Menu

Seniors

person holding black and silver microphone

Dryden organization aims to alleviate social isolation for seniors

, , ,

A non-profit organization is highlighting the risk of loneliness that many seniors in Dryden cope with everyday.

“Say you live (in an) apartment setting,” says Colleen Hill from Dryden District Senior Services. “You can still feel isolated even though you are surrounded by people.”

Earlier this week, October was proclaimed Seniors Isolation Prevention Month by Mayor Jack Harrison, who encourages all residents to celebrate and engage with Dryden’s senior citizens.

According to a recent report, less than 40 per cent of Canadians aged 50 and older engage in social and recreational activities on a weekly basis, with one in four saying they rarely or never do so.

Hill says Dryden District Senior Services offers several programs that are aimed at providing seniors the assistance, social support and services they often require.

“Our role with our organization is that we try and capture and try to encourage everyone to come to our programs,” says Hill. “We have programming in place to try and prevent isolation in the home.”

Among the services offered by Dryden District Senior Services are adult day programs that provide a group setting for socialization opportunities, respite, as well as support to families and caregivers.

As well, Dryden District Senior Services supports seniors with regular visitation services, whereby a volunteer and client are matched to meet via phone call or in-person visit.

“The key part is matching a volunteer with a client,” notes Lisa Helbling, the adult day and friendly visiting coordinator. “These visits can take place in their homes or they can take them shopping or to community events if they need that support.”

Another important program is Meals on Wheels, which has a dual-function for those who require the service.

“A volunteer will deliver a hot meal to the community member and in that delivery of service, they would provide a bit of a security check,” explains Hill, noting that if concerns arise, volunteers are instructed to report back to Dryden District Senior Services, which could potentially call for a wellness check.

“All of our programs are supported with volunteers,” adds Hill, encouraging anyone interested in helping out to sign up. “(People) can give us a call here at Dryden Senior Services or by email.”

yo01Z-9HQAw-scaled-1

Groups Demand Inquiry Into Seniors’ Care

, , , , , , , ,

Healthcare advocates want an investigation of alleged discrimination against elderly patients in hospitals and long-term care.

The Ontario Health Coalition, Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, and lawyers from Goldblatt Partners laid out their complaints in a virtual news conference.

They’re asking the Ontario Human Rights Commission to begin an inquiry into a lack of long-term care beds and claims that hospitals discharge seniors too early to free up beds.

Coalition Director Natalie Mehra claims it’s because of a history of under-funding from the province.

She argues that helped lead to deadly COVID-19 outbreaks like the one at Southbridge Roseview in Thunder Bay.

“The longstanding, terrible inadequacy in long-term care was instrumental in these deaths, so too was the policy of denying access to hospital care for the elderly,” she says.

Mehra also claims that in the early months of the pandemic, hospitals freed up beds for COVID-19 patients by discharging over 2,200 patients early, many of whom were elderly.

“At the same time, instead of staffing up long-term care homes, the long-term care industry and provincial government actually pursued deregulation of the only staffing requirements that long-term care homes have, which were woefully inadequate to start with,” Mehra says.

She adds this has been going on for much longer than the pandemic, but that COVID-19 exposed many inequalities in the healthcare system.

Justin-Trudeau-1-3

Feds Provide More Money For Seniors

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

The federal government is providing additional funding for seniors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says seniors who are eligible for the old age security pension and guaranteed income supplement will receive a special one-time, tax-free payment.

The special payment which could add up to $500 is expected in July.

The Prime Minister noted many seniors have struggled to make ends meet since they haven’t been able to go in person to shop sales at grocery stores.

Trudeau also addressed recent data on how Canada is doing in its fight against the virus saying it is promising. He reminded residents to keep up good hygiene and other physical distancing measures as Canada isn’t out of the woods yet.

henry20wall20push_5-1

Seniors Housing Complex In Dryden Delayed

, , ,

Construction of a new 40 unit affordable housing complex for seniors in Dryden has been delayed.

Kenora District Services Board Chief Administrative Officer Henry Wall says they were hoping to break ground this year.

“COVID-19 has certainly had an impact in terms of our ability with respect to planning and community engagement and so forth. So as soon as we can we want to pick that up again so that we can begin the work on moving that forward.”

Wall notes “Realistically we are more likely looking at a construction start date more into 2021 just because of the impact that COVID-19 has had on all sectors.”

Wall stresses they don’t want to rush this important project.

“Do proper planning for this and work with our seniors population. Make sure that what is being built is going to meet the needs of today but also for the needs of seniors into the future.”

He believes the planning and consultation will likely take up a majority of the year.

Wall notes a very engaged Community Working Group continues to work behind the scenes on what the building should look like and a draft design has been completed.

“Seniors aren’t looking for shoe boxes. Actually they would love to have housing units that have additional bedrooms so that when family comes to visit from out of town that they can actually spend time together and the family doesn’t have to rent a hotel.”

Wall notes the KDSB directly supports about 50 seniors with housing and the number one issue that comes up is loneliness.

The KDSB secured property from the City behind the old Pinewood School.

 

doug-ford-cpac-may26-e1590515272272-2

Province Taking Over LTC Homes

, , , , , , , , , ,

The provincial government is taking over five private long term care homes in southern Ontario.

Premier Doug Ford says if he feels the need he will take action on other old age homes.

“We are fully prepared to take over more homes if necessary, we are prepared to pull licences, to shut down facilities if it is necessary. We will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes,” Ford said.

