Wendy O’Dwyer says she never considered the power of touch until she went an entire year without holding her mother’s hand.
“There was a whole year I couldn’t touch her and that hasn’t happened before in 61 years,” said O’Dwyer, who finally got a chance to touch her 94-year-old mother, Margery Sutherland, after restrictions on visits to long-term care homes, assisted living and independent living were lifted province-wide on Thursday.
“The first thing I did was grabbed her hand and squeezed it. You realize touch is just so important. During window visits, she’d motion a hug and kiss back and forth, and it was lovely, but it’s not the same.”
Restrictions on visits to long-term-care homes were first implemented in March 2020 to protect a population that was more at risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19.
O’Dwyer, who visited her mother at Veterans Memorial Lodge with her brother Dave Sutherland, hadn’t been able to get up close and personal with their mother since March 9, 2020.
“We were both so excited,” said O’Dwyer. “I turned to my husband last night and I said: ‘Oh my gosh, it feels like Christmas Eve. That was the best way to describe the anticipation, the excitement that I would get to go see her.”
One of the toughest parts for the siblings was the uncertainty of how their mother, who has dementia, would hold up mentally and physically during the year-long lockdown, or whether she’d survive at all.
“For me, and I think for our brothers as well, it was hoping that we would be able to one day go in and physically see mom and give her a hug and it not be in a palliative sense,” said O’Dwyer, who brought her mother a coffee and a Nanaimo bar. (“She hoovered the Nanaimo bar down — two of them.”)
“We’re just so lucky we were able to go in and mom is still doing well.”
O’Dwyer praised Broadmead Care staff and the facility design for keeping her mother safe — although there was an outbreak, it was contained to one case. “We won the lottery there,” she said.
Like many families of residents in long-term care and assisted living facilities, O’Dwyer said she and her brothers have isolated themselves on the chance they might get to visit their mother. With COVID-19 case counts ebbing and flowing, they didn’t want to take any chances.
“We’ve basically spent this last year, waiting for this moment,” said O’Dwyer. “There’s been no one in my house for a year and, you know, likewise with my brothers.”
B.C. Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie said seniors homes have been scheduling essential and social visits over the last eight months, so the change now that visitation has been opened up won’t be “revolutionary.” Prior to the pandemic, a large number of seniors received no visitors at all, she noted. “While I’d like to think will be lineup of people out the door waiting to get into care homes, sadly that’s unlikely.”
Initially, there will be some pent-up demand, but over time, it’s expected to drop back to normal visitation levels, she said.
The biggest change is that spouses, sons and daughters who visited frequently are finally able to touch their partners or parents, Mackenzie added. “I think it will be transformative, not just for some residents — some may not understand — but for the people visiting them who may have suffered the most … this past year.”
Prior to the lifting of restrictions, scheduled visits were typically “30 minutes once a week in a common area sitting six feet apart,” said Mackenzie.
All visitors will still be screened and will be asked to follow COVID-19 safety protocols.
Mackenzie, who had earlier pushed for rapid testing of staff in long-term care homes, said that even with vaccination levels in facilities below 100 per cent and significant community spread of COVID-19, the number of outbreaks in seniors’ homes has been “plummeting, so there’s obviously significant protection there.”
B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said while he expects there will be outbreaks in such facilities — there were only two in the province on Thursday, down from 42 in January — those who contract the virus after vaccination typically develop very mild, if any, symptoms.
Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry cautioned that people still need to be careful to keep the virus out of care homes.
“So that means wearing masks, going by yourself, having your visit with your loved one only, and making sure that if you are feeling unwell at all, that you wait for another time.”
Dix said anyone who thinks there’s a chance they might be ill should not visit a care home this weekend.
Terry Lake, chief executive officer of B.C. Care Providers Association, is also asking that people planning to visit care homes take safety precautions, especially in light of a surge in cases and new variants that spread more easily.
“Opening the doors to visitors brings increased risks and elevated anxiety among staff,” said Lake, a former health minister. “We ask for everyone to please be patient with the process, and to respect new guidelines on the number of visitors and the requirement for masking and hand sanitizing.”
Lake said there may be occasions where it will be more difficult to schedule visits, such as on weekends and other times when fewer staff are available.
