Important Guidance for Families with Private Caregivers

March 4, 2021 ⋅ Healthcare News
Caregiver reading with woman in wheelchair

Private caregivers entering your home should have their own personal protection equipment (at the very least masks and gloves), their own clear policies governing hand washing and as a bare minimum should be screened daily for symptoms of COVID-19. Please ask for their procedures in writing.

Many families will source some of their caregiving support from individual caregivers. These caregivers provide care outside of the Public Health system and outside of the oversight of a private care provider like Mosaic. The use of private caregivers may pose an additional risk to families.

Private caregivers should have the following procedures:

  • Providing and wearing “personal protection equipment” (PPE) like masks, gowns and gloves and when to wear them.Masks are now required in retirement homes and long-term care homes and have been a policy at Mosaic since early March. We recommend masks because people can be infectious without showing symptoms.
  • Other infection prevention and control procedures that include hand washing and regular cleaning of high use surfaces. Hand hygiene is especially important.
  • Procedures for monitoring visitors to your home when you are not there to prevent those with symptoms of a viral infection, or close contact with someone who has a viral infection, from entering.

We also suggest that you monitor the risks of transmitting the virus posed by caregivers.

  • At the very minimum screen caregivers for symptoms of COVID-19 daily, both before and at the end of their shifts.
  • While respecting privacy, we also recommend you screen for viral symptoms from their own contacts: family, people they may live with and/or persons they provide care for.
  • Please make sure that your caregivers have their own procedures for monitoring their own contacts.

View The 3 Degrees of Protection Against the Coronavirus for information on monitoring contacts. If you are employing private caregivers, or even organisations that do but lack clear PPE and infection and prevention protocols, you will need to develop and implement these yourself.

Please refer to Public Health Ontario for further information if you are hiring care without clear protocols and to make sure that their protocols are at least as stringent as public health recommendations.