People living in foster homes are more afraid to die of loneliness than COVID-19, according to a new report by the province’s control body for the elderly.
“The comments we’ve heard from a lot of family members are a major concern of death from loneliness” due to pandemic regulations restricting visitation, B. C. said senior attorney Isobel Mackenzie.
“The vast majority of respondents said visitor restrictions made paintings for their families and some described them as inhumane,” according to the summary of Mackenzie’s survey.
The effects of the survey on citizens and families between August 26 and September 30 – Stay away to stay safe: The impact of visitor restrictions on long-term care and assisted living – are today.
Approximately 13,000 responses came here from families, friends and home citizens ranging from less than 50 beds to more than 250. Nearly 20, according to the percentage of respondents, were in the island’s fitness region.
The survey summary indicates that most respondents said guest restrictions don’t work. It states that visiting protocols want to be up-to-date to better satisfy the wishes of members of the circle of family members who serve as “carers”, that visitors be transferred to citizens’ rooms where possible, that more social visits are allowed, and that a circle of family members be established to speak on behalf of citizens and families.
“We want to give each resident the opportunity to have a designated mandatory care spouse who may have longer common visits,” the survey summary says. “At a minimum, we will have to allow at least one social guest (in addition to the guest spouse of essential care) with arrangements for more social guests depending on individual circumstances. “
After the Lynn Valley Care Center in North Vancouver experienced the first COVID-19 outbreak at a long-term care home in Canada on March 7, and the first death two days later, the province responded quickly, restricting visits to essentials and volunteers, evaluating or evaluating all assisted and long-term citizens. Fix restricted to running in a place for singles and expanding the cleaning.
“We have noticed how COVID-19 can be temporarily spread in long-term care and have noticed the devastating effect of this virus on the elderly population,” Mackenzie said.
Visitor restrictions were maintained in June to allow a designated social visitor, however, individual operators were allowed to apply the new regulations on their length and design.
Dealing with a year or more before life becomes a general again is sobering for citizens of long-term care centers, many of whom are in the last year or 18 months of their lives, Mackenzie said. looking forward is getting a message from their families, he said.
Before the pandemic, some members of the family circle made a stopover or several times a week to provide non-public care, from food assistance to personal grooming. They are now allowed to scale at most once a week for 30 minutes.
Approximately 75% of long-term care services citizens have personal rooms, however, only two out of 10 said they were allowed to make a personal stopover in a member’s room in the family circle.
In the first seven months of the pandemic, 151 long-term care citizens died of COVID-19, while more than 4,500 citizens died from other causes. “We learned that in their last months, weeks and days, the maximum could not spend enjoyed the most of their time with other people,” Mackenzie said.
The investigation report includes non-public stories, and adds that of a woman who says she denied visits to her husband’s windows, whose room overlooked a courtyard.
The woman’s husband celebrated her 75th birthday with her through a window (an exception), she celebrated her 70th birthday and shared her 50th wedding anniversary two metres away, through a fence. She called him “inhuman. “
“If I had just taken his hand and told him that I was still enjoying him and that he wasn’t abandoning him, maybe he was still alive today,” he writes. “He simply chose to avoid eating or drinking. All hope of seeing me ever has been lost. And what is the goal of living if you have no hope?
There are stories where a sibling has been designated as a designated guest without accommodation for the siblings, which puts even greater stress on families.
A 94-year-old World War II vet wrote that he alone had suffered without the care of his family, and that this way of being “confined to the barracks” was the worst he had ever known.
Pandemic reaction measures are designed to protect older adults, but the number one purpose of protecting them is to allow them to enjoy their limited time with those they enjoy, Mackenzie said.
“The challenge and remains to balance the threat of the virus with the desire for a safe quality of life,” he said.
“We reduced the threat of COVID-19 to zero, but reduced the death threat in long-term care to zero due to a fall, medication or infection. “
Although outbreaks continue to occur, more than 80% of long-term care and assisted living centers have not experienced outbreaks, Mackenzie said. Of those who do, more than 60% have been confined to a user, basically a single member. and there have been no deaths in more than two-thirds of long-term care and assisted living outbreaks to date.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, Provincial Health Administrator and Minister of Health Adrian Dix, indicated the week that long-term care visits will increase.
“We will make changes in the coming weeks that only families and others living in care centers lately,” said Henry, who read the report last week.
Ten said he knew other people were “struggling” to restrict visitors to long-term care.
“We are committed to doing everything imaginable to increase the number of visits, knowing that the threat in long-term care continues to exist,” Dix said.
ceharnett@timescolonist. com