The Chief Executive Officer for HavenGroup says life at Rest Haven personal care home in Steinbach looks a lot more normal these days. Even though Manitoba is still under tight restrictions as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, David Driedger says normal activities of daily living are close to what they were previously.
According to Driedger, there have been no new COVID-19 cases among residents at Rest Haven since December 1st. And, since then, 90 per cent of their residents have been vaccinated.
Tannis Nickel is Director of Care at the personal care home. She says though physical distancing requirements are still in place, none of their residents are required to wear masks.
"(They) can enjoy more of a relaxed and homelike atmosphere," she explains.
However, staff are required to wear both masks and eye protection. Rest Haven also has separate areas for residents who live on the first floor and second floor. Nickel says this is for safety reasons so they can easily identify contacts if there was another outbreak.
Driedger says one thing that is noticeably different today from 15 months ago, is the absence of volunteers.
"The many different programming and activities that were supported by volunteers have been minimized, and so that aspect is not there," says Driedger. "So, many things are back to normal, except what I would say are the quality of life kind of things that we would have appreciated through the volunteers themselves."
Having said that, Driedger anticipates the pandemic will leave a permanent mark with respect to some of their standards. For example, visitation and volunteer programs will probably have more stringent standards, which over time, they will get used to and become the new norm.
Nickel says COVID-19 has impacted their residents in different ways. Some residents have had very close encounters with families and loved ones, and unfortunately, some have lost loved ones and there is the pain of not being by their side. Other residents are missing the close contact and regular visits from family members that they may have had in the past. She notes the pandemic is something that is talked about.
"They talk about it because they would love to see our smiling faces or want to be able to hear us properly," she says. "There's things like that, that PPE kind of impedes for the staff."
Having said that, Nickel says she believes staff are expressing themselves through tone of voice a lot more. Further to that, she says everybody has a really good outlook because of the warm weather.
"The residents are very optimistic about the future," she adds.
The COVID-19 pandemic is not the only reason why life at Rest Haven has changed significantly over the last year. The personal care home is also in the stretch run of a massive expansion. Driedger notes over the last couple of months they have been fortunate to begin recapturing some of the space that had been off limits because of construction. For example, the former dining room and chapel is now an expanded dining room and activity area.
"I just think that we want to commend our residents and families for how resilient they have been," says Driedger. "For Rest Haven it has not all been about the restrictions under COVID-19, it has also been the frequent revisions to the accessibility to spaces because of our capital project. And so we appreciate how flexible and how resilient we all collectively have been to accommodate this very challenging season."
Fri, Apr 26, 7:50 AM
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