Working with the elderly remains a rewarding experience for two of administrators at the Sylvia Richardson Care Facility.

Rosheena Masters, administrator of Lefroy House, who also served as project manager on the Sylvia Richardson Care Facility (SYCF), Angela Brangman, administrator of SYCF, have worked with the older members of Bermuda society for a combination of almost 50 years.

Mrs. Masters, a nurse, said: “I think it is about 27 years.

“But my first brush with the elderly was on a medical surgical floor and I found that I was really fascinated by dementia.

“But I did not intend to go into elderly care, I had gone home to look after my children for a year and when I came out I went to work at Lefroy House in Dockyard, and now I have been there for 17 years.

“I am administrator at Lefroy House, but I came out to be administrator of this project here.”

Ms Brangman, a psychiatric nurse, has worked at Mid-Atlantic Wellness Centre for the past 21 years.

“I have worked in all capacities, but I have been working specifically with the elderly and long-term care patients since 1998,” she said.

Obviously one would expect a love of the job and patience to work in long term care, so when asked what does it take to work with the elderly, Ms Brangman answered: “I think it takes a lot of patience and not only with the residents, with their families and also staff.

“Because it takes a special kind of person to work in long term care and staff need a lot of support and assistance given to them in order for them to carry out their jobs.

“Because if they don’t have the right tools, which can be from the equipment, the knowledge at the end of the day. Because it is giving of yourself everyday, everyday and not necessarily getting back.

“So you learn how to assist the staff and pick up on the special people who are getting it back and you really try to attract them to the field.”

Mrs. Masters said long term care was very different to any other type of care.

“In acute care they would come into the hospital, they are cared for, catered to and discharged,” she said. “But in this environment, they become a part of your family, you get to know them and you cannot care for them without knowing them.

“People who are labelled as compassionate, but it is also the soft skills that matter, in that you can interact well with people.

“Also to be caring, but also demonstrate caring on all levels. Being nurturing towards and know that your victory is not in providing the best bath, your victory is that someone is requesting a bath.

“And helping to maintain the self-efficacy that people have and in this environment it should be better for them because it is an especially built facility for them.

“This is not institutional at all and although the beds are hospital beds, we are really trying to camouflage the furnishing to look more homely.

“It is also about developing those soft skills in people, so it is not that you gave them ice cream, but that you encouraged them to feel the freedom in asking for it.

“Whatever they can do, you try to maintain it.”

Asked about the inevitability that residents will pass on, Mrs. Masters replied: “That is always difficult because — with long term care — it is the total opposite to any other nursing training, because there you are trained to be detached.

“But it is impossible for you to do that here. For instance the first year that I worked at Lefroy House, there were 19 deaths that year.

“I did not know whether I would be able to survive in long term care.

“We have never had as many deaths since. One thing I do know is that is a part of the end stage of life and you adapt to making it the best last days that they could have.

“So whatever quality that you can bring out, so if it is a dog or a picture — you make sure that you give them that. So that is how we deal with that.

“It is also about supporting the relatives because whether you accept it or not, you take the leave in this type of institution, which will end in demise — you have to make sure that it is a dignified, happy and that there is a meaningful and decent closure for them.”

Answering the same question, Ms Brangman said: “Echoing the same things that Rosheena said, we make sure that they have the best quality of life and I think that if you know that you have done that ... and when you can see them smiling and laughing and making choices, then you know that when it comes to the death stage (you know) they had a good life, a good time and it was their time to go on.

“You can definitely see where that person has not had that communication with their loved ones, they all seem to feel it worst towards the end.

“So sometimes it is a matter of encouraging the relatives subtlety over the years, letting them know that we have an open-door policy and we continue to ring and invite them.”

When families abandon their loved ones in a home, Mrs. Masters said: “That is a fact, that is when your soft skills come in and you become their extended family. You also encourage them to be more involved in the community, so that they don’t miss that, and that is what makes the difference.”