Seniors need vital family visits during isolation
Restrictions to prevent COVID19 in B.C. long-term care homes have been necessary for the health and safety of residents and staff. But it is time to rethink the way “essential” visits are being implemented.
Older adults in residential care (including assisted living, retirement homes and nursing homes), especially those with dementia, want and need their loved ones for connection, personal care and mental well-being. These vulnerable residents cannot advocate for themselves, and their families provide essential care in an underfunded system. Families are their eyes, ears, and voices, providing additional support to ensure care needs are being met.
During my research into healthy aging and dementia, I have met many concerned family members. One of them is Barb Owens. A dementia diagnosis brought Owens’s mother into the B.C. care-home system two years ago. In February, her mother was eating with gusto and looked bright and happy. When COVID-19 hit, followed by lockdown rules that allowed visitors only if a resident was dying or seriously ill, Barb was not allowed to visit her mother for three months.
The care home finally called her in as an essential visitor because her mother was not able to feed herself. Barb was shocked — her mother’s hair was unkempt, her eyes vacant, and smile gone. She had lost weight and would eat only a little puréed food when prompted. Her mother had gone from enjoying Barb’s almost-daily visits to barely responding to her when she finally arrived. We know there is progression with dementia, but this was an unprecedented deterioration in a short period of time. For Owens, it was heartbreaking. We can only guess at what three months of no visits was like for her mother.
In B.C., about 35,000 people live in care homes, nearly 65 per cent of them with dementia. They do not have much time left in their lives to see family, even in normal times. Most residents in care homes live in single rooms, where a safe visit by family members should be possible without undue risk to other residents or staff. Yet our B.C. health system has not been responsive to the effect that separation from family causes.
Provincial public-health officials decide what is “essential.” The designation was expanded to include well-being, not just end-of-life care, a month ago. But it has not been implemented in a transparent manner. Families do not know what the criteria are for allowing a visit and have no way to know when or how it will happen or why they have been refused.
On Vancouver Island, the only recourse when declined is to ask for a review from the Patient Care Quality Office at Island Health. But calls from family members to the office routinely go to voicemail and no timeline is given for a decision. I contacted the privacy officer to get more details on the review process over a week ago and have had no response.
Surely it is time to allow even just one person, whether family or friend, to be designated to come into the residence regularly, following the same safety precautions as staff, to let a confused, lonely senior know they are not forgotten. They deserve to know they are loved and their personal needs and preferences will be met from those who know and care about them. I am not talking about a half-hour visit in an outdoor courtyard but rather about a plan that allows families to be involved in the residents’ care again.
Family visitors are highly motivated and just as capable as health workers in ensuring their loved one is kept safe.
The separation of B.C. seniors from family must end now and the process for doing so must be transparent. This is truly “essential.”