As COVID-19 reduces staff at senior care centres, clients are feeling the pinch 

Windsor resident Erica Stevens-Abbitt says she relies on Home Instead Senior Care to help provide assistance for her husband Jerry Abbitt, as well as her mother Renee Stevens. 

Abbitt, 73, has lived with Parkinson's disease for 40 years and is now at a point where mobility is quite difficult. Stevens, 93, currently lives at the Sunrise of Windsor retirement home on Riverside Drive and has congestive heart failure stemming from a heart attack approximately four years ago. 

Stevens-Abbit said that Home Instead caregivers not only helped her husband and mother with medical needs, but also with more everyday tasks.

"They gave nursing, as well as companionship care," Stevens-Abbit said. "And they gave more than companionship. It's sort of cleaning, sweeping, laundry, just keeping everything ticking."

In late March, however, when Stevens-Abbitt noticed that coronavirus numbers were continuing to rise, she suspended her Home Instead care as a means of preventing the spread of COVID-19 and protecting her family. 

According to Ryan Jershy, owner of Home Instead Senior Care's Windsor location, Stevens-Abbitt isn't the only one who's cancelled services, leaving approximately half of his staff out of work. 

Jershy said long-term care facilities enforcing visitor restrictions, as well as new Ontario rules preventing caregivers from working at multiple long-term care homes, have also complicated matters for his organization. 

"We've had to make sure that all of our staff that are working [in private homes] are only working with [clients in private homes]," he said, adding that workers who work at a certain facility have to work there exclusively.

At the same time, Jershy said, an additional challenge has been coordinating caregiver schedules to match the needs of clients.. 

"We may not have enough work for these people at these facilities either," he said. 

Stevens-Abbitt says even though staff at Sunrise of Windsor have continued to provide her mother with care, not having her regular caregiver has been hard on her. 

"At 93, your world is smaller," Stevens-Abbitt said. "She just keeps saying 'I miss you, I miss you, I want to see you. When do I get to see you?'"

Home Instead ... managed to ... bridge that gap between family and staff.- Erica Stevens-Abbitt

"What Home Instead has managed to do is sort of bridge that gap between family and staff," she said. "So I can't replicate that feeling with however great the staff is [at Sunrise of Windsor]."

And while her husband is still healthy — despite his mobility concerns — Stevens-Abbitt said she's worried that she won't be able to provide the care necessary if Abbitt experiences something like a sudden fall. 

"We've done so much with Parkinson's over the years, so I know how to do the daily care for a lot of things, but I would never ever think I could do what Home Instead … or other places could do."

In the meantime, Jershy said Home Instead is working on different options to provide care for their clients, including companion calls.

"I've spoken to clients and facilities and it's tough," he said. "They're lonely and they're used to having outings and doing different things, and now they're kind of stuck in their rooms."

"Because [Home Instead caregivers] know [clients] very well, and in some instances, this is almost like family to them."

Jershy said he's also trying to find out more information about rules for COVID-19 testing. 

"I know right now they're looking at doing more testing from anybody that's in the facilities, especially if they were in an outbreak," he said. 

As of Thursday, 34 per cent of Windsor-Essex confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been linked to long-term care staff and residents.