Successful peer support program to continue in TCUs

Jackie Heidinger has been making important connections with Transitional Care Unit clients at MHC, and she will be making more.
Jackie is the Peer Connections Manitoba (PCM) peer support worker who has been lending her ear and open heart to TCU clients seven hours a week since January 2022 as part of a six-month pilot project.
“The program was a success, and we are happy to be able to continue the partnership going forward,” says Jennifer Klos, MHC recreation manager, adding that the program is slated to continue for at least another year thanks to the generosity of Misericordia Health Centre Foundation donors.
Sean Miller, executive director of PCM, says Jackie has “an incredible ability to be responsive in the moment…she’s quick to solve any challenges in communication, she’s got such a gentle spirit and it’s evident that she genuinely cares for people.”
In the first two months of the program, Jackie brought that gentle spirit to bear with 55 TCU clients she connected with.
Jackie says she finds peer support work “personally meaningful and professionally fulfilling for me. I am thoroughly enjoying working at MHC for I have many conversations about hope and resiliency with the peers that I support.”
TCU clients can approach Jackie to request support. Alternatively, TCU staff can identify a client to Jackie that they feel has shown or shared a need for emotional support related to mental health or addiction and Jackie then handles an introduction.
Sean says the support is not “advice-giving or life-coaching” but more about letting peers guide the conversation.
“It’s not always about what we say, it’s how we listen and how we just be with people, and that’s the beauty of peer support.”
PCM peer support workers all have lived experience that helps them connect with and journey alongside people facing challenges with mental health or addictions. Shared experiences allow “practical and emotional support” to flow, Sean says.
“Let’s face it, when we’re going through something difficult in life, we gravitate towards people who are in recovery or have recovered from what we are going through.”
Life transitions are times when people most need support, he says, and when a transition is health-related the need can be greatest.
“Navigating the health-care system can be daunting. We are thankful for our partnership with Misericordia Health Centre that allows us to overcome barriers and provide support to people at the time and place where they need it.”
PCM has about 30 staff who provide mostly individual support, though group and support for families is also offered. All PCM workers receive extensive training through Robyn Priest, an internationally renowned peer support consultant, and are certified through Peer Support Canada, which confirms workers’ skills, experience and alignment with the nationally endorsed Standard of Practice.
PCM also provides virtual mental health education courses and operates the Mental Health Education Resource Centre (MHERC), a province-wide resource centre that provides information, education, and mental health resources for all Manitobans. MHERC offers free access to mental health fact sheets, wellness tips, presentations, workshops and courses. MHERC houses both on-site and e-library collections of books and other reading materials. Go to peerconnectionsmb.ca and mherc.mb.ca to learn more.

Corie wants to raise radon awareness to help prevent lung cancer

Corie Haslbeck’s breast cancer was discovered last May. She’s thankful she did screening at CancerCare Manitoba’s BreastCheck program and the cancer was caught early.
The treatment was a lumpectomy and five days of radiation, which she planned to do as she returned to work as an occupational therapist at Misericordia.
She had a CT-Scan in preparation for the radiation treatments on October 8, and then her phone rang that afternoon, and she was told, “they needed to talk to me.”
The scan showed a lesion on Corie’s lung which turned out to be stage four non-small cell lung cancer with lesions also on two vertebrae. She has a rare biomarker called EGFR Exon 20 insertion, which now has targeted treatment drugs approved in 2021 in the United States, and her oncologist advised of an access program for these when her current treatment is no longer effective. Research, clinical trials, and newly found treatments have been improving the odds of surviving lung cancer, especially in the last few years.
“Funding the research really matters,” she says.
Corie is now on immunotherapy and chemotherapy, and recently got some good news that her tumors have shrunk in size. “Hopefully it keeps working and I’ll be one of the lucky ones…it’s a pretty hard fight…but I am going to fight and stay positive.”
Corie wants to increase awareness about what she suspects to have caused her lung cancer; radon gas exposure in her home. The naturally occurring, invisible and odourless gas is caused by the breakdown of uranium found in soil and rock. When it escapes from the ground into the outdoor air it dilutes and becomes harmless, but when it seeps into a home it can build up and become dangerous.
The Canadian Cancer Society reports that radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers. More than 3,300 of the 21,000 lung cancer deaths in Canada each year—about 16 per cent of all lung cancer deaths—are related to being exposed to radon in the home. Health Canada says about 19 per cent of Manitobans live in homes with radon above the 200 becquerels per cubic metre (Bq/m3) level considered safe.
Corie’s home tested over 400 Bq/m3. She hopes her story encourages more people to test their homes for radon gas.
“Please go for breast screening and test your home for radon.”
Basic radon test kits are available for about $60, including laboratory analysis. Testing is usually done during the winter on the lowest floor level of a home where people typically spend four hours per day or more. Go to takeactiononradon.ca for more information and a list of testing resources.
The Manitoba Lung Association radon page (mb.lung.ca/radon) also has a link to purchase a test kit. If your radon is high there are several ways to mitigate it, including increasing ventilation, sealing basements, and installing specially designed traps in floor drains.
Corie also wants to ask people to think about stigma and lung cancer.
“People ask right away, ‘are you a smoker?’ Anyone with lungs can get lung cancer.”
She has never smoked, but she says nobody deserves to get cancer.
As she has faced breast cancer, and now lung cancer, Corie says she has had “amazing support” from friends and family, including her Misericordia family. “I’ve had some really great support to get through this tough time, and people from Misericordia, for sure, that makes a big difference in how you feel. I don’t feel alone in this.”

