Submitted by the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority
On Jan. 11, the Interlake-Eastern RHA announced residents in personal care homes (or nursing homes) in the Interlake-Eastern region will begin receiving the COVID-19 vaccine this week.
Tudor House personal care home residents will be the first to receive their immunization. Manitoba’s vaccine implementation task force prioritized Tudor House based, in part, on the size of the personal care home and the number of shared rooms. Shared rooms present additional infection prevention and control concerns and targeting larger facilities first ensures more residents are vaccinated sooner.
Interlake-Eastern RHA’s public health Focused Immunization Team will be at Tudor House this week to provide the first dose to residents. A second dose will follow 28 days later, completing the best protection Manitoba can provide at this point against the COVID-19 virus.
Ninety-one per cent of Tudor House residents/families have already consented to the vaccine, including 90-year-old Mary Cartlidge, a former teacher’s aide who counts riding bicycles, riding horseback, and playing tennis amongst her life’s most treasured activities.
“I only have my brain and X amount of time left,” says Cartlidge.“Being stuck in lockdown is hard. So is not being able to see my family and my cat. I am hoping that this vaccine will help to get us out into the world sooner.
”According to Tudor House CEO, John Martyniw, COVID-19 has brought with it a wealth of concerns, so the arrival of the vaccine is more than welcome.
“Our residents, families and staff have spent the last ten months with anxiety and stress worrying about what they have seen and heard about this awful virus in Canada’s nursing homes,” said Martyniw.“Going into outbreak status on Dec. 30, 2020, due to one positive case, has increased the stress and pressure further on everyone. We have all had many sleepless nights and we are all tired of the long hours and additional hard work. We have great dedicated staff but hearing the vaccine is coming has really put smiles on residents’, families’ and staff faces and has done a lot to pick up the morale and confidence that we can get through this. The residents’ mood has improved immensely in the past few days. Residents are laughing and talking like I have not seen in ages.”
