They were having a Christmas party Monday afternoon at Shorncliffe Care Centre in Sechelt.
After doing his rounds, Santa Claus exited the elevator and was sauntering along the first-floor hallway when one of the staff pulled him gently by his snow-white cuff. With due reverence, she asked him to pose for a photo behind a 90-year-old resident and his visiting son, who were sitting at the periphery of the action. Santa merrily complied and the staffer captured the three on camera.
“Thank you, Santa,” she said, letting him be on his way. “Now we have a picture of you and your dad with Santa,” she told the smiling son.
It was Christmastime at Shorncliffe. Residents were served tea and dainties while a stalwart volunteer pounded out carols on the piano. Staff, meanwhile, tended to every need and want, in addition to performing random acts of care like the Santa photo.
Caregiving is their business, and they are good at it. Those who think that the elderly with infirmities and dementia in our community are warehoused in cold, cruel institutions have probably not seen the frontlines of caregiving. At Shorncliffe, each person is treated like a person. There are always gaps due to staff shortages, but by and large the depth of care is profound, and humbling.
That’s why this year we want to wish a very special merry Christmas to all caregivers on the Sunshine Coast – and in particular the women and men who do the tough work at Shorncliffe and Totem Lodge. They have had a brutal year, starting with the June 1 announcement that the two facilities would be closing in 2018 and replaced by a privately owned facility.
As if their work isn’t demanding enough, they have had to carry on amid tangible fears of reduced wages, benefits and seniority, or outright job loss. Their ultimate employer, the provincial government, has been tone deaf to the pleas and logical arguments of the workers, 52 doctors, and the community as a whole.
This week, 89-year-old Terry Barker said it best. On the closure plans that the B.C. government continues to defend, Barker said: “It’s insane to me to be tearing down two buildings that provide a place for guys like me to go. Why would you do that? If you say on the one hand we need to build a new building because there are 20 people waiting for beds, why would you tear existing places down?” Of the staff at Shorncliffe: “I’m a user of the system as it is right now, and I can tell you the way I’m treated up there is golden.”
We sincerely wish all caregiving staff a peaceful Christmas with their families, and we proffer a lump of coal to the health minister, two for his boss.
