Managers and staff at Burnaby’s New Vista Care Home thought they were doing everything they could as the threat of a deadly new virus began to grow in March.
They enhanced cleaning, ramped up hand-washing audits, restricted visitors and began screening staff coming and going from the facility.
They started wearing masks despite concerns they might make residents uneasy, and they made sure workers weren’t taking shifts at other care homes and unwittingly spreading the disease.
And yet COVID-19 found a way in.
“We were on this way before an outbreak ever happened here, trying to do all we could do to prevent it, and we’re just frustrated for our families and residents that we are now having to deal with this,” New Vista Society CEO Darin Froese told the NOW this week. “But we’re in it now, and we’re going to win.”
‘Very, very scary’
The outbreak, which had infected a total of five residents as of Monday, including a 95-year-old man who died last month, was first made public on April 21, when the Edmonds-area care home told families a staff member had tested positive.
“We were devastated because we thought we had been doing everything we could,” director of care Helle Johansen said.
When the virus first arrived, Johansen said there was a lot of fear among staff, residents and families.
And no wonder.
Among the first updates about the new coronavirus in March was news of deaths at North Vancouver’s Lynn Valley Care Centre, the first care home in the province to be hit.
Before that there was terrible news coming out of care homes in Washington State.
“I could see, to start, that was very, very scary,” Johansen said.
But things have changed with time, she said, as public health officials have learned more about the virus and staff have become more knowledgeable about personal protective equipment and other ways to protect themselves and the residents.
While the disease has proven most deadly to older adults, the care home has also mercifully seen only one case with serious symptoms, according to Johanson.
Even before the outbreak hit, however, the care home had shut down its adult day program and used the space to create a six-bed isolation unit.
Four residents are currently recovering there.
“That’s the change that has happened – from everyone being scared, not knowing what we’re dealing with and thinking this was a death sentence to realizing that the residents that we have had now (test) positive – except that only one that was higher in age – only have (an) occasional cough,” Johanson said.
New case
As of Monday, there were outbreaks at 20 long-term care homes in the province, including New Vista, with active outbreaks and a growing list of facilities, including Lynn Valley, where outbreaks have been declared over.
To get on that second list, New Vista has to be 28 days away from its last positive diagnoses.
With the discovery of another case over the weekend, that is now once again nearly four weeks away.
The latest positive case was picked up during twice-daily temperature checks on residents, according to Johanson.
During a normal influenza season, a slight rise in temperature wouldn’t prompt a test, but now New Vista is on it right away, she said.
Johanson estimates about 50 of the facility’s 300 full- and part-time staff members have been tested and about 70 of its 236 residents.
There have been no more positives among the staff.
One big challenge in containing the virus at New Vista has been the building itself, according to Johanson and Froese, and everyone is looking forward to moving into a new state-of-the-art, seven-storey building nearby that should be ready in August.
Built in 1975, the current building features long hallways and large “villages” or wings, where many residents might mingle.
“While it features single rooms, it’s not the best for infection control,” Froese said.
That’s especially true because up to 80% of New Vista’s residents have moderate to advanced dementia and may wander and not keep their distance from other residents and staff.
In one wing with 96 residents, the care home carved out a smaller unit using pony walls and gates to isolate 15 residents who were part of the initial COVID-19 exposure involving the staff member.
“We’ve just learned to be very creative in how to maintain spaces,” said Kim Sofko, the clinical manager of the unit.
‘Way tougher than we are’
Sofko said the residents’ families have been “fantastic” and supportive despite their fears about COVID-19 and the toll social isolation might be taking on their loved ones.
Residents have been taking their meals in their rooms and isolated from other residents since the outbreak began, and all visitation from outside has been suspended except for cases of palliative care.
Small pleasures, like a visit from a hairdresser or a snack from the care home’s tuck shop, have also been put on hold.
“Depression is a concern of a lot of families because the residents can’t be socializing,” Sofko said.
One way New Vista is hoping to combat that is with a bunch of new iPads that are now being used to connect residents with their families.
“Over the Mother’s Day weekend, that was fantastic. So many families have been appreciative of all that communication,” Sofko said. “They’ve been able to actually see their loved one.”
Even with all they’re going through, however, some of the care home’s most important allies in the battle to keep up morale have been the residents themselves
“Our residents are tough,” Johanson said. “They’ve gone through world wars. They are way tougher than we are, and many of them will come and say, ‘How are you?’ And that’s lovely.”
