Transcendients: Memorial to Healthcare Workers
Died 30 May 2020
SARAH RONCSKEVITZ
RACE/ETHNICITY White
OCCUPATION Medical social worker
LOCATION SF, CA
AGE 32
CONCERNS ABOUT ADEQUATE PPE? Yes
‘Force of nature’ wanted to reform social work
Sarah Roncskevitz was larger than life – a vibrant, kind, generous and sometimes vexing bundle of superlatives. On Facebook, friends described her as “a pillar of strength”, “a force of nature” and “a warrior mom”.
“She exuded so much light,” said G Allen Ratliff, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In class, she was always prepared, sitting in the front of the room and eager to dig into issues.
Past struggles with addiction and domestic violence informed her work. “She had been very frustrated with social workers in her life,” he said. She was drawn to the profession, in a sense, to right those wrongs.
Kaiser San Francisco’s chaotic emergency department was exactly where she wanted to be. Yet she became increasingly concerned the hospital was unprepared for the pandemic. Her mother, Tami Leal-Roncskevitz, wrote in an email that Sarah had been scolded in March for wearing a surgical mask, accused of contributing to the mask shortage and making patients fearful.
In an emailed statement, a Kaiser spokesperson wrote that the hospital had followed all CDC precautions and that her complaint about mask-wearing “does not accurately reflect our policy”.
She became ill in mid-May but tested negative. On 26 May, she collapsed at home. Hospitalized, she retested positive and never regained consciousness.
– Maureen O’Hagan