- Being under a strict Covid-19 lockdown in a retirement village has been extremely tough on the elderly, says Daniel Rossouw.
- The elderly are being confined to their homes now, with minimal human contact for fear of spreading the virus.
- And for Estelle Botha, who recently took over the frail-care section called “Huis Verdi”, it has been a stressful time.
When Legato retirement village in Durbanville lost one of its residents to Covid-19, it hit residents hard as they had not had a single case for the first two months of the lockdown.
The resident, understood to have been in her nineties, died last month. Another, who had tested positive for the virus during a hospital stay, also died. Two others and six staff members had to self-isolate and go into quarantine.
According to frail-care manager Estelle Botha, it had been a torrid time since she took over the facility on 1 March, days before the full extent of the pandemic hit.
“I am on my knees every day, praying,” said Botha, adding the stress of keeping residents and staff safe, cared for and not lonely, took its toll on them all, but now they have developed a routine that made everybody feel safe.
“I have lost 5kg from March,” she said of the period in which she and her staff have worked hard to protect everybody.
You do everything [to keep the virus out], and then it hits you. You can only do the best that you can.
Other retirement centres, like Oude Westhof, had more than 40 cases among staff and residents and a death; Highlands House Cape Jewish Aged Home and Nazareth House also had multiple cases and were on high alert, as previously reported.
People over the age of 55 with comorbidities – like hypertension, diabetes, lung and cardiac disease – are at an increased risk of becoming gravely ill if they contract the virus, the health department has repeatedly said.
For people in their seventies, eighties and nineties, the risk is even higher.
The writer Elsa Joubert is among those who succumbed in their nineties, having died at the age of 97 on Sunday.
But trying to keep the virus at bay by staying indoors alone, was taking a toll on the elderly, said Daniel Rossouw who is the chairperson of the homeowners association at the Legato retirement village in which Huis Verdi is situated.
Rossouw said wistfully:
I wish we could have families in the dining room on Sundays again. I wish we could have people to talk to, and interact.
Instead, the elderly – who live in the apartments, houses and frail-care centres – have had minimal contact with people since March.
At that village alone, there are 109 free-standing houses, a block of flats with 65 units and a frail-care and assisted living centre, with 83 being the average age.
Rossouw said it was simple things like not being able to have someone help them wash their hair, or clip their toe nails because they were too frail to do so themselves that are tipping people into despair and making them feel “horrible”.
“You feel useless when you see yourself in the mirror, all bedraggled,” said Rossouw, of how some of the residents feel as they pace their homes or their flats.
Some of the older residents are not able to lift their arms high enough to wash their own hair, or move their feet to be able to clip their own toenails.
He added if he could change one thing, it would be to allow the hairstylist, who has been attending to residents for more than a decade, to come in and wash people’s hair, with the utmost adherence to hygiene protocols.
Rossouw said the village had tried to get permission for a personal care assistant to come and do the most basic of basics – just wash and cut hair – but it was not successful because it was not allowed under Level 3.
He added there was a limited amount of movement to and from the village, with online shopping being delivered, and gardeners allowed to return because their work was outside the homes and so contact was limited.
However, the consensus is that domestic workers who would have to go inside homes should not be permitted yet in line with the government’s recommendations that contact with the elderly be limited due to their vulnerability.
Rossouw said some of the government’s regulations regarding communal living were unfathomable at one point.
They could not figure out whether they would be allowed to go for socially distanced walks around the complex or not and found all of the finer details difficult to understand.
He said:
I think all retirement villages are experiencing the same thing.
Botha agreed. She said Wednesday was such a sunny day in Cape Town the carers took the elderly out to get some sun on their faces, instead of being cooped up all day.
The carers themselves have adapted to a strict protocol where taxi use is allowed only as an exception and under strict conditions. They even change their clothes before they leave, and when they arrive again, to prevent any chance of the virus returning.
But Botha said when she compared what was happening at her facility, and at some others, she was grateful everybody who was in quarantine and isolation was back out again.
If a resident becomes really lonely, and cannot go any longer without seeing family, the facility arranges for one family member to stand near a window just to say hello.
