Some Manitobans will be able to meet face-to-face for the first time in more than a year, as the province is making big changes in long-term care settings amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Beginning this week, anyone who is fully vaccinated will be allowed to go inside the care home for a visit, provided the resident they are visiting is also fully vaccinated.
Jan Legeros of the Long Term and Continuing Care Association told 680 CJOB she hopes it’s the first step toward shedding some of the extremely restrictive visitation rules.
“We know that the effects of social isolation can be extremely detrimental, especially for those residents with dementia, so this is going to be a significant and positive change for them,” Legeros said.
Visitors will have to provide proof of immunization before they’re allowed through the doors, whether that’s with Shared Health’s vaccination record, or Manitoba’s new vaccine card.
Legeros said some details have yet to be worked out, including how many visitors will be allowed at an individual care home at a time.
“It may be a limit on the number of visitors per resident, but it might also be a limit on the number of visitors per home — so you can imagine, with a home of 200 residents, they would have to be very careful to make sure that not all of the visitors would come at the same time.”
Joyce Kristjansson, executive director of the Salvation Army’s Golden West Lodge, told 680 CJOB the families of her residents have been very understanding throughout the pandemic, but it’s been a challenge for everyone involved.
“It hasn’t been easy for anybody, but we’ve had a lot of very positive feedback from families about the things we’ve been doing about communication, about keeping them in touch with what’s happening, so that’s been a huge positive,” she said.
Kristjansson said Golden West has been lucky in that none of its residents have tested positive for COVID-19 at any point during the pandemic, and the vast majority have been already been vaccinated twice, with a handful of others to be completed Wednesday.
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Still, despite avoiding the type of outbreaks that have devastated other Manitoba care homes, it’s been a struggle for many of the people confined to the home.
“It’s been incredibly difficult for our residents — probably more so for the residents who are cognitively intact,” she said.
“Everybody else doesn’t have a frame of reference for this, especially not going on as long as it has.
“We’ve been very fortunate that we’ve been able to maintain some forms of visiting for almost everybody — whether that has been window visits, or garden visits, or even FaceTime … but it hasn’t been ideal. It’s been sad, it’s been lonely.”
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