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Williams Lake Seniors Village, Community Update, November 26 2020

Dear Families, 

We hope you are all staying safe and healthy!

General Visiting Information

These visits are physically distanced and there can be no touching or close contact of any kind for the safety of our residents. Our spaces will have the safe distances marked to make these protocols easier to follow. Staff will facilitate each visit and be present for the duration of your visit which will be 20-30 minutes in length, and staff will also sanitize the space thoroughly after each visit.

We will continue to offer scheduled video calls for those families who live out of town or are unable to come in for any reason. We anticipate that as we start we will be able to offer one visit a month, but we hope to increase our capacity in the future. At this time, to ensure that our recreation aides can still offer physically distanced small group programming, we can only offer one chosen form of visit per resident with one contact.

We are excited to be implementing these processes, and thank you for your understanding and patience as we learn and grow with these changes.

Please do not hesitate to call Andrea with any questions you may have regarding visits, essential delivery drop offs for residents, or anything resident-focused. She will be happy to help! If you are the designated visitor for LTC, AL or IL residents, and have not scheduled your next visit, please contract Andrea at 250-305-3314 or ahodgetts@retirementconcepts.com to do so.

 

Visitors

If you are the designated visitor, prior to your visit please check in with yourself. If you are feeling unwell, have symptoms of COVID-19, or have been in contact with someone who has COVID-19 please call to cancel your appointment.

Please note that all visitors are now required to wear a medical mask when coming to visit their loved one. Cloth masks are no longer acceptable.  At this time, isolation gowns and gloves are NOT required. Our teams will be here to assist during your scheduled visit, should you have any questions.

As the season changes and the weather gets colder we are making the change to offering inside visits only. We will no longer offer window and outdoor visits over the winter season as of October 15th 2020. We are still offering indoor physically distanced visits with residents and their designated visitor. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this please contact Andrea at 250-305-3314. Thank you for your understanding.

 

Assisted Living/Independent Living Visits

When it is your time to visit your loved one, please make your way to our Assisted Living entrance. Please make sure your mask is on correctly and is covering your nose before you enter the doors. You will be greeted by one of our staff members who will walk you through the pre-screening process and to the designated visiting location.  For Assisted and Independent living you will have a choice of having the visit outside in the Dog Courtyard or inside in the Country Kitchen.

Long Term Care Visits

When it is time for your visit, please enter our main doors and approach the pre-screening table.  Please make sure your mask is on correctly and is covering your nose before you enter the main doors. You will be greeted by one of our staff members who will walk you through the pre-screening process and to the designated visiting location. Long Term Care visits will happen in either the Hair Salon, outside patio on warm sunny days, or in our new downstairs visiting space!

Recreation Program

As we head into December the holiday season is upon us. Although we are not able to do some of the traditional celebrating that we have done in years past (large events and live music) we have planned many small socially distanced programs to keep the spirit of the season bright!

 

Over the next month we are having a holiday door decorating contest, many small socially distant Christmas parties with Christmas pudding and holiday music. In Assisted and Independent Living we will be having three virtual and socially distanced paint afternoons for our residents. Megan, who previously did our in person paint nights, will be instructing us over Zoom!

 

We have had an outpouring of support from members of our community who have generously donated gifts for our residents and from schools who want to write letters to our seniors to help keep them connected over the holiday season.

 

Assisted Living & Independent Living

In Assisted Living and Independent Living, all recreation activities are now to be signed up for in our “Recreation Events” binder located at the pre-screening table in the main lobby. The list of events happening each week with the number of spaces available are in this book. Residents are being encouraged to sign up for these activities. Residents must sign up in advance for these activities, at this time “drop ins” are not available.

All events are still being held with the same precautionary measures and all residents will be prescreened before participating. All events will be facilitated by Jolene to make sure all precautionary measures are met and social distancing requirements are met. Fitness, News and Views, Walking Club, and Bingo are among a few of events happening this week that your loved ones are encouraged to sign up for and participate in!

Long Term Care

In Long Term Care all activities will be hosted by our LTC Recreation Aides and will be adhering to all precautionary measures and residents will be prescreened, social distanced during programming and a thorough sanitization of the activity space before and after each activity will occur. Residents have been so happy to have activities such as exercise, charades, music and reading back for them to participate in each day!

