been called liquid gold by those who anxiously await their shots, the colourful caps from empty vaccine vials have become the golden touches in a Saskatoon nurse’s pandemic-inspired artwork.
Shawn Toovey is a 51-year-old registered nurse who treats COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit of St. Paul’s Hospital. He and his co-workers collect clean medical plastics that haven’t touched patients, including IV tubes and syringe covers, so Toovey can recycle them into artwork.
“This is kind of the star of the show here lately,” he said, sitting in his art studio, holding up a purple cap from a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine bottle. He also likes yellow caps from bottles of saline that’s mixed into vaccines for injection.
Toovey said each vaccine cap “symbolizes hope” in his artistic pieces, which also feature discarded medical packaging from…
