Together apart

ARCARE Portarlington Aged Care residents and staff recently showed their togetherness during a time of separation.

Centre residents Bev and Clem Newey made the difficult decision in the earlier stages of the lockdown not to attend their grandson’s wedding at Phillip Island.

But through the kindness of their family and the people at Arcare Portarlington, they were still able to be part of the event and celebrate the occasion.

Not only did their family take photos and videos of the wedding specifically for Bev and Clem, but as an added surprise they brought life-sized cardboard cut-outs of them to the wedding so they could be in the photos and videos themselves.

Bev said the videos and photos show their cardboard twins had a wonderful time at the wedding.

“They incorporated us with all their photos, and when they were dancing they passed the cut outs around between everybody, and even gave us kisses and hugs and a glass of beer.”

Bev joked their cut outs were far more active than they would have been.

“As an older couple we probably would have had to sit down in the corner somewhere and been looked after, whereas in this case they made the best of us and we just felt they we were joining in considerably more.”

Arcare Portarlington also decided to make it a special occasion, holding a celebratory dinner for all the centre’s 99 residents.

Bev said she it was wonderful to have everyone take part in the festivities.

“The kitchen staff made a beautiful wedding cake, and the lifestyle girls organised table cloths and flowers, which was lovely, and I had a photo of the wedding couple on each table.

“The ladies all dressed up with their little fascinators, and we toasted them (the wedding couple) with glasses of water or drink or cups of tea or whatever we had at the time.

“It all went down very well indeed. I had full support from the Arcare group and it was a lifting of the spirits for a lot of us.”

More recently, Bev and Clem have had another reason to be cheerful, as they celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary. They were pleasantly surprised with gifts in the form of flowers and chocolate, as well as a card from the staff and residents.

Arcare regional client service manager Susie Thomas said the efforts to continue celebrating occasions such as these helped maintain a positive atmosphere, despite the centre having now been closed to guests for more than a month.

“We look after many locals, so we’re quite a community aged care. Normally, families are in and out the whole time visiting and will often pop in for five minutes in the morning and five minutes in the afternoon.

“It’s quieter, but we’ve still got two full-time active living team members working. So inside, we’re practicing social distancing, but activities are still going on as much as is practical and possible, so it’s a really nice ambiance actually.”

Ms Thomas said great care is also being taken at the centre, with procedures for staff that come and go akin to those for hospital staff going into theatre.