November 20 – No additional positives

Good morning. Five days ago, we received the first positive COVID result for a resident living in Menno Home E2. Since then, we have received 2 more positive COVID results for residents for a total of 3 residents who are COVID positive.

We do not have any staff who are COVID positive. Most staff results have been returned. We are waiting for several COVID tests that are pending. Staff whose test results are negative are not permitted to come back to work to work on another unit or elsewhere on the campus. We are waiting for Public Health to give us more clarity on when this will be lifted. This has created some stress on various departments who have able workers waiting at home in isolation. Thank you for your willingness to return to work.

We meet daily with the Fraser Health liasion. This is our entire COVID team that gathers on Skype each morning at 9am. Fraser Health has asked us to put full precaution protocols in place in each of the other Menno Home units – W1, W2, E1. This means that residents will receive their meals in their rooms and we have signage and PPE supplies on each of the units rather than in our central Stores. It also means that staff can no longer enter more than one unit in a shift. This has been true since March for the care staff (care aides and nursing). They have been cohorted to one unit per shift with separate staff rooms.

Ther are pieces of our operations that are based on staff being able to enter more than one unit in a shift – for example, the delivery of goods each day from Stores. One staff member brings the goods to each unit each day. An example of what they bring is incontinence products. This staff member is doing the internal deliveries. Another example is our maintenance team. Bas, who manages the team has done an excellent job of hiring skilled maintenance. For example, one of the maintenance team is a Red Seal plumber. He is called on to use his skills in all of the units as needed.

These are the types of operational tasks that are no longer able to move in and out of a unit due to full precaution protocols. As you can imagine, there are a lot of logistics that change on the spot. That is what we worked on getting ready yesterday.

We purchased overbed tables so that the residents can eat in their own rooms. We purchased isolation carts (they contain the PPE) for outside of the rooms where full PPE are required. We needed to purchase 50 of these and we don’t have time to order them for delivery. We need one large garbage can per room for PPE disposal. The team phoned all Walmarts, Canadian Tires and Home Depots to find out their stock and we deployed our wonderful bus driver, Peter, to drive around the Fraser Valley to pick up the purchases. Peter misses taking residents out on bus trips so he said he’d love to get back in the bus. He said that it was 106 days from the last bus trip (March 12) until they began in the apartments again earlier this month.

Please pray today for two of our managers who are providing leadership for the operational changes.

• Bas, our Manager of Maintenance and Facilities. He supervises all the purchasing of PPE and product for the campus as well as the Maintenance team.
• LeanneTanner who is our Manager of Housekeeping and Laundry.
• Also, pray for Ursula, our Receptionist at Menno Home. She made hundreds of posters and laminated them all yesterday. These are required for full precaution.
• Pray for our CEO,Karen Axelson Biggs as she leads while her husband is in hospital.
• Pray for our Medical Director, Dr. Ken Dueck as he provides medical leadership for the Physicians group and several long-term care homes.