Keeping in touch in a pandemic
- Debbie Thrower
- Apr 8, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 9, 2020
The anguish of relatives as care staff do what they can to keep residents connected with their families beyond a care home's walls is making headlines.
Some staff have recorded short messages they're posting on social media so relatives can see for themselves that their loved ones are safe, well and being cared for in the best ways possible under these extraordinary circumstances.
In the latest newsletter from the charity Christians on Ageing – a resource for the churches – there's advice and encouragement for those who feel at a loss during this period, unable to visit in the normal way. One of our Anna Chaplains in Kent is featured in this round-up of ways in which people are adapting to the restrictions.
Visiting care homes during the coronavirus pandemic – hope at the end of the tunnel?
Marion Shoard, a writer on older age issues (author of How to Handle Later Life, Amaranth Books, 2017), and a member of the Executive Committee of Christians on Ageing has written this reflection.
In the same April 2020 newsletter is a prayer you might like to use:
‘Prayer for a Pandemic’
May we who are merely inconvenienced
Remember those whose lives are at stake.
May we who have no risk factors
Remember those most vulnerable.
May we who have the luxury of working from home
Remember those who must go out to work.
May we who have flexibility to care for children when the schools close
Remember those for whom this brings huge problems.
May we who have to cancel our trips
Remember those who have no safe place to go.
May we who are losing our savings in the tumult of the economic markets
Remember those who have no savings at all.
May we who settle in for a quarantine at home
Remember those who have no home.
As fear grips our country let us choose love
During this time when we cannot wrap our arms round each other
let us yet find ways to be the loving embrace of God to our neighbours.
Amen
Cameron Bellm (altd)
Seattle, USA
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