Great connections happen when a team comes together

The Recreation Department at Vimy Court in Truro, Nova Scotia, nominated their entire team for the AA Munroe Insurance Healthcare Heroes Campaign. And they’re featured on Munroe’s website here: https://www.aamunro.com/stories/vimy-court/! The Recreation Department wanted everyone to know just how much they are appreciated each and every day! Here is their wonderful submission.

We would like to nominate our co-workers: the entire staff of Vimy Court. Our community is home to 60 long term care residents. Throughout the pandemic, our team has truly rallied together to make the best of a difficult situation for each other and the residents in our care.

Since mid-March, when the difficult decision was made to close our doors to visitors, our team has truly stepped up to make our residents feel loved, safe and secure. Under normal circumstances, our four-household community would have open doors so residents can come and go to visit their friends throughout the building. These doors have also been closed since mid-March, so not only are our residents unable to visit with family, they are also limited to visiting friends in their households only. As a team, we strive to ensure residents continue to have opportunities for meaningful social interaction throughout this pandemic, when feelings of isolation can be all too real for people living in long term care.

We have worked hard to connect residents with their families, either through window visits, video chats or weekly email updates with photos. Some continuing care assistants (CCAs) have been pulling double-duty as hairdressers, giving much-needed trims to residents to keep them looking and feeling fresh! Our Recreation Programmers and Music Therapist have rolled with the changes by holding Hymn Sings instead of Church Services, Mothers’ Day Teas without children to celebrate their matriarchs and playing beloved games and pastimes with enhanced PPE and physical distancing. When we began introducing pandemic safety measures, one of the very first changes made was the requirement for all personnel to wear masks during their entire shift. One team member seized the opportunity to make residents laugh by making paper lips and moustaches to stick on the masks!

Throughout the pandemic, we have missed some really important milestones. Our community was set to celebrate its 10-year anniversary in April with a big party, which we had to cancel. A beloved resident celebrated her 100^th birthday without her family. Our team went above and beyond to throw her a big party with her friends on her household, and kept her family connected to the event through Skype, recorded videos and photos. We have helped others celebrate birthdays, milestone anniversaries and important events by being their stand-in family.

Our employees have always gone the extra mile in their duties here and are proud to call themselves part of this team and, more than that, a second family to residents. From Site Manager to Administrative Coordinator, Maintenance Coordinator, Licensed Nursing Staff, CCAs, Recreation Programmers, Music Therapist, Wellness Centre Team and SSAs, everyone has been giving it their all since the pandemic began. They have been doing everything they can to make life at Vimy as normal as it can be.

Learn more about Healthcare and Clinical careers at Shannex.