#mhcfamily

Louis Riel’s descendant a 12-year MHC volunteer

Louis Riel Day in February is a day for Misericordia volunteer Janet Calvez, 74, to think about her great-great-great uncle, Louis Riel. The Métis leader and founder of Manitoba was not someone people thought about, or even spoke about, when Janet was a young girl growing up among other Riel descendants along the Seine River in St. Vital.
“When I was younger and went to school, it was a French Catholic school, we never brought up Louis Riel…he was not brought up at all, not even my family,” she says, explaining that the history of Riel being executed for treason in 1885 made him a taboo subject.
Things have changed since then, and today Janet is happy to see schools teaching young people about Riel and Manitobans taking pride in his legacy.
“It’s about time. It took a long time before people realized…I’m glad I lived long enough to see it change.”
Janet’s earliest memories among her Métis family include parties in homes along the Seine River—big parties with music and dancing. All adults played an instrument, she says, and as soon as a fiddle was heard a party was not far behind.
“These parties they had were hundreds of people. It would extend from one house to another house to another house, whenever there was a reason there would be parties, and it was all Riels.
When her mother, Denise Riel, passed away, Janet and her sister organized a party and 400 people showed up.
“All just the Riels from my three uncles (families), and it was the best. It lasted three days.”
It could be said Janet inherited Riel’s ability to inspire. When she married her husband, Henry, he was an amputee, having lost a leg to a disease in childhood, and she was very athletic.
“I was into sports, I loved sports, and then, when we got married, I said, ‘there’s no reason why you can’t ski.’”
She went with him to get a skiing prosthesis and they ended up skiing at Banff together.
Janet joined Misericordia as a volunteer 12 years ago after she retired from an almost 40-year career as a hair stylist. She delivered and read mail and newspapers to residents in the Cornish building for most of her time here, but since the pandemic she has been an Entry Ambassador—greeting visitors and helping them find their way. It’s allowed her to continue being athletic, she says, having clocked 12,000 steps on a borrowed Fitbit during one shift.
Family is a source of pride for Janet and has always been a big part of her life. Today, as a Misericordia volunteer, the tradition continues.
“Misericordia is a family, like, that’s the only way to describe it…I love Misericordia.”

#mhcfamily

Stepping up for COVID-19 redeployment from MHC

When COVID-19 was straining Manitoba’s health-care system Tara Soares answered the call. Tara, a health-care aide, usually works in Misericordia’s Eye Care Centre of Excellence surgical complex and at the Buhler Eye Care Centre clinics.
For about two months last spring, she joined several other nurses and health-care aides from Misericordia at the Grace Hospital to help care for ICU patients, including COVID-19 patients.
“Most of them were ventilated, those were the ones that really needed our help,” said Tara.
She says the first day felt overwhelming, but she wanted to help however she could.
“There were so many critically sick people. I’ve never seen so many IVs come out of one person before.”
She worked with COVID-19 patients who were kept in a medically-induced coma while they were on ventilators. Together with a team she provided hygiene, mouth care, range of motion exercise and body turning to prevent bedsores. They also repositioned patients in ways to take pressure off their lungs and increase their chance of recovery.
She says it was sad to see patients so sick and family unable to be with them, but she recalls how health-care workers would bring iPads to create connection with loved ones.
“Even on the ventilators, sometimes people would just talk to them and hope that they could hear them or play music. Or doctors would do their rounds and include the family in that and let them see the patient.”
COVID-19 claimed some lives while she was redeployed. Tara says she coped with these moments by keeping a positive attitude and helping create positive outcomes.
“There were sad moments. But there were also good ones as well. When somebody was getting their ventilator tube taken out, like, it was a victory. It was nice to see.”

Keep COVID-19 informed by visiting: covid19manitoba.ca

#mhcfamily #healthcareheroesMB #covid19MB

What happens when COVID-19 is discovered at MHC?

MHC has a solid process to respond to COVID-19 case discoveries, and a formidable professional team putting it into action.

Natalie Gibson, MHC’s Infection Control Professional, manages the prevention, detection and response of all communicable diseases, as well as the surveillance and detection of infections for all programs at MHC.

