Message from the President
Greetings friend, and welcome to the August Comfort Connection,
I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the beautiful Winnipeg summer!! There is really nothing like a Winnipeg summer, which I happen to be missing this year. I decided to stay in my winter home in Grenada even through the beautiful summer months of Canada due to all the complications of travel these days. Traveling used to be fun and exciting. Now it is stressful and complicated. Between all the PCR tests, quarantines, mask mandates, and constant changing regulations, travel is just not the same as it used to be. But enough about me! This month, I want to give a GREAT BIG SHOUT OUT to the staff at COMFORTS OF HOME – CARE!!
In just the same way travel is not easy anymore, work at Comforts of Home – Care has become complicated, stressful, and confusing. Through it all, my staff have been completely amazing!!! Thankfully, the government has never shut us down. We are categorized as an essential service. But we’ve had 16 months of changing regulations. Yet the people who work tirelessly, literally around the clock at Comforts of Home – Care, haven’t skipped a beat!
Just to give you an example of how complicated some things have become... our mission is to make sure we have the right kind of caregiver in the right place with the right person at the right time! That is the one thing we really pride ourselves. We take our time to get our clients the exact right matching caregiver that will suit their needs, personality, and wants. But now there are many more levels of complications due to the regulations we are under.
These days, the same caregiver cannot go to multiple personal care homes; they can only go to one. Some specific personal care homes insist they only want a vaccinated caregiver in their facility. This greatly reduces the number of caregivers available to be able to send to our clients and is especially difficult when the regular caregiver is unavailable. Each week we need to submit a report to Shared Health to show we have been following the imposed regulations exactly. It takes twice as much effort to do half the amount of work we did before everything changed.
Of course, these circumstances have been extremely stressful on everyone. But do you know what guides my staff? It is not fear of catching this virus. It is not the added anxiety the protocols have put on us. What guides my staff day after day is the love and compassion they have for our clients. Our clients need us. They are vulnerable. They very often have no one else who can be there for them besides us to make it through the day.
In spite all of the challenges, my staff show up day after day, full of passion to do their job well. They work hard, they try hard, and compassion continues to drive them. The company has changed owners, a pandemic has swept over the country, and the company has remained strong and on point because of my extremely dedicated and committed staff, both in the office and our caregivers who visit our clients. I couldn’t be more proud of my staff through these extremely difficult times.
