First of all, thank you seems inadequate to express how we feel about what how you are working and caring throughout these immensely challenging times. You have our deepest appreciation and lifelong gratitude. We are thinking about you and wondering if some practical bits might be useful.
Working in care and supporting the most vulnerable women and men in our world, you have probably had to manage a quarantine of some kind before. Maybe more times than the average person. Following a detailed protocol is not alien to you – as it is for me and for so many others. Was it Scabies, or Norovirus? Something else?
You know what it feels like when relatives have had to stay away and you know really well how to clean stuff. And you know how to prevent infection. And you also know how to care beautifully for those at the end of life and how to support a dear person and their family as they prepare for and then leave this life. One of the many, many things that make this experience of caring so very different, is that we have little or no control over what comes next, or when it will end.
The lives that are ending may feel premature, preventable. The partners and relatives, faith leaders are not at the bedside.
Questions like What will tomorrow bring? Who will become unwell next? Who is not going to come in to work? Where will our PPE come from? Who is going to supply our food? These are always with you. We may not know the answers, or how to solve the problems and not knowing creates anxiety and stress. Those are normal, human reactions.