Ford said he will do anything to ensure the safety of seniors during the pandemic but ruled out demanding his Minister of Long Term Care’s resignation.

Ontario has already taken over two long term care homes during the pandemic.

The Premier said he has heard the military will remain in our old age homes until at least June 12th.

He also committed to turning over a scathing report on the care being offered in long term care homes in our province to police.

Ford is also sending in more inspectors to check on homes across the province.

“We will find out very quickly who are good operators and who are bad actors,” Ford said.

wave6-1-1

Praise For Princess Court Staff/Management

, , , , ,

Princess Court in Dryden has found a way to help keep residents safe and busy while keeping them connected to family, loved ones and the community.

Staff member Joy Trenholm says they have created three separate “Waving Trees”, with seniors painting waving hands on the windows at the front of the building.

Trenholm says seniors had a blast working on the project, noting it allows them to say hi to motorists and pedestrians who are passing bye the facility.

She says other measures to help keep seniors active and engaged is virtual Facetime meetings and bringing people down to the ground level to wave through the window.

Trenholm stresses the management deserves nothing but credit for how quickly they acted on COVID-19 before anyone else did.

The home was closed to all visitors on March 13th before it was mandated by the province and staff were immediately screened for the virus.

Home Administrator Pat Berrey says his team is second to none.

“They are an amazing team. They have been working extremely hard to try and keep our residents and staff safe during this unprecedented time.”

Berrey adds “Thank all of our staff for their commitment, their courage, their dedication to serving our residents and working through this pandemic. I must say they have been fantastic and we really do appreciate our staff.”

He notes the “Waving Hand” initiative was a wonderful idea that was initiated and carried out by workers at the facility.

“The residents love to be engaged in doing things throughout the home. This is just another example of the creative abilities of our staff.”

Berrey stresses they continue to explore ways to protect residents and practice physical distancing.

He points out in a letter sent to families “We are doing our best to protect the residents under our care. We have re-aligned our Activation staff to spend more one on one time with the residents and provide physically distanced small group activities on the units. We understand that the residents are anxious and feeling somewhat isolated throughout this difficult time.”

benches-1

Community Effort To Bring Joy To Seniors In Dryden

, , ,

Brightening up Princess Court in Dryden and uplifting the residents who live there.

That was the purpose of a pre-COVID-19 campaign by local students and members of the Princess Court Family Council.

Council Chair Carol Gardam talked about the project at a Dryden Rotary Club virtual meeting Wednesday.

Gardam says they painted the six benches outside in bright, cheerful colours.

She notes “the benches are used by residents and families when they are visiting and are at the main entrance so they are also a nice welcome to all visitors coming into the building.”

Gardam adds they had students put their art up on the bulletin boards as well as had high school students paint murals in the hallways.

Gardam stresses it was a great opportunity to have our youth interact with seniors.

 

fordmonday-1-1

Province Pledges Review Of Long-Term Care

, , , ,

The provincial government isn’t committing to a public inquiry into COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care homes.

However, Premier Doug Ford admits the system is broken.

“We’re going to do a complete review of long-term care. As we move forward we are improving the systems as we go but we have a lot of improvements still to do.”

Ford notes “We inherited quite a mess and I’m not going to blame the previous government. This has been going on for decades.”

He stresses they will need support from the opposition parties as well as proper funding from the Federal government.

Ford says they’ve learned some valuable lessons during the pandemic.

He states 2% of the people in long-term care have been infected by the virus and that’s 2% too many.

Most of the positive cases and deaths have been in southern Ontario.

The Northwestern Health Unit catchment area has had no cases, while one case was confirmed at a Thunder Bay long-term care home earlier this month.

mealswheels-1

Meals On Wheels Back In Operation

, , ,

COVID-19 put a brief hold on the Dryden Meals on Wheels program, but volunteers are back in action.

The service has restarted after being cancelled temporarily due to safety concerns.

Spokesperson Penney Bradley says they were able to get things going again with some help.

“We have since partnered with the Dryden Regional Health Centre, the City, the Dryden Native Friendship Centre, as well as individuals who have self-identified with us to get the Meals on Wheels program back up and running.”

Bradley notes “So far it’s going not to bad. We had a few kinks initially but I think we are working through them. I just have to show my appreciation to all of our partners.”

Bradley adds they don’t have an official seniors shopping program in place at the moment, but they will help refer seniors to people who are willing to help.

You can call 223-5278 for more information.

jttuesday-3

Federal Support For Seniors

, , ,

Seniors across Canada can expect another cheque in the mail.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says any senior who is eligible for the Old Age Security pension will receive a $300 payment to help off-set some of the costs of COVID-19.

Trudeau says they are also giving an extra $200 to people are eligible for the Guaranteed Income Supplement.

He says the one-time tax free payment of $500 will support almost 7 million seniors.

Trudeau says they are also investing an extra $20-million in the New Horizons For Seniors program.

“Earlier we boosted funding so that organizations could provide delivery services and help seniors stay in touch with family. So we are making another investment today to create more programs to help isolated seniors and improve their quality of life.”

The money is for caregivers and organizations help keep seniors busy, active and connected during the pandemic.

This could include the purchase of video conferencing technology at Seniors Centres.

The latest investment totals $2.5-billion.

Trudeau says “There’s no question that COVID-19 has been taking its toll on seniors both emotionally and financially. Our government is taking action to alleviate some of the stress they may be feeling.”

The prime minister adds that there’s still more work needed to find long-term solutions to how Canada’s elderly are cared for.

Load More