COVID-19 Fatigue Hitting Especially Hard In Nursing Homes
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - We're all experiencing varying degrees of COVID fatigue, but it's really setting in for our loved ones at nursing homes.
The people who work in senior living facilities are not only caring for the residents, but they're helping them cope with the loneliness and isolation that set in a long time ago.
Add in another three-week lockdown around the holidays, and it's a day-to-day battle they're really taking by shift.
The staff at Quality Life Services are bringing the outdoors inside. The staff dressed up as Bambi, hiding behind fake trees, the residents aiming nerf guns to celebrate hunting season.
Residents had fun deer hunting today!
Posted by Continental Manor on Monday, November 30, 2020
"And they just said they had such a great time so it's just a matter of being creative, however, we can just be creative and have a good time," said Mary Susan Yurek with Quality Life Services.
It's silly, but necessary to cope with COVID fatigue and 9 months without visits from the outside world.
"We're really, really promoting virtual visits similar to what we're doing, or FaceTime version. We have our website that people can submit letters and videos," said Yurek.
She emphasizes the efforts to keep staff in a good mental space.
"We can't be naïve to the fact that emotionally, this is all so draining for them. So we have provided our employee assistance program, which is like a counseling service free of charge – we've provided that for them," she said.
From March until July, Quality Life Services kept COVID at bay. But now, the company's website covid tracker shows the heightened struggle.
"July we were good, but now with the spread the way it is we've had four buildings have an outbreak at once," Quality Life Services Chief Operating Officer Paul McGuire said.
The increased community spread in Western Pennsylvania results in higher numbers in nursing homes, and now they're awaiting the vaccine.
"Which is great news and we're really excited about that. So now the real work begins in educating residents, their families, the staff on the importance of getting the vaccine," McGuire said.
Quality Life Services tells KDKA's Meghan Schiller it's working hand-in-hand with two pharmacies: CVS and Walgreens. Those pharmacies will come to the centers at least three times to issue the vaccine doses.