Struggling to connect with loved ones in care homes
Families feel cut off and worry about the effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown
WATERLOO REGION — Denise Schaefer used to call her father, who is a resident at Forest Heights long-term-care home, every day.
She’d pop in every few days with favourite snacks and a few beers for him to enjoy.
But with a ban on outside visitors to nursing homes, she hasn’t seen him in almost six weeks.
Families with a relative sequestered in their long-term care home say communication, both with loved ones and with staff, has been a challenge.
Schaefer called the phone in her dad’s room for three days before she learned he had been moved to another room with no phone, she said.
“I know they’re superstretched,” Schaefer said. “Still, they had three days to call me and tell me, ‘We’ve moved your dad.’ ”
Dianne Green said she and her siblings went 11 days without hearing any news about their 89year-old mother, who lives at A.R. Goudie long-term care home in Kitchener.
By mischance, she and her siblings never seemed to be in when the home called. They tried arranging a set schedule for telephone updates, but it didn’t work.
“It was a week and a half that we went with no contact, at a time when we knew the virus was in Goudie,” Green said. “Those phone calls really are the only way we know what’s going on in there.”
Before the pandemic, the family had hired people to help their mother with every meal, and the family would supervise meals on weekends. They would take her on walks around the home, and outside if the weather was fine.
That has all stopped with the ban on outside visitors. They worry that busy staff can’t take the time they would to cajole their mother to eat.
Nursing homes say maintaining family connections is a priority.
“It has been a difficult time for residents and their loved ones,” acknowledged Kristian Partington, a spokesperson for Schlegel Villages. Staff help residents use Skype, FaceTime and WhatsApp to connect with relatives, he said.
“Throughout the pandemic we have worked hard to ensure families are well-informed, through regular verbal updates and written communications,” said Sheena Campbell, a spokesperson for PeopleCare Communities, which runs A.R. Goudie. “We want families to hear information from us directly wherever possible and as quickly as possible.”
Some families book a call at the same time every day, Campbell said. Staff are also trying to be creative to help people connect.
At one home, a daughter enjoyed reading books aloud to her mother. Staff offered to take over reading the books, but in the end they set up an amplifier in the mother’s room, and the daughter can sit outside her mom’s window and read to her. “This is the way that this daughter feels closer and connected to her mom,” Campbell said.
Green’s family calls their mother, and sometime use Skype, but with her dementia it can be tough to have a meaningful conversation, and really gauge how their mother is doing.
Green said the staff has been “incredible,” and she understands that they are busy and short-handed, but she and her siblings feel very cut off from their mom.
“It’s such a feeling of helplessness, that you can’t get in there and see her, and give her hugs,” Green said.
Schaefer worries that the lack of stimulus is taking a toll on her father, who like other residents is now confined to his room, where he spends his day and eats all three meals by himself.
Schaefer said he is using simpler words and has seemed more confused when she has called him.
“He’s been on his own for almost six weeks, so there’s no interaction whatsoever, except for TV,” Schaefer said. He’s still getting his Record delivered every day, which she says is a muchneeded link to the outside world.
It’s a struggle hundreds of families across the region are dealing with, Green said. “We’re not the only ones. Everyone who has a loved one in long-term care is in the same boat.”
“It’s such a feeling of helplessness, that you can’t get in there and see her, and give her hugs.”
DIANNE GREEN
DAUGHTER OF A.R. GOUDIE RESIDENT