Trailer allows for PPE-free visits
Retirement home’s converted shipping container is fully booked
A private conversation, a cup of tea together.
These are little things, but you miss them.
For the comforts of a real visit, thousands of people in Toronto retirement homes and nursing homes have waited months.
Relatives peered through windows at elders who found it hard to hear them. Sometimes, they couldn’t do even that.
For three months, Marjorie Donahue, 91, at Scarborough Retirement Residence, and her daughter-in-law, Nancy Donahue, talked on the phone.
Married to Marjorie’s oldest son, Kevin, Nancy had a standing date with Marjorie on Fridays. They got the elder woman’s hair done, went on errands, ate in restaurants. Then COVID-19 and an outbreak at the residence.
Mother’s Day was like a drivethru event, with Nancy waving in the rain to Marjorie up in her fifth-floor room.
“The parking lot was actually pretty full of people doing the same thing,” the Scarborough woman remembers.
But on June 18, Nancy was inside a custom-built trailer outside the retirement home when, from another entrance, in walked Marjorie.
“I marvelled at how good she looked,” Nancy recalled later.
Marjorie, who was born on Prince Edward Island and lived on Bellamy Road North for more than 60 years, was separated from Nancy only by a layer of Plexiglas.
They were among the first to use the KOCH Family Visiting Centre and Dining Car, in what may be a prototype for countless family reunions to come.
“It was nice, yeah,” said Marjorie, who’s been at the residence for 18 months.
“We could hear each other quite well. Oh, I was so happy. It’s so good to see her.”
Next time, Marjorie’s youngest grandchildren, whom she hasn’t seen since March, may be there, too.
The converted shipping container outside the Scarborough Village buildings is stocked with puzzles and toys for children, as well as a kettle, a microwave and Wi-Fi.
There’s hand sanitizer and microphones on both sides. After a visit, everything is sanitized.
Authorities have lately lifted some restrictions on visits to elder care homes, but masks must be worn, and other precautions taken.
Reunions outside are affected by weather.
“The heat and the sun alone can introduce a risk to a senior,” the Koch Management Group noted in a statement last week, adding meeting inside “poses other risks such as scheduling, logistics, staffing, screening and infection control. Most importantly, allowing indoor visits increases the chance of spreading infection.”
But the trailer, because of its Plexiglas barrier, lets people take personal protection off and eat a meal together.
Nancy’s only remaining challenge is how to play cards with Marjorie. “Mom’s a killer euchre player,” said Nancy. “We can’t hug still — we’re waiting for that, that’s for sure, but you don’t have to wear a mask.”
The residence got through the first wave of COVID-19 with minimal tragedy.
The outbreak in early April included three positive cases. It kept the community in floor isolation for almost two months, co-owner Marie-Josee LaFontaine said Friday.
The pandemic isn’t gone, however; until there’s a vaccine,
LaFontaine said, we’re not over it.
So, she thought, “We have no choice but to create a pandemic-free zone,” where a family can connect on an emotional level, unsupervised. LaFontaine showed Koch, based in North York, pictures of a trailer used for visits in British Columbia.
“Can we get something like this done in a week?” she asked.
It took the company 10 days to craft the trailer. LaFontaine said she takes her hat off to all involved.
“I think we’re thrilled that we did it.”
The trailer is fully booked for a month. The residence, LaFontaine said, still wants to make the place appear more like a cottage: canopies over the doors, flowers in window boxes.
LaFontaine said there’s one more thing to figure out: how relatives on either side of a hermetically sealed barrier can touch each other.