This is Carolyn. She is a registered nurse for a palliative care facility in Quebec.
“I moved in mid-February, from a big city Toronto hospital to a palliative care facility in a small town in Quebec. Many of my patients have come to the palliative care facility specifically for it’s family-centered home-like environment. But with the COVID-19 regulations, the palliative care environment cannot be created as it was intended to be. What has not changed is that people are still dying and people’s physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs still need to be met.
Visiting is restricted, both in terms of how many people (and whom) can visit, as well as where they can visit within the facility. As a nurse who wants the best for my patients, this is indeed frustrating.
Recently a patient told me that due to the restrictions, they feel that they don’t have anything to look forward to anymore.
How can we find the right words to comfort a patient at the end of life who – rightly so – feels as though they are simply waiting to die, without the ability to see all those they love and want to spend their remaining time with?
A peaceful, calm environment for patients at the end-of-life is much harder to create with all caregivers wearing PPE, especially for someone who has dementia where non-verbal communication & body language is so important.
Sometimes I so badly want my patients to be able to see my face – my smile – so I can give them a sense of peace, but the mask gets in the way of that. I have to pull hard on my non-verbal body language. A calm approach, soft-spoken words, holding a hand, and eye contact become the tools that I use.”

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