Manitobans invited to share pandemic experience in residential care as part of exhibit visiting Winnipeg
CBC
Stories illustrating the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in residential care facilities in Canada are being shared through a travelling exhibit now in Winnipeg.
COVID in the House of Old, which runs through May 13 at the Millennium Library, is curated by York University health historian Megan Davies.
The project, in part, gives the public the opportunity to understand the toll the virus took inside residential care homes, said Davies.
"Not just the terribly high death rates," she said. "But also the long isolation and the trauma that many workers and residents and family suffered during the pandemic."
Each stop along the tour also provides the opportunity for care home workers, residents and their families to have their experiences from the pandemic collected and archived as part of the storytelling project.
"If we don't gather these stories now they will vanish to history and we will never have those insights … into what made things better in those facilities during COVID and what stopped justice, kindness and equity from taking place," said Davies.
The exhibit includes seven chairs, which each tell a different story.
Six of the chairs represent an individual, explained Davies. Wikwemikong Nursing Home located on Manitoulin Island holds the seventh chair.
Gertie Lipson, 89, has been living at the Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre, a 200-bed personal care home located in south Winnipeg, for three years.
Lipson is one of at least 18 people connected to the personal care home who shared their pandemic experience with Davies earlier this week.
WATCH | Winnipeg personal care home resident shares her pandemic experience:
Lipson told CBC when COVID-19 hit Manitoba, it felt like she was cut off from the world.
Public health measures aimed at limiting the spread of the virus, meant there were stretches of time where restrictions limited visitors in care homes.
"It was very sad and very lonely," said Lipson.