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LETTER: Langley woman questions Fraser Health lack of details about COVID vaccine for seniors caregivers

Families have been vital in caring for seniors and should get priority access to vaccination
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A local letter writer is displeased with the Fraser Health Authority over seniors care. (File photo)

Dear Editor,

This letter is to the Provincial Health Authority:

It involves matters of life and death.

We are a legion of caregivers barred outside care home doors.

We are relief for staff and hope for our loved ones.

We are the family members of all the seniors read about and talked about on TV and in these pages – the family of seniors trapped in their homes for almost a year now, many who have gone through months-long siege by COVID-19, been isolated in tiny rooms for several weeks at a time.

Many suffered through with the virus, and some did not survive it.

All this time we, family, have been patient and supportive, and this, even as our loved ones withered physically and mentally, suffered limited human contact (and that masked and gowned) and struggled through other sicknesses bewildered and alone.

• READ MORE: B.C. seniors worry more about death from loneliness than from COVID-19

As designated essential visitors/caregivers we are in that group of people prioritized for vaccines.

Even as the staff and residents are being vaccinated, as well as some family members in other jurisdictions, here in the Fraser Health Authority region, we can’t get answers, much less a vaccine.

When can we expect a vaccine and access to our loved ones?

It seems no one knows.

Well, what we know, is our work of helping our loved ones rehabilitate and recover from terrible trauma cannot begin until we have access to them.

Our Legion of Hope remains barred, our loved ones suffer, more will die and all while people diddle.

At this point in time, with the vaccine available, neglect of our loved ones is no longer a necessity. From this point forward, it counts as abuse.

Rhonda Ransom, Langley

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