Daughter of Northwood resident praises caregiver system
Holly Crooks’ mother didn’t get the COVID-19 virus that devastated the Northwood Halifax nursing home in the spring. But the impact of those days of isolation and fear on Yvonne Schwartz remain to this day, Crooks said.
“We only could talk to her on the phone and she was really becoming depressed,” Crooks recounted in a recent interview.
“She ... used to get up, put on her dress and her jewelry and her lipstick and go have an active social life,” Crooks said. “She changed from that to a person who didn’t bother, she saw no reason to even bother to get up and get dressed — she was depressed.”
Schwartz is sharper and in better spirits since rules changed to allow someone to visit as a designated caregiver but “her physical frailty, that’s not something you can recover from,” her daughter said.
“She’s 90 and that loss of mobility is permanent and I view that as a direct result of having been confined to her room.”
FAMILIES' ANGUISH
Crooks said some families took their loved ones out of nursing care — not because of the fear of getting the virus but because of the isolationrelated deterioration of their mental and physical health.
“You can’t even begin to describe the kind of anguish that families were feeling. (They’re) so desperate to support the people that they love, you feel … the burden of guilt, have you done the right thing for your family member?”
Schwartz was moved several times over the year including a shared room with “a wonderful woman” whose companionship helped her mother through the worst of the pandemic isolation.
Crooks and other families lobbied the province to ease visitor restrictions in the spring and summer through a group called Reunite Families of Long-Term Care Residents.
‘MODEL’ PROGRAM
Outdoor visits with two people with masks and social distancing were allowed by June and in the fall, the province allowed designated caregivers indoor visits.
“How they rolled that program out at Northwood, they should be a model,” Crooks said.
She and her sister Jan Marriott, a retired nurse, usually spend two to three hours with their mother during the visits.
“We’re being absolutely meticulous in complying with any requirements for safety and infection control, we keep our masks on all the time and we do maintain distance even within our mom’s room with the exception of a brief contact.”
Designated caregivers and other volunteers have been prioritized to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Asymptomatic testing is available on-site for staff and volunteers, who are tested every two weeks with results emailed the next morning.
Crooks said while Northwood’s program works well, she has heard through her family group that some nursing homes either don’t have the resources for a designated caregiver system or have not implemented one for other reasons. She hopes that will change and the kind of isolation protocols that were put in place in the spring will never be considered again.
“It’s not a neutral thing to keep someone safe by confining them to their room. It’s actually causing more harm than it’s preventing.”
NEVER AGAIN
In an interview for this series, Vicki Elliot-Lopez, the Nova Scotia Health Department’s executive director of continuing care, said nursing home residents won’t be shut away from loved ones again.
“A huge focus for us is balancing mental health and wellness of residents with the physical health and wellbeing,” Elliot-Lopez said in a conversation about how the province intends to prevent the kind of death toll Northwood experienced.
She said the use of designated caregivers and volunteers in the delivery of care will be key “because we recognize certainly what a detrimental impact that it had on residents and their loved ones when things had to close down.” Crooks praised the staff members on her mother’s unit as “excellent, excellent people” but she said there still aren’t enough of them. (A panel struck to look into the Northwood COVID19 outbreak that killed 53 people singled out the need to boost staffing and to limit staff movement within the building.)
“There is one shift that is consistently people I don’t know, which means there are (staff) floats that are still going to other floors because they’re still understaffed.”
STAFF REDUCTION
In an interview Jan. 14, Northwood CEO Janet Simm said movement between floors continues to be prohibited until it’s “absolutely essential.” She said some staff, such as hospice and spiritual teams, follow strict protocols when they have to move between units in the building.
She said staffing at the Halifax campus is down from its pre-pandemic full complement of about 800 people because the number of beds has been reduced from about 485 to about 385 single-occupant rooms and 16 shared rooms.
Simm didn’t have a specific number for the current staffing level. She said about 25 people have been recruited for dietary or housekeeping duties in case there’s another outbreak or if there are gaps in regular staffing for other reasons. She said many people didn’t return to work after the outbreak. That allowed Northwood to reduce the staff complement without letting anyone go.