Uxbridge care home honours front-line staff
Workers thanked for their dedication during outbreak that claimed 17
The ReachView Village longterm-care home in Uxbridge put a pause on pandemic stress to say thank you to their employees following a devastating outbreak that claimed 17 lives.
Staff were invited to enjoy the recent outdoor event that included food, drinks and prizes as a way of showing appreciation for the hard work and dedication they showed during the outbreak, which began April 15 and saw 87 cases among residents and staff before it was declared resolved on July 9.
“Every day these employees left their families and came here in a pandemic outbreak to support our residents. Is there anything more noble than that?” said Wendy Gilmour, senior vice-president of longterm-care for Revera, which operates the facility.
“There was a lot of blood, sweat and tears,” said Amber Whitehead, assistant director of care at ReachView. “It was definitely challenging; every day was a new day and you’d come in and because we were in a pandemic situation everything would have changed overnight, so you really had to be flexible. We just wanted to thank people for being here and pulling doubles and being so flexible with the constant changes.”
The novelty of COVID-19 exacerbated the challenges. “We really didn’t know, it all happened so rapidly,” said Gilmour. “With H1N1 and SARS we had an idea what to do, but with this everyone thought it was like the flu but it’s not. It was a huge learning curve for everyone.”
For front-line worker Amanda Ford-Akiyama, every day was like starting fresh. “It was very intense, you had to follow all these strange new rules we weren’t used to and every single day it would change and you’d learn something new,” FordAkiyama said. “It was scary, but it just felt like something you had to do, to be there for the residents.”
She said the support of the community was crucial to keeping staff motivated, with frequent drive-by car parades, people who stopped by to sing outside the facility and deliveries of pizza, coffee and other goodies. “The support of the community was really uplifting and they were so consistent in their support.”
Although the event was designed to thank staff, the mood was sombre as guests also honoured the 17 residents lost to COVID-19 with a memorial wall. “It’s hard to wrap your head around, it’s even hard to believe it happened standing here 85 days later, it’s surreal,” Whitehead said. “But the fact is we lost 17 people we really loved and cared for, and that’s tough on everybody.”
Staff plan to do a full memorial event for the residents lost during the outbreak, both those who died of COVID and those who died of other causes, but are waiting until the restrictions on gathering numbers are loosened so that family members can attend.
In the meantime, staff are focused on preventing any future outbreaks, which includes record emergency recruitment efforts that have hired more than 2,000 new employees at Revera facilities across Canada since April.
The ReachView staff were also recognized with a Citizens of Distinction award from the Township of Uxbridge, which recognized staff at three facilities that declared outbreaks during the pandemic, including Douglas Crossing and Uxbridge Cottage Hospital.