We still continue to offer Scenic Drives for both our Assisted Living, Independent Living and our Long Term Care residents. We are following the directives given from Interior Health for these scenic drives to ensure the safety of the residents. We are thoroughly sanitizing the bus before and after the drive, ensuring residents sanitize their hands upon entry and exit of the bus, ensuring that alcohol-based hand rub with at least 70% alcohol content is available on the bus, the bus driver is wearing a mask, and clients are not permitted to exit the bus during the outing. In addition, cohort groups have been created with 6 residents per group. Residents will stay in the same cohort group each time they attend country drives. All clients are being monitored for new or worsening cough, sneezing, runny nose, fever, sore throat, difficulty breathing, or episodes of vomiting and/or diarrhea prior to participating in a bus outing. These Scenic Drives will be very good for our residents mental health and we are excited to be able to safely offer this to them.

To the extent staff are able to facilitate Facetime and Skype for residents they are doing so, amidst their other duties. Andrea, our Therapeutic Recreation Manager, will be the contract for the chosen visitors of LTC and AL & IL. If you have questions in the meantime, please utilize the information in this document or contact Andrea at 250-305-3314 or ahodgetts@retirementconcepts.com

Hair Dresser

Vicki from the Country Cottage will be cutting hair every Saturday and Sunday starting Saturday October 31st from 10:00am-4:00pm for our Long Term Care residents. If you would like your loved ones haircut, please call Andrea at 250-305-3314 or send her an email at ahodgetts@retirementconcepts.com.

 

 

Dining & Housekeeping

All social distancing and strict sanitization procedures will be executed before and after each meal. We can offer a maximum of two people per table, as per our Provincial Health Officer’s guidelines, and for the safety of our tenants we have removed table clothes, center pieces and are using reusable condiments at this time. Tables will not be pre-set to ensure safety and cleanliness before residents sit down to enjoy their meal.

Menus are given out at the end of each week for the following week. Residents are asked, at that time, to select what main course they would like and our servers collect the papers at the end of the dining time. Alongside our Support Services Manager, Kirstyn, our Support Service team work together to make sure all preferences are met and everyone has a pleasant dining experience. All completed menus are then returned to each resident so they have their selections to refer back to.

If you have any questions about meals, menus, or housekeeping please contact our Support Service Manager, Kirstyn, at kjorde@retirementconcepts.com or 250-305-3309.

Protocols 

Aside from the single visitor policy, we are following the direction of our public health officials and have full infection prevention and control precautions in place. Staff continue to monitor residents closely and are ensuring the following protocols are being adhered to:


If Required:

All deliveries will be received at the front door. This includes groceries, medications, flowers, and gifts. All will be sanitized and delivered directly to the resident’s suites.

Dropping items off: We would ask that families please follow these guidelines as I am sure you want your parent or loved-one to get their deliveries in a timely manner.

  1. Please use plastic bags, no reusable bags
  2. Make sure to label all bags with resident full name and room number
  3. Try to limit drop offs to essential items. There are days when staff are overwhelmed trying to keep up
  4. Please sanitize, if possible, the items before dropping off. We will re-sanitize as well to be safe
  5. Please leave all items on the white cart label “DROP OFF LOCATION” outside the Front Door. Our staff will receive the items once you are back in your vehicle.
  6. Items may be dropped off Monday – Fridaybetween 8:00am and 3:30pm.

    Please DO NOT drop off items on the weekends or after hours, they will not be accepted and will be left outside until the designated time listed above.  Due to high volumes of items being dropped off our drop off hours are set to accommodate thorough sanitization processes and timely deliveries to your loved one’s suite while we are fully staffed. We ask that ALL deliveries be dropped off on the white cart by 3:30pm Monday-Friday.

    Thank you for your understanding and cooperation during this time.

Reminders for your loved-one to Stay Safe: Again, the following four points are so critical to discuss with your loved ones. Please help us by reminding each resident daily of the following four items:

  1. Practice social distancing (6 feet apart)
  2. Perform proper Hand Hygiene (Wash hands frequently for 20 seconds with the alcohol-based sanitizer or soap and  hot water) 20 second or greater is so important.
  3. Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth
  4. If exhibiting any symptoms (fever, cough and difficulty breathing) please alert staff immediately.

We want to thank everyone for their cooperation and patience during this difficult period.

Thank You

Your Team at the Williams Lake Seniors Village