People over the age of 65 or with underlying illnesses are undoubtedly the high-risk groups most severely affected by coronavirus.
Following the guidelines from the Ontario government, many Chinese community services centres in Markham have suspended their activity arrangements for seniors.
Community & Home Assistance To Seniors (CHATS) is a not-for-profit charitable organization that offers health, wellness and independence services to seniors in York Region and South Simcoe.
Rhonda Flanagan, director of development, marketing and communications for CHATS, said that they used to have a program called Chinese Wellness and Lunch Out, which enhances the health and wellness of Chinese-speaking seniors and takes them out for lunch every week to facilitate the life of the elderly.
But now, for the safety of the elderly and for keeping as many social distancing protocols as possible, the program has been suspended.
Flanagan said that CHATS is still running a limited number of projects, including Friendly Visiting and Meals on Wheels.
Tara Sani and Stacy Daniels are both volunteers for the Friendly Visiting program. Their duty is to make weekly phone calls to older people who live on their own.
Before the COVID-19 outbreak, Sani was able to visit the seniors at their homes on a weekly basis, but now she can only contact them by phone.
“Older people have very little socializing activities; unlike younger people, who have a lot of entertainment, most seniors can only get outside information through TV."
Sani said that with the coronavirus pandemic and daily reports on its severity on television, combined with the fact people are not allowed to leave their homes, the seniors are understandably upset.
"I usually call my senior client for about half an hour, sometimes longer, and we talk about everything," said Sani, who tries to convey what she knows as reliable information to older people to allay their fears.
Some people say the elderly are wordy, but Sani thinks they are the wisest. By volunteering for friendly telephone visits, Sani felt like they were actually consoling each other.
Daniels has been volunteering for CHATS for four years. She was also previously involved in a program where elderly people were taken out for lunch once a week, but the outbreak forced all restaurants to close for dine-in meals and people to stay home unless they had to, so Daniel’s friendly-visit service has been switched to phone calls.
"I am a retired nurse and have been taking care of my grandmother for years – I got a lot of experience in caring for the elderly," said Daniels. She said she and her mother don't live together either, but she calls her very often.
At one point, her mother said to her, "I'm so lucky to have you being my daughter, checking on me all the time."
After hearing that, Daniels thought there must be many other elderly people like her mother, so she found CHATS and joined the volunteer group.
After not being able to talk to the seniors face to face or take them out, Daniels kept in touch with them by phone. "Sometimes we talk about movies, about life; there are positives and negatives," Daniels said, “Sometimes we complain about the coronavirus – the communication between us is very healthy.”
Ashley Lee is a transportation volunteer for CHATS. Her job is to take food from CHATS once a week to a designated senior’s home.
"Some are elderly people who live alone, and some are people whose families can't afford to take care of them. We have a list. I just need to deliver the food to their homes."
Although Lee doesn't think what she's doing is particularly great, she is indeed one of many frontline workers who are taking health risks and shuttling around the community to help seniors in need of care.
Lee said volunteers have been asked for contactless deliveries due to COVID-19. Sometimes she will drop the bag of food at the door of a senior’s house, then ring the doorbell and leave. Sometimes she texts them that the food is delivered and ready to be picked up.
"I haven't seen these people in person in a long time since the outbreak," Lee said. "Although I wear a mask and gloves every time I go out for delivering, we can only say hello from a distance for the safety of each other and to observe the rules of social distancing."
What touched Lee most, she recalled, was the sight of seniors standing at the door waving at her from time to time.
“The outbreak has left us with a lot of emotions that cannot be expressed in words, but I can feel their gratitude and hope that when this is over, we really need to give each other a big hug.”
Volunteers like Sani, Daniels and Lee are among a number of people working for CHATS. Affected by the coronavirus outbreak, many multicultural groups have had their volunteer services put on hold.
"The city of Markham is a very diverse community," Flanagan said. “We do our best to accommodate seniors from all areas of the region; we also have Chinese, Persian, Russian and Korean programs which are not running currently due to the COVID-19 lockdown, but we offer translation services for all of our programs.”
That is to say, if a senior with language barriers is calling for help, they can request a translator and a volunteer will be made available.
Flanagan said she has been deeply moved by the outpouring of offers from people wanting to help since the pandemic, and is very grateful to the community for their support.
“We actually now have more volunteers coming forward than we can use, but the requests for our programs are continuing to grow each week, and we are taking volunteers up on their offers to help daily.”
In addition, in an effort to act quickly and meet the needs of seniors during the current COVID-19 pandemic, CHATS has established an Emergency Support Fund to aid in the increased efforts needed to keep the vulnerable population safely at home during this challenging and worrisome time.
This type of support from the community at this time will help ensure that the seniors continue to receive the essential services CHATS provides, including nourishing meals, drives to essential appointments such as dialysis and the sound of a friendly voice during a check-in phone call. The link to the donation page is below:
