Ensuring best resident care means caregivers must tend to their own needs
Bereavement expert recommends ways to avoid ‘compassion fatigue’
Monday January 25, 2010 -- Deron Hamel
PETERBOROUGH, Ont. - If people working in long-term care homes want to deliver the best possible care to residents and their families they first have to ensure their own needs are being met. This was keynote speaker David Kennedy’s message to delegates at a recent Four Counties Long-Term Care Palliative Network meeting.

Kennedy, the bereavement co-ordinator at Hospice Peterborough, told staff members and home managers at the Jan. 21 meeting that caregivers have a high incidence of “compassion fatigue,” the result of not paying attention to their own needs.

To stave off work-related stress and anxiety, Kennedy told caregivers that they should always ensure their own needs are being met before caring for someone else.

“It’s not being selfish, it’s not being egotistical and it’s not focusing on ourselves too much,” Kennedy told the audience, “it’s the reality that if we cannot care for ourselves, then we are not going to be able to care for others well.”

Kennedy urged attendees to reflect upon their work lives and the challenges and stressful situations that may come with caring for residents and supporting their families.

He then asked everyone to take time to think of ways to alleviate pressure that comes with their jobs.

Through group discussions, ideas including exercise, meditation and taking “alone time” were discussed as methods of alleviating stress.

Kennedy also recommended that long-term care home staff members and managers should consider discussing self-care plans when they gather for their morning meetings.

This, he said, could help personnel learn about what others are doing for themselves, with the end result being enhanced resident care resulting from higher job satisfaction.

Mary Anne Greco, the administrator at OMNI Health Care-owned Riverview Manor, says she was particularly taken by this concept.

“I loved his idea of commencing a staff meeting with self care, and what people can do to cope with stress,” Greco tells the Morning Report.

“There is stress that is on caregivers every day and we need to step back and look at it objectively and from each perspective.”

The Four Counties Palliative Network holds several workshops annually to discuss best practices in palliative care in long-term care homes. The network consists of representatives from long-term care homes in Peterborough, Haliburton and Northumberland counties, as well as the City of Kawartha Lakes.

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