Message From Jane and Nathalie to our community(from our current newsletter)
When providing care to persons and families our primary objective is to facilitate expression of a person’s physical, social and emotional abilities. Social networks and community connections remain important. Life continues, we continue to grow and learn, to connect and to be in this world of deep meaning and context.
For most of us COVID-19 has not changed who we are, or what we are capable of, at least for the moment. But it has changed how we connect and the risks of social connection. For a particularly vulnerable element of our communities, those in long term care homes, COVID-19 has been disastrous, deadly and isolating.
Because of the risks of infection, COVID-19 has added many additional layers of complexity and concern. In the last three months we have developed and implemented advanced infection prevention and control protocols governing personal protective equipment and their use, procedures for coordinating caregivers and for screening for COVID-19 risks.
Our protocols are documented, well researched and benchmarked off best provincial, national and international practices. We are also committed to educating and informing all those we work with, whether it be front line staff or families.
Our most important protocols are those focusing on contact risks: if we focus not just on immediate contacts but on the contacts of those contacts, we are better able to shut down the transmission of COVID-19 before it gets to our caregivers and our clients and families. Our contact tracing protocols remain at the heart of our defenses and are used to screen new clients and families and all visitors and other health care providers attending in the home. Mosaic was also one of the first to make wearing masks mandatory for all front-line staff because of the asymptomatic risks of transmission.
Fortunately to date we have had no COVID-19 positive clients nor COVID-19 positive front-line teams. In the last couple of months we have also delivered and sent out fabric masks, soap and sanitizer for our front-line staff and families. These are for community use, for shopping and use on public transport etc.
We have also emphasized close contact with our front-line staff through regular telephone calls and Zoom chats to provide support, elicit feedback and to let them know what we are doing.
Martha Miller our Client Services Liaison has been calling our clients and families to see how they are managing and to see if there is anything we can help with.
In a socially distanced world we have had to adapt quickly. Our community resource centers are closed and we have been developing on line programs and connections. Beth Eshete our Community Resource & Social Engagement Coordinator has been responsible for our virtual knitting and exercise programs. We have many other on-line programs through June and August including a collaboration with recent acting graduates of Humber College’s Theatre Performance conservatory program.
We will be implementing our pole walking programs in Markham & Toronto in July and August with contact tracing protocols and physical distancing in place.
We have also been advocating for families with family members in long-term care or retirement homes and have been active in social media promoting the importance of family visits. We discussed our concerns on this issue in our March newsletter. In June Jane Teasdale will be representing Mosaic Home Care on a PodCast, on this issue, arranged by Family Councils Collaborative Alliance.
Mosaic has also been invited to speak at the Sinai Health’s and University Health Network’s Covid-19 Special, Geriatrics Institute Education day.
As many of our families will know, private homecare personal support workers and nurses are not included in the provincial pandemic pay support. This is despite the fact that most care provision in the province is contracted to private companies. We have been actively advocating for pay parity across the community and have formed a caregiver advocacy group with other like-minded home care providers. We have also successfully reached out to local politicians (including Councillor Josh Matlow) on this issue and have written to numerous other senior politicians in Provincial and Federal government.
June is also Seniors Month so Mosaic will be dropping off some activity kits for our clients and a gift bag from Custodia Seniors Support.
We would also like to thank our “Mosaic in-house team who have been working non-stop in keeping our clients and caregivers safe during COVID-19. We would also like to do a shout out to Bev Crescenzi, Operations Admin and her husband Bruno who spent a weekend organizing the masks for our many front-line teams. And to Jazmyn Romano who is a student gaining her community hours. She has been working on some research and developing our programs and community resources document.
And finally, a big, big “Shout Out” to our many front-line caregivers who are selflessly working each and every day, putting the best interests of their clients first and making changes to their own lives and lifestyles so that they can safely provide the care our communities need!
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Recent Posts
- The Community Fall Fair and our New Website
- Reducing Loneliness for Healthy Ageing, by Tara Keck, Professor of Neuroscience
- Community Creates Cuddly Critters for Homeward Family Shelter (Juliette’s Place)
- An update from Beth Eshete – Mosaic’s Community Resource & Social Engagement Coordinator
- Celebrating Seniors Month in Toronto! Mark the date, June 8th
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