CSA Eldercare
COVID-19 Precautions taken by CSA Eldercare
in order to protect employees and clients
While we cannot guarantee that you or your
family will not be exposed to COVID-19,
we sure can do a lot to mitigate the risk.
we sure can do a lot to mitigate the risk.
•
To start with, all of our caregivers have been vaccinated, and
will obtain boosters as advised by the CDC.
•
We typically set you up with the same aide(s) who are
‘your’ aides for the duration of the time you need us.
We do not send aides from house to house with many families per day or week.
Typically aides work with one and sometimes two families. More on that below.
•
We have a cohort of aides who are sitting home, isolating,
and ready to safely go into the homes of new families.
These aides will commit to living all aspects of their lives, whether
at work or home in a safe manner. They live alone or in family
situations where the risk is minimal of being exposed by family members.
Many of our workers are older and fearful themselves of becoming ill.
When they take on a new family these days, they will go into
households that are behaving as cautiously as they are and will
decline a case if they feel it is risky.
These aides who are home and isolating generally need full time
(40 or more) hours to be committed to not working for anyone else.
We have other aides who will work for two families, when we are confident
both families provide safe environments with low risk for passing anything between families.
We will always share information with you in terms of whether our aides are with
other clients and how we assess the safety of their non-work environment.
•
For existing clients, wherever possible, we have removed caregivers
that work a second job in a health care facility, as their chance
of exposure to Covid-19 may be higher.
•
We speak to them about who is living in their household, what their
family members do for jobs, school, work, social activities,
and how they do their grocery shopping.
•
We try to understand those who might be at risk of higher exposure.
We share this information with any client so that you can make decisions
about your risk level as well.
•
We have a large group of long term employees, we are familiar
with their family situations in general, and this gives us more
detail in order to assess risk.
•
We have reviewed with and continuously counsel our employees to be
extremely cautious on how they move about in the community
when not at work.
•
We have reviewed training and counselled employees to practice an
increased level of hand hygiene.
•
We have counseled and continue to counsel our employees to
THINK hard about where areas of contamination could come
from and address those areas,
whether they are at home, at work, or out in the community.
•
Should any of our caregivers report that they have had the
virus and testing shows they have recovered,
they may be reintegrated onto our team.
•
Employees are to stay home from work if they or any others they live with
are experiencing any symptoms of sickness, such as runny nose,
sneezing, coughing, fever, etc. They are not required to have a doctor's note
to be out of work and will be paid sick time as required by law.
We will support our employees in any way we can; at this moment
we are not a profit driven business.
For the Families We Serve
Some families are not as concerned as others. We do have aides,
primarily the younger people, who are not so personally nervous
and who are more comfortable to go into homes where people
may take a more relaxed approach.
For those families who are determined to isolate themselves until
a viable treatment protocol and/or vaccine are developed...
• We will discourage friends/families/clients from purchasing/bringing
anything into a home that cannot be sanitized before coming through the door.
• We will sanitize anything coming into the home such as groceries
in impermeable packaging, boxes shipped via FEDEX, Amazon, mail, etc.
• We will utilize food delivery services such as Peapod or
Instacart where possible.
• We have personal shoppers available on an hourly
basis who will go into stores, shop with you using
facetime or by phone as they move about the store so
you can shop in ‘real time’ the deliver the groceries to your door.
• While in homes we will step up our already high level of
cleaning and sanitizing of surfaces.
• We strongly suggest that relatives minimize visits with their
family members for the time being.
• We will help with setting up virtual visits. Virtual visits
are possible via cell phone, tablet, or computer. We can try
FB Messenger, Facetime, WhatsApp, or other applications and
see what works best. And of course there is always the phone!
• We are asking that house keepers and other non-essential
in home services be cancelled for now, and we will help clean.
• We will ask to cancel non-essential appointments
such as hair dressers and nail salons. We understand
some of these things contribute to a sense of well-being and
normalcy, but it is important that you weight the benefits versus possible costs.
• If a visitor MUST come... We will direct them immediately
to wash their hands thoroughly with hot soapy water.
• We will discourage hugs or touching.
• When visitors leave, we
will sanitize behind them.
•
Please note that we are seeing some doctor's offices will not allow the
protective masks and insist that people use one of their blue surgical masks.
That is something you should address with your doctor before you go.
For Clients with Dementia
We will attempt to limit access to news or other sources of current events.
• We have already seen a considerable spike in anxiety-driven behaviors from
people who are able to take in the information but are unable to process it
appropriately.
• We have also seen an increase in assaults on our employees; we know this
is driven by anxiety, and we must minimize it for everyone’s safety.
We ask that relatives seriously consider what you discuss with family members
who are isolated and suffering dementia,
and whether some information is appropriate to share right now.
• It may be that you or your family member knows someone who is sick.
Please consider how important it is for them to know that right now.
• Feel free to use us - either myself or the aides – to help decide whether
it is a good idea to share news or concerns.
Wearing masks can be tough around people with moderate to advanced dementia.
We address that on a case by case basis.
Please Remember...
Many of our employees are skittish despite their dedication to their jobs.
Many of our most highly valued caregivers are over 50, and
some are well past retirement age. They are at high risk themselves.
If they feel a household is risky for them, they may decline
to continue to care for you or your family member.
This does not mean we cannot help you; it just means sending a different aide.
While we are spending an inordinate amount of time providing support
to our aides so that they are not too anxiety-ridden
to go to work, we strongly support them in making whatever
decisions they feel they need to make to keep themselves
and their families safe.
How Family Members Can Help
to protect your loved ones and caregivers
✔ Keep a supply of gloves, Lysol, soaps and detergents,
masks if possible and other supplies.
We always do our best to get what we can but we
cannot promise to keep people supplied therefore
we do not want you to depend on us for these items.
✔ Contact us immediately should you or your family member
(the person we are retained to care for)
become sick with what is suspected to be COVID-19.
✔ Please minimize visits from family members and friends for the time being.
✔ We ask that all visitors immediately wash hands
thoroughly with hot soapy water when entering the home, maintain as much distance as possible, wear a mask at all times, and please no hugs or touching.
Please Understand...
The outcomes and future scenarios are impossible
to predict. We have some clients who are 100% dependent on us,
as hard as it is to hear, and literally cannot live without skilled assistance.
If we suffer a high rate of our caregivers getting sick or if you or your
family member gets sick, it may be that you will need to help with the
care of your family member.
We recognize this is a very serious situation, after all, if you
could care for someone who had a high level of need you would be
saving the money and doing it yourselves. If we are making meals
and providing companionship to your family member we may have
to ask you to step in while we send your aide to a family who
is a critical need.
We hope this scenario never comes to pass, but everyone must try
to be prepared for all eventualities.
More recently, we have put together a team of people specifically
to care for people who are sick or tested positive for COVID-19.
The cost for these aides is higher, primarily because we
are paying them significantly more and also due to the cost of PPE.
The list above are some of the COVID-19 precautions we have implemented,
discussed and trained on. It is not everything, and things
change every day.
We have a wonderful, dedicated, compassionate, caring group of
employees who will do everything they can to keep you
and your family members safe and healthy.
Please have an occasional nice word for the caregivers who
continue to support our families in circumstances
that were often trying before this public health
issue became a reality.
We will get through this together –
we just need to recognize that we all need to do the
best we can in an unprecedented time.
Please call the office if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions.
CSA Eldercare
Formerly known as Carol Seager Associates
68 Hubbardston Rd. ● Princeton, MA 01541 ● (508) 755-7133
© 2022 CSA Eldercare - All Rights Reserved.