A positive case response begins by flagging the patient’s online WRHA record and notifying any other facilities the patient attended. Notifications are also directly made to Occupational Health at MHC and the WRHA Infection Control Program.

Natalie and her partner, Davilyn Cairns, continue a case response by going to the affected unit to do an investigation.

Natalie says they focus on contact tracing and preventing spread.

“We look at who have they been roomed with, have they shared any equipment, do they have meals with anyone in the dining room?”

Cases and close contacts are quarantined, and if two cases are found the unit goes into lockdown. Other steps include staff notifying family members, additional cleaning and new admissions are put on hold.

The response to COVID-19 cases is a team effort, Natalie says, one which includes all the staff at MP and the TCU units.

Since the 2020 outbreaks MHC has had very few cases, all if which came from the outside and were caught by COVID-19 screening done as part of the admission process.  Natalie credits staff and resident vaccinations with the low level of cases at MHC throughout 2021—a message she wants everyone to heed.

“More than anything, I greatly encourage people to get vaccinated so they can keep everyone safe—including staff, families and the residents that we care for.”

Keep COVID-19 informed by visiting: covid19manitoba.ca

#mhcfamily #healthcareheroesMB #covid19MB

David Rowe, Social Worker, Social Work Department

“I usually go into the day with an idea of what’s going to happen, but there’s always the likelihood that something comes up that takes precedent over everything else,” says David Rowe, social worker for Transitional Care Unit (TCU), Cornish 6.

David joined the MHC social work team in August 2019 and works alongside Crystal Cuthbertson-Black (Cornish 2) and Angela Harrysingh (Cornish 5), to cover all clients on the three TCUs. While the average age of Cornish 6 clients is 75 years old, David has worked with individuals in their twenties.

“For TCU clients, there’s no clear-cut disposition, and some individuals have quite complex needs, so we require more time for assessment,” says David.

For assessment, David will first see clients with their families to get a good sense of what can be provided to them at MHC and how we can help in all areas of life. He works collaboratively with other teams, such as the MHC allied health team, nursing, homecare and long-term care, to determine the best disposition plan. He also determines resources that clients require once they leave MHC and transition to independent living, assisted living or in some cases, personal-care homes (PHC)s. Resources can include things like Lifeline, Meals on Wheels, Employment and Income Assistance, a family doctor, or if needed, community support workers.

“One of my biggest highlights as a social worker is seeing someone who’s worked so hard and successfully returns safely to their home environment.”

It’s not always possible to transition back to an independent home environment based on clients’ unique needs. Even for clients who need a more supportive environment – PCH or supportive housing – due to COVID-19 restrictions, David has seen people opting to live with family during this time.

The pandemic has added challenges to David’s day-to-day work, such as delays on receiving paperwork that will help clients gain access to resources and supports. As Allison Lynch Deighton, manager of social work at MHC says, “much of what we do as social workers is behind-the-scenes.”

Despite any obstacles faced due to the pandemic, David and the extended MHC social work team work tirelessly to help clients and residents on their terms to live their fullest lives.

Keep COVID-19 informed by visiting: covid19manitoba.ca

#mhcfamily #healthcareheroesMB #covid19MB

Miriam Stobbe Reimer, Spiritual Care Associate, Spiritual Health Services

Miriam joined the MHC Family in fall of 2019, when she started her student practicum with the Spiritual Health Services team. In January 2020, Miriam stepped in to help cover a leave. She “helped wherever needed,” working with residents at Misericordia Place (MP) as well as clients in transitional care units.

Miriam provided extra pandemic support at MHC until the end of this summer, completed her practicum at St. Boniface Hospital in fall and worked at Concordia Hospital in fall/winter.

“I’m glad to be back at Misericordia. I already knew most of the residents at MP, so it feels like I’m right at home!” said Miriam cheerfully.

As of February, Miriam is now a full-time, permanent member of the extended MP team. We are grateful to have her as part of the team, especially now, during what can be a challenging time, especially for those in long-term care. Spiritual health – perhaps, now more than ever – is important for overall wellbeing.

“When people hear spiritual health, the first thing most people think of is religion. Religion is a piece of it, but spiritual health is anything that helps bring meaning to one’s life and helps build a sense of connection.”

Miriam’s role is to work with residents to help nurture a sense of purpose and joy. Sometimes this is simply sitting down one-on-one, sharing stories and favourite memories.

“My primary focus is one-on-ones with residents. I think nurturing the spirit is equally important for both residents and staff.”

Throughout the course of the pandemic, Miriam notes that the most important lesson she’s learned is “the essential need for community.”

“MHC does well at building a sense of community. I know that I can lean on my coworkers and I’m here for when they need some extra help, too.”

Keep COVID-19 informed by visiting: covid19manitoba.ca

#mhcfamily #healthcareheroesMB #covid19MB