Spirits high at local long-term care centres despite greater risk to COVID-19

PRINCE GEORGE — Long-term care facilities are potentially being hit the hardest by the coronavirus. A couple of those outbreaks in B.C. alone, resulting in a substantial amount of the confirmed cases and deaths in the province, however, Northern Health has avoided any such outbreaks.

“We are adapting programs to more one-to-one type activities and the big things for us is the social distancing or physical distancing,” explained Lynn Aucoin, Recreation Therapist at a couple long-term care centres in Prince George. “Hand hygiene for staff and residents, when we’re out with residents we’re wearing masks, so we are doing everything we possibly can to keep our residents and staff safe.”

At the Gateway Complex Care in Prince George, the biggest hurdle has been restricting visitors. Centres have combated through apps like Skype and FaceTime and it seems residents have really taken to it.

“We had one lady and her daughter was on the iPad and she was stroking her daughter’s hair on the iPad and giving the iPad a hug as if to give her daughter a hug and that was really emotional and really moving,” Aucoin said of one example. “It was a really neat connection because some of our folks that have dementia and may be cognitively impaired, we’re not always sure what they’re going to think about the iPad in front of them because it’s kind of a foreign object to them but so far our visits have been amazing.”