Message from the President
Greetings friend, and welcome to the June Comfort Connection,
Manitoba, Canada, and the world have been dealing with the effects of COVID for the past 14 months. Not every country is experiencing the regulations the same, yet, we tend to think what we are experiencing is the only reality there is. The effects have been far reaching to say the least.
A ‘friend’ of mine on Facebook, Lisa Hagel, who works in long-term care, shared her bold perspective, which I would like to share with you today.
“...For 14 years I have been in long term care. We broke the mould! Love, laughs, friendship, joy. Families getting to take that last step together. We were a village walking each other home.
Now they have insisted we save people’s lives. We were never in the business to save lives. We were in the business to give quality to end of life.
- Now no community meals
- No activities in groups such as bingo or music concerts
- No family visits
- No birthday celebrations, no hugs, no more holidays
We have taken away everything that makes life worth living for in an effort to ‘protect’ them. I wake up every day filled with so much grief. My heart has shattered a thousand tiny deaths. This is not a season for them. It is their last Mother’s Day, their last Easter, their last everything!
How can we fix it when the media and the world will persecute and villainize us if a death occurs? We had death before covid, we have death during covid, and we will have death after covid. The difference now is we are dying of loneliness and broken hearts.”
A few months later, she wrote:
“Assisted living facilities are not in the business to save lives! They are there to bring quality, happiness, and joy to the end-of-life journey! Families come to us with cancer, dementia, COPD, Congestive Heart Failure, and everything else. The COVID regulations are essentially saying it is ok to die of loneliness just as long as you don’t catch covid. There have always been risks when you live in a communal setting. The difference was before those risks were balanced out by all the good! The socialization, the activities the care and the meals... We may not have died from COVID, but can we look back and say we actually lived?”
After reading these words from Lisa, it makes me re-think the extreme measures we are (still) taking in Manitoba. I hope and pray this current reality will come to an end soon. Sober times call for sober reflections.
