Community Health Centres provide critical lifeline for isolated seniors during the pandemic
Community Health Centres (CHCs) across Canada are taking important measures to support seniors during the pandemic over growing concerns that increased isolation is taking a toll on their health and wellbeing.
While isolation is not a new problem for seniors, isolation coupled with physical distancing and closure of many services and businesses has cut seniors off from many of the connections and supports they need. Social isolation is linked to a wide range of risk factors and poorer health outcomes, and these can sometimes mean the difference between life and death for seniors.
“Before the pandemic, many seniors already faced barriers in staying connected and accessing health and social supports,” says Joanne Schenn, Director of Counselling at Saskatoon Community Clinic. “For many older clients in our community, coming to our facilities was one of the few connections they had outside of their home because we are deliberately set up with their limitations in mind.”
Since the lockdown, the Community Health Centre has had to suspend in-person programs and reorganize in order to keep in touch with and support older clients. The entire department that Schenn manages at this Community Health Centre has shifted from delivering in-person counselling and group programs to doing daily checking-in calls with older clients, making house-calls, and delivering food hampers, while respecting strict safety precautions.
“The clients we serve face tremendous needs and barriers, and most of them risk falling between major cracks if we’re not there for them,” explains Joanne Schenn. “We’re doing everything we can to make sure we stay connected, available, and have innovative ways to support isolated seniors and other vulnerable groups throughout the pandemic.”
At London InterCommunity Health Centre in Ontario, team members have been adapting and improvising regularly to keep in constant contact with older clients.
“Our older clients are scared of getting COVID-19 to the point they fear going out for essentials or even going for a walk,” explains Adriana Diaz, Program Manager for Diabetes, Ethno-cultural Programs, and Allied Care, who is leading the Community Health Centre’s wrap-around care and support for seniors.
“Social isolation has had an impact in so many ways, such as access to food. So food delivery and having a plan for securing food has now become a vital part of our service offering.”
Diaz explains that they are seeing seniors experiencing more loneliness, anxiety and depression than before. To ensure equitable access to timely and trustworthy information during the lockdown, the London-based Community Health Centre surveyed their clients’ as early as possible to determine their access to cell phones, internet, and document their physical locations.
That way they have been able to reach all seniors with the resources needed, tailored to specific needs. The CHC has developed virtual health sessions and WhatsApp groups, has deployed resources by e-mail in multiple languages, and has delivered important information packages by mail.
In L’Ardoise, Nova Scotia, staff at Dr. Kingston Memorial Community Health Centre have turned to social media as a key part of their latest efforts to mitigate social isolation. “We launched a Facebook group called What Does Social Isolation Look Like? to encourage people to express themselves and their experiences creatively, through whatever artistic medium they choose,” says Michele MacPhee, Seniors’ Safety and Social Inclusion Coordinator at the Community Health Centre located in rural Cape Breton.
“The uptake has been significant with seniors having provided the majority of content to date. It has been an important outlet and lifeline, and it also enables us to keep in touch beyond phone calls and the other virtual methods we’re using.”
Out west, in a relatively large and rural area on the Sunshine Coast in B.C., Pender Harbour Health Centre is turning to more traditional methods of social connection to counteract senior isolation. “Over 50% of Pender Harbour’s population is aged 65 and older and many of them live in rural settings with no access to internet,” says Susann Richter, the Community Health Centre’s Chief Operating Officer. “In addition to shifting some of our programs from in-person care to a combination of in-person and telehealth, we’ve expanded our telephone tree program to give seniors an opportunity to do wellness check-ins with one another while physically distancing.”
That’s in addition to a pen pal program the Community Health Centre organizes, giving seniors another therapeutic form of connecting with one another that doesn’t rely on digital technology.
Across Canada, Community Health Centres (CHCs) are adapting and innovating to provide the primary care, health promotion, and social support services needed by vulnerable Canadian, including seniors. Through virtual and house visits for medical care, food and prescription drop offs, transportation and housing services, and a wide-range of other methods, Community Health Centres are working hard to leave no one behind during the COVID-19 pandemic.