Woman concerned about mom’s isolation

Typically, Yvonne Schwartz wakes up and gets dressed, puts on some jewelry and adds a touch of lipstick to finish off her look for the day.

But now Schwartz, a 90-year-old resident at Northwood, rarely changes out of her pyjamas for the day.

“We try to encourage her to get dressed because she doesn't feel like there's any point anymore,” Holly Crooks, Schwartz's daughter, said in an interview Thursday.

Crooks said her mother has been confined to her room since the COVID-19 pandemic put long-term care facilities across Nova Scotia on lockdown and not much has changed since.

Currently, Schwartz wakes up and usually has breakfast brought to her room, although the dining room is open for residents to eat in, goes back to bed, has lunch and sits in her chair with the television on as she sleeps during the afternoon.

“She doesn't have conversations with anyone, except for the staff and our phone calls. She feels isolated. She feels sad and I'm scared of her slipping into a depression,” Crooks said.

“We feel so lucky that our mom is still here at 90 years of age, but I don't want to see the last month or year or whatever of her life be as a prisoner and that's how I feel — as if she's in prison currently.”

Crooks has only seen her mother in-person twice since long-term care facilities in Nova Scotia were granted limited visitor access under strict public health protocols mid-june.

Under the restrictions, all visits must take place outdoors in a designated area on the facility's property, only two visitors, who must be 16 years old or older, may attend at a time and visitors must maintain a physical distance of at least two metres from the resident.

At Northwood, residents are allowed one 30-minute visit per week.

“It's a very prescribed and controlled protocol for these outdoor visits. We'll take a crumb if that's all we're allowed to have, but it's not adequate,” Crooks said, adding Schwartz could barely hear her and her sister due to the distance and masks.

But Crooks is worried her mom won't be able to do things she was able to do before the lockdown.

“I've seen a tremendous deterioration in her physical and mental wellbeing in this period of time and I know she's not the only one,” Crooks said.

“I hope the (Health) Department re-evaluates this approach and gives directives to long-term care facilities that recognizes these people have rights and they need to be allowed to move freely again,” she said, adding the staff at Northwood have been nothing but exceptional.

On Monday, the COVID-19 outbreak at Northwood's Halifax campus, which claimed the lives of 53 residents, was considered to be resolved after completing 28 days of no active cases.

Dr. Robert Strang, chief medical officer of health for Nova Scotia, said he was in a discussion surrounding the restrictions at long-term care facilities Thursday.

“Absolutely, we recognize that we need to open things up in allowing more opportunities for residents within the facility, as well as for more opportunities for visitation, recognizing that it's a very high-risk setting so we have to do things thoughtfully and carefully,” Strang said.

“But there's work going on to relax some guidelines and we're going to be moving, in the very near future, and bringing that forward publicly.”