PTCI partners with Heritage Community to reconnect residents with families
GUYMON – Local telephone cooperative PTCI is partnering with Dunaway Manor/Heritage Community to provide smart phones for the residents to video chat with their family members.
Since long-term care facilities have implemented visitor restrictions and closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many residents have gone months without physically seeing their families. With this in mind, Alberto Cerda, a technician at PTCI, came up with an idea to virtually reconnect the residents with their families just in time for the holiday season.
According to Elizabeth Brown, marketing manager at PTCI, the cooperative will provide one smart phone for Dunaway Manor and one for Heritage Community.
“...Most residents don’t have devices capable of video calling, so PTCI is providing iPhones, and the [Dunaway/Heritage] staff are going to help facilitate video calls between the residents and the family members,” Brown explained.
One idea the staff had, Brown mentioned, was facilitating a live video gift opening at Dunaway/Heritage so that the residents’ family members could be there virtually while they open gifts this Christmas.
Additionally, Brown mentioned, PTCI technicians are not allowed inside the COVID-19 unit within Dunaway/
Heritage, meaning they cannot check the landline phone connections in that unit. With the new smart phones, staff members will be able to ensure that those inside the COVID-19 unit will have a form of communication with their loved ones.
“...Heritage Community and Dunaway Manor are such an important part of our community to be able to provide a safe place for our aging seniors,” Brown added. “It’s really easy for those seniors to feel isolated now more than ever, and there’s... extra comfort in seeing someone’s smile when you talk to them... For us, to be able to connect the smiles across the miles is really important.”