Time to reflect in respect to those who have suffered the most.

[reeman]

My current temporary position is as support services management in a seniors residence. We have recently been hit by omicron. I write this only to share my feelings about the life and death difficulties that our most vulnerable residents are currently suffering.

The residence is extended care so it is natural to lose residents that are weak from other age and illness related causes. But omicron is stealing away a great deal of the dignity during the final stages of life that all humans deserve.

I am charged to oversee the day to day quality of food services as well as housekeeping services which includes all aspects of these particular requirements of a complex care residence.

We did our best and avoided the early waves of covid with strict measures to ensure that the residence would be as safe guarded from the more deadly first mutations of this ugly virus as humanly possible. The cost was isolation and restrictions that made life deeply lonely for those who are by and large not very ambulatory. A cruelty that made many of the lucid residents despondent. Was this necessary, certainly it did save a great many lives as other residences elsewhere that failed to implement these measures suffered horribly from the first waves of covid many had to call in extraordinary help from the military to keep the residences staffed and operating at all. We managed to escape that onslaught.

This is my prayer: that the losses of the most vulnerable that we are currently suffering ease off soon. And that within the next few days the wave of omicron now spreading through the innocent that we serve faithfully passes and we can allow more freedoms for all who cannot serve themselves.

Tomorrow I must order food stocks, start taking inventory and keep the food stock rotation in order. My job is only pleasant and rewarding if it can make a difference in how comfortably and happily a senior citizen lives out their last day.

I pray that overnight tonight that we do not lose any more of the wonderful people that I love to serve, that have suffered so much for the past 2 years.

[BobC]

Thank you and the rest of your staff for your service. My 98 year old mother is in a senior residential facility and I'm acutely aware of what you face. Her facility has done a great job but the necessary isolation Mom faced in 2020 definitely took its toll on her.