In a short farewell at a St. John's airport hangar Tuesday morning, a contingent of Newfoundland and Labrador health-care workers spoke of what's ahead as they fly to Toronto in an effort to alleviate a few of their counterparts dealing with a crushing surge of COVID-19 cases.

"They're struggling, and they have been for over a year," said Dr. Allison Furey, a member of a nine-person team who will be deployed in downtown Toronto's University Health Network starting on Wednesday.

Furey has spent the last 11 years volunteering on medical relief trips to places such as Haiti, along with her husband, Premier Andrew Furey, who — long before turning to politics — founded the international medical relief organization Team Broken Earth. 

"When an opportunity comes to help your own country, I'll raise my hand for that," she told reporters.

The Ontario aid team is comprised of three doctors, five nurses and a nurse practitioner. Eight of them boarded a Hercules C-130 military aircraft in St. John's, with the ninth member picked up en route in Deer Lake.

All are volunteers. Critical care nurse practitioner Jennifer Hinks said she could not say no when the magnitude of the need that Ontario faced became clear.

After working the front lines of two waves of the pandemic in Newfoundland and Labrador, Hinks said she is ready to face the third.

"We've been very fortunate in our province to regain our strength and our physical and mental well-being in between waves, and unfortunately the health-care providers across the country, such as those in Ontario, just haven't had that time," she said.

The volunteers came together after Ontario Premier Doug Ford asked for help to deal with a soaring caseload of severely ill patients, as well as caseloads fuelled by highly contagious virus variants.

After arriving in Toronto, members of the team spoke to local reporters, who asked — among other things — why people from Newfoundland and Labrador are known for their generosity.

"I think that people in Newfoundland have big hearts," Allison Furey said.

"They have a lot of energy, and it's just the way that Newfounlanders are. They are giving to their communities, both locally and in their own country and abroad."