Where bubbles haven't doubled: A glimpse inside one St. John's nursing home
Update on visitor restrictions coming next week, says province
There's a single wooden kitchen chair sitting inside the glassed-in porch at Bonaventure Retirement Home — a new fixture, courtesy of COVID-19.
Bridgette Richards, 84, knows it's her seat. It's where any resident expecting a window visit waits to watch their friends and family through the glass.
The private personal-care home in St. John's has been facilitating video calls and these front porch reunions since March 23, when the province banned visitors at care centres to try to stop coronavirus from reaching some of the population's most vulnerable.
When I gets out? I'm going to go and buy a plate of chips.- Bridgette Richards
At Newfoundland and Labrador's COVID briefing Friday — 73 days into the ban — Health Minister John Haggie said changes to visitor restrictions are coming next week.
'It's different in the room'
When Richards spoke to CBC News on Tuesday, she took her seat and immediately reached for the mail slot welded into the entrance. The slot was always meant to facilitate written communication, but with the advent of window visits it now has a renewed, two-way purpose.
"It's different in the room, you know, 'cause you were right next to me and I could hear ya," Richards said, when asked through the mail slot for her take on window visits.
She said her friends and family are always dropping by and checking in to make sure she's holding up okay.
"They comes to the window … and they wants to hug me, right?.…They wants to make sure I'm still alive," she joked.
'An adjustment'
Richards is a feisty lady fuelled by wit and her oxygen tank — always cracking jokes at the expense of her caregivers.
Tracey Vinnicombe, manager at Bonaventure Retirement Home, is often the butt of those jokes.
"At first when the COVID situation started, it was an adjustment for sure. You know, all the residents struggling with not having visitors come, having to social distance, not having all the recreation activities going on like usual," Vinnicombe said.
"But I gotta say, they adjusted pretty well, and quickly, and the new norm is doing great for them."
Some of them feel like they're cooped up and they want to get out.- Tracey Vinnicombe
Mostly, Vinnicombe said, residents miss having loved ones stop by for a cup of tea. Staff have explained to them what coronavirus is and how visitors are being kept away for their protection.
According to the National Institute of Aging, as of June 5, 84 per cent of the people who have died from COVID-19 in Canada have died in a long-term-care centre.
"I don't understand it." Richards said about coronavirus and all the related precautions. "They keeps telling me that nobody can go anywhere." Her son Neil, she said, has reiterated that everyone — even outside of long-term care — is physical distancing to try to contain any spread.
"I think it's bull, myself," Richards said, bluntly. "But that's me."
Details on visitors coming soon
According to the breakdown of the COVID-19 alert levels posted on the provincial government's website, visitors weren't going to be allowed in health-care centres until at least Alert Level 2.
At the briefing Friday, the last before the province shifts into Alert Level 3, Haggie said the timeline for long-term-care visitors was being pushed up.
He said cutting visitors in March was necessary, but one of the hardest decisions the province has had to make throughout the coronavirus ordeal.
Regional health authorities, he said, would release plans for a "phased" visitor approach during the coming week.
"Some units may be able to designate a visiting room for families to meet with their loved ones, others it may have to be done at the bedside with regard to physical distancing," Haggie said. "So that will come next week and I'm sure that will help deal with a lot of the distress that we have heard about."
In the meantime, Vinnicombe said video calling is really helping to lift spirits.
"One resident, he knows what days — because some of them are on a schedule, it's certain days of the week — and that morning he'll look at me and go, 'We're going to talk to them today, right?' And I'm like, 'Yes, we will.'"
When the weather co-operates, staff also take those who feel cooped up for walks around the block.
"They come back and it's like, 'Oh, that was great," Vinnicombe said. "So that helps their mental state for sure."
Vinnicombe feels however long isolation continues, Bonaventure Retirement Home will be able to manage. Her residents are adjusting to the new normal in the same way people on the outside are, she said. But that doesn't mean — like everyone else — residents have stopped craving small pleasures and the way things used to be.
"When I gets out?" Bridget said, when asked about the first thing she planned to do after restrictions lift. "I'm going to go and buy a plate of chips."
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